Thank you for those additional thoughts. My article was meant to provide ideas for meetings you SHOULD be having, and how to maximize engagement within that context. You bring up an equally important, but different, topic around being more selective about having meeting, when to have meetings, and who to involve. I love your insights around that.

sorry for the miss on the link. here you go: https://p.widencdn.net/qqv4yi/Virtual-Training-White-Paper

For those having difficulty switching from in-person to virtual meetings, as an ordinary worker whose team has used Zoom for several years, I would say: hang in there–people will get more comfortable with practice. It’s never *as* good as face-to-face, but you can learn how to adapt–especially when you know your colleagues well. The smaller the group of people (hence, the bigger the on-screen video), the better. Try low-tech solutions like raising your physical hand to the camera! Ask your team members to help brainstorm new protocols for this medium. For instance, when we need to go “around the room”, our team has decided to let each person call on the next person.

For Justin–to me, this seems like a great article for normal times. These are not normal times. As a working parent, I bring a different perspective to the problem of online meeting engagement. What if the “distractions” are not optional temptations, but family members (especially children), because many of us are still sheltering in place, and our usual childcare options are no longer viable? When your preschooler starts taking apart the living room furniture, or even when he won’t stop chattering to you about his toy elephants even though you whisper “I’m trying to listen right now”, you probably won’t be able to contribute brilliant business solutions.

Please, on behalf of all of us working parents out there: don’t have meetings that people must actually contribute to unless they are necessary (in which case the need for engagement will probably be obvious), keep them as short as possible, have as few people as necessary to get the job done, and please, please, please, be flexible. As the head of my department said a couple months ago to all of the employees in his area: have grace with each other.