Consider this: just 30 years ago, being able to use word processing software like WordStar was a power skill (to be clear – WordStar, the OG precusor to Microsoft Word/Google Docs/iWork Pages, not to be confused with WorldStar, the modern home of salacious clickbait).
It was the type of thing you would tell your friends about with pride when you called them (from memory) on a landline phone just to talk. And, it was definitely something you would proudly showcase on your resume.
Fast-forward to today.
You would likely laugh at someone who put “Microsoft Word” in the skills section of their resume (though, sadly, there are lots of people who still do this). The expectations for knowledge work have risen and so, too, have people’s mastery of these new basic skills.
The next frontier of this knowledge-work-evolution is virtual engagement.
Just 3 months ago, using a breakout room on a virtual call was viewed as a form of wizardry only known to a privileged few. Today, however, even those who haven’t mastered the skill have at least experienced it.
All to say, it is essential for those of us who consider ourselves to be leaders in the adult learning space to ensure we’re pushing beyond the basics of virtual engagement and not doing the 2020 equivalent of talking up our ability to “send electronic mail.”
Without further ado, then, here are 5 virtual facilitation mistakes to avoid looking like a complete amateur.
Mistake #1: Not Adjusting Your Settings In Advance
“Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first 4 sharpening my ax.” “Championships are won in the off-season.” “Abs are made in the kitchen.”
These are just some of the quotes emphasizing the importance of the work before the work. The point in all of them is clear: in any endeavor, there are a set of “behind the scenes” practices that set the stage for success. In virtual facilitation, adjusting your zoom settings is part of that work.
There are many worthy resources (including a forthcoming post on this site!) which detail exactly which settings to focus on, and why. Like most things in life, however, the specific resource/tactic you leverage matters infinitely less than the commitment to consistently act.
Just make sure you initially spend time choosing your default settings, then review these settings before every engagement to ensure that what you want to happen can happen and what you don’t want to happen can’t happen.
Mistake #2: Not Sweating the Unique Details of Virtual Engagement
There’s a dirty secret in the facilitation world that I’m going to expose right now. It’s the “w” word and each day, thousands of otherwise exceptional leaders – from professors to l&d professionals to managers to sales people – are quietly using (and, in some cases, outright abusing) excessive amounts of “w.” We’re talking about “winging,” and the consequences for engagement in a virtual context are dire.
Fortunately (and, perhaps, unfortunately for the wingers), the push to virtual engagement has forced each of us to become infinitely more prepared for our sessions. No longer can we solely rely on experience, depth of knowledge and charisma. In a virtual context, if the details of an engagement strategy aren’t premeditated, it is nearly impossible to execute them well.
There are 3 specific categories of details we need to consider: topics, techniques and tools.
Topics
Topics are what you talk about. And, though a strong topic is not a sufficient engagement strategy, it is a necessary starting point.
The key to a strong topic is alignment.
Of the three categories (topics, techniques and tools), this is the one area that is exactly the same for in-person and virtual engagements, alike. Whether you’re planning for a seminar or a meeting or a sales call or workshop, it is imperative that you begin planning with your audience’s needs in mind. You can do this by speaking to a few members of your target audience, either directly or indirectly.
Some suggestions: review existing survey data (or create a pre-survey to solicit your own information). Create a prospect/client/participant profile and color in their hopes, fears and questions with as much resolution as possible. Schedule a 1v1 or small focus group with a subset of registered attendees. And/or setup time to dig into the impetus and related context for the session with the event organizer.
Whatever you do, make sure you spend time deeply understanding the highest-leverage outcome that you can achieve within the time allotted and make this – and only this – the objective(s) for your session.
Techniques
Techniques are the strategies you use to provide structure to what you talk about. And, while the objectives for your audience can be exactly the same in-person and virtually, the techniques needed to create structure for those objectives cannot.
Why? The difference is distraction.
Listening to someone “lecture” in-person isn’t ideal, but is possible. Sure, we may battle our thoughts about the strange sound down the hall or what we’re going to eat for lunch or the item we forgot on our to-do list. Yet, if the topic is strong, we can still consistently bring ourselves back to the moment.
Listening to someone lecture on zoom, on the other hand, is a certain kind of torture – it doesn’t really matter how strong the topic.
In a virtual context, participants need to fend off attacks on their attention from pets, partners, children, their refrigerator, Netflix and the ENTIRE INTERNET. All this in addition to – not in place of – the normal distraction of our thoughts.
The bottom line is that talking is not enough. We require novel stimuli to stay engaged generally, but especially virtually.
We’re writing an entire book on virtual facilitation techniques so we won’t go into the specifics here. Just remember this: if the techniques you select aren’t aligned to the objective, and to a virtual context, your objectives won’t be met.
Tools
Tools are the resources that support the strategies you use to provide structure to what you talk about (whew – that was a mouthful).
Some of the most popular tools include native virtual meeting tools (e.g., breakouts, screenshare, annotation, chat, etc. in zoom), as well as Mural, Loom, Kahoot and Google Docs, just to name a few.
Each of these tools comes coupled with a set of technical details.
For example, how long does it take to setup a breakout for a group of 6? How about for 16? For 60? How do you know who is talking if there are more people on a call than can fit on your screen? How do you ensure distribution of voices when individuals shareout (and guarantee people’s shareouts won’t be hijacked by noise pollution)? The possibilities (for error) are endless.
While it is unrealistic to never experience a technical challenge, there are two ways to reduce the likelihood of technical malpractice. The first is by using simple checklists before and during your session to ensure you’re not missing any well-worn hurdles. The second way is embedded in our third mistake.
Mistake #3: Not Staffing Your Engagement Appropriately
Many adult learning leaders are accustomed to being a one-person show. We’ve built our careers on being dynamic, individual contributors who love – but don’t need – to work with others in order to do our best work.
In a virtual context, however, going it alone is potential suicide.
As previously mentioned, there are a host of technical challenges that can emerge in a virtual context. Being on the hook for facilitating AND problem solving / orchestrating these technical challenges is not just ill-advised but potentially disastrous, given the aforementioned distractions with which we must contend. One two many “sorry – just give me onnnnnneee second tos” or “what are you seeing on your ends” and you will lose the group.
To avoid this, we recommend having one technical person or “sous-facilitator” on hand for every 25 people (this doesn’t include any additional sous-facilitators you may want to serve as breakout conversation leads).
Violate this rule at your own risk.
Mistake #4: Not Aligning Your Engagement Strategies To Your Group Size
At ALL IN, we believe the best path to individual, personal transformation is through coaching. Unfortunately, it is very difficult – if not impossible – to coach multiple people simultaneously. Sure – hearing someone else being asked and responding to a series of adaptive questions can be interesting for a short period of time, but after a while, you’re going to check out.
Hence, emerges the catch 22 of group engagement: If I don’t individually engage participants, the possibilities for their growth will be limited, but if I tailor to the individual too much, I will lose the rest of my participants.
One of the best strategies to help combat this reality is parallel processing, which we define as the practice of pairing adaptive coaching with simultaneous group reflection.
Yet, even this has its limitations.
To combat this, we recommend that for each adaptive coaching activity (you asking one person a series of questions), ask yourself, “what will the other participants be doing during this time, and for how long in total?” If the answer is “listening,” an the time is more than 20% of your session/meeting, your approach should be adjusted.
Mistake #5: Shoehorning In-Person Activities Into A Virtual Context
Look – I get it. We all have our pet techniques, activities, jokes that feel foolproof. For me, for example, one of my favorite ways to introduce myself for identity/DEI focused sessions is via an activity called “7-11.”
Here’s how it works.
You tell people that “research shows you make 11 judgments about a person in the first 7 seconds of meeting them.” You then name that you’ve been in front of them for well over 7 seconds and proceed to ask a series of pointed questions about your own background (e.g., What was my major in college? What’s my favorite music group? etc.) while engaging in some friendly banter about their responses and working the room. Finally, you provide the real answers to the pointed questions you asked before transitioning to the topic of the day.
Unfortunately, however, the glory of this activity is lost online.
Specifically, there’s no energy being generated from movement and no way to strategically encourage a chorus of call-outs without leading to absolute chaos.
Instead, what works is to use the rapid chat technique to have individuals furiously chat their guesses, then use the chat back technique to highlight some of the most interesting responses via a voiceover to the group.
The adjustment is subtle but significant.
For your own pet activities, make it your business to think through these nuances and potential adaptations needed for a virtual context before your session. It could be the difference between a fan-favorite and a flop.
Putting It All Together
Ultimately, the ability to push beyond the basics of virtual engagement is the sole differentiation between you and the hundreds of millions of active users on virtual collaboration platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. Avoid these 5 mistakes and, for the time being, you can still safely claim a contrast in proficiency that matters. Don’t, however, and chances are high that you will be one of those special individuals who will have “zoom” (the technology, vs. facilitation, the skill) on their resume in 6 months – right alongside “Microsoft Word” and “electronic mail.”
