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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Good morning.
This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is that, when you are waiting for a virtual meeting to start, use the time for connection rather than talking just to fill blank space.
So for in-person meetings, people naturally tend to chat as they arrive.
Indeed people sometimes encourage new employees or junior employees to arrive early at meetings in order to build connections with senior colleagues.
But somehow chatting before a virtual meeting can feel more awkward.
How many times have you been in a silent Zoom call where all the participants are sitting there muted and looking bored?
Maybe the host will awkwardly greet people as they arrive, but the conversation doesn't really take off.
Worse, when people are late, you can find yourself sitting silently on the screen for a lot longer.
The poor meeting host may start polling people about the weather in all their different locations.
Or the host drones on and on about the purpose of the meeting and how glad they are to see everyone, until the latecomers finally arrive and the actual meeting can begin.
This can feel like a waste of everyone's time.
That tends to sour the mood, which can lead to less effective meetings.
Instead, if you are leading a virtual meeting, aim to use the arrival time for building relationships and connection.
There are a number of ways you can do this.
One option is to pose a question and invite people to respond out loud or in the chat.
This gives people something to do and little ways to connect with each other.
Sometimes a topic will catch fire in the chat or in the live discussion.
You can ask a question that is topical.
For instance, if you are leading a meeting about your company's orientation for new hires, you could ask people to share something that made them feel welcome in a new job or a time when they were new and learn something important belatedly.
Other times.
Instead of a question related to the meeting topic, it might make sense to acknowledge the context.
If your meeting is like the last day before winter break begins, you could ask people about their favorite holiday movie.
If you are meeting at 4 p.m. on a Friday, well, don't do that.
But if you are meeting shortly before the weekend, you could ask people what they are looking forward to.
Meetings don't happen in a vacuum, so you can connect by talking about life outside the meeting.
Another option is to do a more structured icebreaker while you are waiting for everyone to arrive.
This could be something lighthearted, like your favorite Halloween candy, or something deeper.
You can pose the question, invite someone to respond, and then each responder invites the next person to respond.
That way, you are not moderating the whole conversation.
There's no awkwardness in figuring out who will go next, and people have a reason to pay attention to who has spoken.
As latecomers arrive, you can paste the question into the chat so they know what's going on.
They will eventually get invited to share.
By the time everyone has arrived and you're ready to start the meeting, you will all know each other a tiny bit better.
The point of all of this is that time is valuable.
If you have asked people to gather, hopefully there is a good reason.
People have devoted time to the meeting versus something else.
It is too bad that people are sometimes late, but sometimes it happens.
If it does, you don't want to compound the problem by wasting everyone else's time while you are waiting.
You may as well use the time for something useful.
People are a good use of time.
So building relationships is probably the best thing you can use these minutes for.
Figure out a way to do that, and you can start any meeting in a much more positive way.
In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at LauraVanderkam.com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeart Media.
For more podcasts from iHeart Media, please visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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