“Shyamli, I’m sorry, but we have to ask you to drop this assignment. The clients found you very wooden. They said you have no presence.”

This feedback was shared with me via a phone call back in 2011. I had just led a virtual training session for the employees of a company — my very first time moderating remotely.

Mortified, I thought that my career had ended before it even began. I had already established a good reputation for moderating face-to-face events and had transitioned into this new role after a long and grueling selection process. Hearing that feedback broke me but I didn’t back down.

I put my ego aside and decided to try again. I observed other virtual sessions, read up on how to improve my communication in remote environments, and diligently practiced what I learned.

Now, around a decade later, I’ve led more than 1,000 webinars, training sessions, and meetings for more than 25 senior leadership teams. When I think back to that first assignment, it still brings a wry smile to my face.

Managing virtual meetings is a skill that takes time and practice to master. In our face-to-face interactions, it’s easy to read body language: a raised eyebrow, a shift in facial expressions, an arm crossed over the chest. However, on a video call, especially where people may or may not be visible, it’s much harder. Combine this with shorter attention spans and distractions, and leading a productive virtual meeting can feel impossible.

Still, it’s more pertinent than ever. In the past two years, the majority of our work conversations have moved online — and while meeting times have increased by 10%, research shows that most of them actually decrease the productivity of employees. Research also shows that the onus most often falls on first-time managers, who tend to hold too many — and typically, unproductive — meetings.

If you find yourself in this situation, what are some steps you can take to improve? How do you make your virtual interactions more meaningful and engaging?

Here’s a checklist that has helped me over the years. Give it a try before your next meeting.

Pre-Meeting Checks

Define the agenda.

Before each meeting, take some time to think about what you want to accomplish during the meeting. Think through some of these questions:

• What is the purpose of the meeting?
• What would a successful outcome look like?
• Who needs to be in the room to reach that outcome?
• What do the participants need from you?
• What do you need from the participants?
• What is going to be your contribution during the call?

Answering these questions will allow you to structure your thoughts and prepare a well-defined agenda. For instance, if you’re setting up a call to review the goals for the next fiscal year with your team, make an agenda that reflects what you wish to discuss. You may wish to discuss how the team performed last year, your achievements as well as areas of improvement, share the new goals and leave room for any questions or feedback.

In this case, your agenda might look like this:

• FY23 marketing team goals
• Review marketing performance of FY22
• Present new goals for FY23
• Q/A and feedback

Once you’re ready, circulate the agenda and any pre-work, along with the virtual invite, well before the date of the meeting.

Check your technology.

While this may seem like a hygiene check, learning to use technology in ways that make you feel empowered and confident is important to run a smooth meeting. The more seamless the technological snaps on your end, the more prepared, present, and engaged you’ll be during the meeting.

Usually, I log in 10 minutes before a call starts to prepare for it. Use this time to test out the microphone and camera to ensure that everything’s working correctly. Frame yourself with an uncluttered background, or if you plan to use a virtual background, set and preview it before the meeting starts.

Lastly, check your internet bandwidth. Personally, I prefer to log in from both my computer and my phone through different internet connections. My computer is connected to my WiFi whereas I usually have mobile internet on my phone. I’m logged into my phone but don’t connect my audio or video — it’s just my backup. Over the years, I’ve learned that this trick is a life-saver, especially when handling external clients or during important (and sensitive) meetings with my team. Even if a situation arises where you have to drop off your main device, you’ll still be available on your phone to reconnect as soon as possible.

During the meeting

Show your human side.

If everyone is not familiar with each other or your team is meeting with some stakeholder for the first time, use the first few minutes for introductions. You could say something like, “Let’s do a brief introduction. Can everyone share their name and their role? Then you can pass the mic to another person on the call.”

If it’s a more casual internal team meeting, start with a simple check in. You can say, “Hello everyone, I wanted to begin this call with a one-word check in. How has this past week been for you?” If the nature of the meeting is more sensitive, lead with something that shows your team that you care: “I know all of you must have questions about the recent change in leadership at the company. I wanted to do a quick round of check ins to see how you’re feeling today.”

As the host, you can take the lead on these conversations and start with yourself. This will instill trust and confidence in you and bring out your more humane side. It also sets the tone for people to be more open and share freely.

Pro tip: When you’re leading a meeting, it’s a good practice to keep your camera on. While you don’t have to, it can be difficult for others on the call to establish rapport with a blank screen. If possible, show yourself on camera. If you’re someone who finds your own image distracting, you can turn off the “mirror image” option on the app. When you speak, focus on the web camera — this will help you make “virtual eye contact” with others, and engage with them better.

Establish a protocol for all speakers in the meeting.

Start the call with one or two ground rules for all attendees so that everybody gets a chance to share their views without interrupting or speaking over each other.

You could say, “Let’s use the ‘raise-hand’ icon if anyone wants to speak and then unmute ourselves.” Or “Let’s each share our thoughts in under two minutes and then pass to another person on the call. I can start.’’ Or “Please use the chat functionality to post your thoughts.”

Creating specific rules will set clear expectations for everyone, help them articulate their thoughts, and move forward with a discussion without interruptions. The goal of this exercise is to allow for a collaborative and safe environment where everyone can participate and share their views.

Pro tip: Encourage your meeting attendees to generously use the chat functionality to ask questions, post links, and comment on the discussion. This is especially helpful for those who are quieter or prefer to write out their thoughts. Building a strategy that addresses your team’s diverse needs will create a more open and psychologically safe space for everyone to share their ideas.

Structure your thoughts.

In virtual meetings, attention spans are considerably shorter. To make a lasting impact you need to be prepared for your message to land.

For instance, if I ask you to look at 500000 for a brief second and tell me what the figure is, are you be able to do it? What if I replace the figure with 500,000 or 500k? That’s likely much easier to recall. The use of commas creates a manageable structure that helps you read and understand the information more easily.

To deliver information more effectively, you similarly need to build mental pauses into your speech or presentation to allow listeners to digest your words and better understand your meaning. Say you want to give a project update. You can create a structure of past outcomes, present outcomes, and future outcomes. You can also create a structure where you lead with the client’s needs, how your project has fulfilled these needs, and what insights you’ve gained from the project. Creating these mental commas to space out your main talking points will help you analyze and organize your thoughts in a focused manner.

One trick I use is a method I call, “tweet followed by a Facebook post.” For every idea that I want to share, I write one sentence about it. This is my tweet or an annotated version of my idea in a few words. Then, I follow it up with a more comprehensive explanation about why my idea matters, how it will impact the team/goals/business, and how I plan to implement this idea.

As you speak, ensure that your talking points are actionable and leave everyone with a clear sense of what you expect from them. In the last two minutes of the meeting, share a concise summary of the next steps and how you plan to track the outcomes or deliverables discussed in the meeting.

Pro tip: When you speak, your voice and pace of your speech can create a powerful impact on your audience. Slowing down creates time for people to process what is being said and for information to be absorbedin a better way. On average, when you speak around 180 words per minute, you’re likely to be understood more easily. One way to control your pacing is to write out what you want to say and break it into paragraphs with 150 to 180 words. Then practice timing yourself.

After the Meeting

Share next steps.

During the meeting, either you or a colleague should have taken notes or written down the most important insights or feedback, including those “next steps” or any tasks you’ve decided to delegate among the group. Once the meeting has ended, take a few minutes to organize your notes and send them to your team via email or Slack so that your next steps are documented.

Practice self-reflection.

For your own introspection, reflect on how the meeting went. Ask yourself:

• What went well?
• What did not go well?
• What was the key learning for me as a meeting host?
• What would I like to do differently next time?

This will help you improve yourself, become a more productive presenter, and bring more direction and clarity to everyone present in the meetings you lead.

Running a meeting may seem like a small and often insignificant part of your job as a manager. However, when you lead meetings with the right intention, they can bring forth meaningful change for yourself as well as everyone on your team.

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