In a Zoom, No One can see your Shoes...

Grace Chen has recently published is a great summary of something I've certainly noticed: that the "Zoom Room" is so much more egalitarian! With everyone reduced to an equal sized box, often only visible in T-shirts, and you sitting in surroundings that you control, many of us are feeling a confidence to say the things we've always wanted to but have felt unable to. Or, to be heard saying the things we've been saying all along!https://qz.com/work/1852971/video-conferencing-is-a-secret-equalizer-for-women/


I think this is more than simply a male v female thing - in my experience, Alphas have tended to rule meetings, often through gravity of their physical presence. Without physicality, it's like that weight being lifted from other participants who now feel they can contribute equally. The main beneficiaries of this new "lightness" are people (admittedly often women) who are still fairly assertive and outgoing. They are experiencing a boon in getting the attention they've often had to fight for. However, do take care of your Alphas - they are probably the ones most discomforted by the remoteness of this situation, and the ones keenest to get back to the office. They may need reassurance that they still have a respected voice!


Another key equalizer is the "outing" of the snide aside. While we all hope that our workplaces are free of bullying culture, there are still those side comments that can be muttered to a colleague in and chuckled about in a physical meeting in a way which creates a feeling of exclusion for other participants. In a video conference call, these semi-private comments will come front and centre, at which point they are for the group as a whole to participate in, or don't get said at all. And yes, the snide aside can still be made via the chat window, but in that form it has less power to silence would-be contributors (and is also often captured and stored!).

And one of the best by-products of Everyone being on video calls, is that there is no Room taking precedence. We have been using video conferencing for years (Google Hangouts or Meet), but where more than half of a meeting's attendees are physically together in a meeting room, those dialed in remotely have to work twice as hard to be relevant, because the physical people will tend default to holding the meeting amongst themselves. Without The Room, it's one meeting and everyone is equal!!

However, there are definitely downsides to virtual meetings. In the same way that the more naturally assertive are finding their voices, those who are still shy and quiet are now easier to miss due to the uniformity of the box. In a meeting of more than about 6, it becomes hard to remember which boxes have been highlighted, and which haven't, nevermind what happens if the boxes go onto another page! In a physical meeting, it is easier to look around the table and remember who hasn't spoken, or who is concentrating on their fingernails, and naturally coax a contribution from them. Do enfranchise your shy people by consciously including them at relevant intervals. Perhaps the chair can keep a tick list.

And of course, we've all experienced video conference fatigue, where we fee exhausted because we have been sitting focused on our screens during strings of video calls. But think about that - these video conference calls are making us focus more than physical meetings did! This should mean we are more present for each other, and probably better listeners.

So what can be done to preserve the good when we're back in physical rooms together?

The Room: Re-visit your meeting rooms to ensure that video conference display screens are as visible to physical participants as your TV would be in your living room. Or, if there are a critical number of people on the call who aren't physically present, consider putting everyone on video conference.

Respect: Remind participants to continue to be as present in physical meetings as they had to be in the Video calls.
Be vigilant and call out any returns of the Snide Aside -- It wouldn't fly in a video call, why should it be acceptable in a physical meeting?

Patience: When physical meetings are happening again, there may be some "storming" as the staff who have enjoyed increased participation re-encounter the physical Alphas. As a manager, it will be your job to moderate and appropriately manage this in the short term for the long term cooperation, engagement, and happiness of your teams, so be prepared!