A long-time client told me recently that she spends all day in virtual meetings, and their company culture is to leave cameras off. Even conversations between two people take place on Skype for Business, not the phone, and they are audio only.
This practice predates the pandemic. Many global firms were used to meeting remotely, as team members sit in many different locations, and the new normal of working from home was no big change for them.
Two things:
- As I wrote very early in the pandemic (see post embedded below), not every meeting needs to be held on Zoom. We don’t have to look at each other all the time. However–
- It is worthwhile to spend some time as a team to set up a standard operating procedure for how communication happens. When is an email enough? When can a meeting for eight really be a phone call for three? When is something high-stakes enough to warrant cameras being on, or even an in-person meeting?
When the habit of the team leader becomes the default behavior of everyone, regardless of situation or preference, communication erodes. Meet with your team to set up a system for how your communication will take place. It’s an investment of an hour or so now to mitigate untold miscommunication and inefficiency in the future.
