It’s easier than ever to get the right people together in the same room. Presto, with a click – and no flights, no jet-lag, no ride-shares, not even an elevator ride – you’re face-to-face. And the snacks are better than the office or conference centre – since you can grab something from your own fridge or teapot, before jumping on a video call.

But, in a meeting room with 10 or more participants, it’s harder to have serious deliberation – unless you upgrade your facilitation skills, and make the most of the total medium. And unless you’re intentional about the culture you create, every time you bring people together.

Making the most of your Zoom meeting requires a plan, before the meeting is even scheduled. If you participated in a Courage Leadership Program, you learned how to build a Mobilization Matrix – so you show up as the orchestrator and lynchpin when your initiative or your key recommendations are on the agenda. You learned how to be deliberate – to decide whether the purpose of your Zoom call focuses on Idea-generation, Governance and go-ahead approvals or Execution. You learned to be deliberate about bringing the right Sponsors, Advisors, Executors, Connectors, Gatekeepers and Beneficiaries together for the diverse perspectives you need.

It requires a design, not merely an agenda, before you jump on the call. To use polls, chats, whiteboards, annotations and breakout rooms – not just screen shares and powerpoint visuals – so you draw people in, lift engagement, use time compression efficiently with a pace that energizes and leads to an outcome. To use prework, with GroupMind Express discussions and straw votes that get ideas on the table. To share relevant background information, with check-ins to verify that it’s been absorbed. To circulate LinkedIn or Workplace profiles so introductions and connections happen before participants see faces on Zoom.

It requires active deliberate Level 5 facilitation – to PowerUP collective intelligence. It requires you to show up with a high EnQ (Encourage Quotient) – so your voice, smile and presence creat a foundation of trust and psychological safety, especially if the topic at hand is uncomfortable or if a few of the key Advisors bring personalities or cultural backgrounds that make them reluctant to speak out. So diverse key deliberators and decision makers don’t hide on mute or camera-off mode. So diverse conflicting perspectives get drawn out and not suppressed or policitized. So you don’t just hear from the people with loudest voices or defer to those with the most status or chutzpah. So you get ideas on the table, even though the technology requires one-speaker-at-a-time sequential conversation, rather than a natural flow of simultaneous multi-conversations, where you can tune into multiple voices at once. So VUCA pressures don’t make participants retreat into risk-averse thinking traps. And so you drive to outcomes and decisions, not merely a potpourri of facts and opinions.

It requires tech literacy – because you can’t participate fully if you can’t log on, if you can’t open polls or other features, if you can’t look people in the eye, read their body language and hear what they say. If you’re a C-level executive, it’s hard to make your presence truly felt if you’re phoning it in, while everyone else is there face-to-face. It’s hard to believe, nearly a year after we’ve gone virtual, that some people are still fumbling. So, as the orchestrator, you may need to deploy someone on your mobilization map to reach out with a tech-check to those who need a hand – or send a checklist in advance. You may need to coach for impact, rather than letting the tech-limited CXO show up halfway. Or you may need to invite a new group to log in 15 minutes early, to say Hi informally and do any final tech troubleshooting.

Each time you bring a group together, you’re building on two levels.

On one level, you’re getting work done, when you get the right people together to look at the right facts and possibilities, find solutions and make good decisions, listen to reason and emotions, acknowledge, mitigate risks, optimize value.

On a deeper level, you’re also building a culture – one meeting at a time – that defines how you actualize your company mission and values, how you Make Courage Contagious to engage diverse participants and resolve conflicts, shift from risk-averse to growth thinking, build trust and strengthen alliances + partnerships.

And it requires the right help – to design, plan, facilitate and work the technology, so you come away the the best solutions and outcomes and so you build a growth culture that Makes Courage (More) Contagious, when your participants click and the meeting goes live. To get started, click to request a copy of our Courage workbook that asks, “What kind of virtual meeting are your planning?” – and will give you some tips to prepare.

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Merom Klein PhD + Louise Yochee Klein, PsyD are Principals @ Courage Growth Partners, a bizdev + innovation leadership consultancy that equips high-potential leaders to use every touchpoint – including Zoom-type meetings – to get traction on key growth initiatives and build a culture that Makes Courage Contagious. They invite you to take this assessment and see how you can profit when you Make Courage (More) Contagious anytime you bring diverse participants together to find the best solutions and deliver the best possible business impact. Or to be in touch if they can help.