Virtual Communication and Maintaining Connection

Since we’re on the topic of communication, what you and I are doing right now, virtual communication… oh my gosh, we all do hours and hours of it now. What advice would you give leaders about strengthening their virtual communication?

Many things come to mind, obviously, taking the appropriate breaks during the day to refresh. But I think making sure that folks are engaged, that they have the monitors open, and that they’re looking. You can’t join a Zoom meeting and just be on the phone. You might be multitasking and doing other stuff. So, in order to have effective virtual communications, people need to be on the same media. So, if it’s a phone, it is a phone, if it’s Zoom, it is Zoom, but I think it’s super important to have that consistency. And I would say, find a way to bring in person together. So, if we’re not able to see each other every day, let’s have a happy hour, let’s get together for lunch outside somewhere, bring the teams together, still so that there is some personal connection.

I would also say, don’t forget to celebrate all the little things. It’s hard to find them, because you’re not there. Like when you’re in the office and you bump into somebody, they might have a glow, “How was your weekend?” “Oh, I just got engaged.” If you’re on Zoom, they’re just like, bam, bam, bam. And so I think it’s really important to make sure that those little things that we all care about, that you’re still getting to find out about them and then you can still celebrate. I would say don’t rely on Zoom to be the connection. Zoom is the information, the connection is still something personal and find a way to make that happen.