Online meetings – how to speak

I covered a lot of recommendations on communicating in writing, so let’s get further on how we should better communicate when we are live (or on screens).

Things have changed a lot due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and now everyone can be a host for the meetings that we have with our colleagues or managers. They say some are gifted showmen or showwomen, but I truly believe the skill of capturing an audience can be taught.

Here are my tips on how to prepare and how to act during a meeting that you are hosting.

 

Preparation

Since almost all meetings have as support a presentation, be extracareful regarding the content and the way it’s displayed.

Contentwise, try to put the information as simple as possible. Always have in the back of your mind an aunt to address to and thus to check if this would be something that she could grasp (now, far be it from me that aunts are not bright people - I am actually an aunt myself and can’t stop bragging about it, I even own a proud aunt T-shirt – but it’s just so that you position yourself out of experts’ area).

 

Important – brain remember stories, not data. So have this in mind next time you have slides after slides depicting Excel screenshots.

 

Once the content is included, get some help from a picky fellow – be it a colleague or your manager – to help you notice errors (punctuation, typos, etc.) or important topics you might have missed.

 

Your presentation is good to go and, hopefully, you still have some days until the meeting. I like to call this step the display check. It is actually when you start practicing explaining the presentation to the audience. Take some time to get yourself familiarized with all content, but also think about how you can put into words everything that you have to present.

Usually, the content on slides act only as support. You are the one that can make the content turn into a beautiful experience for the audience, adding some explanations to the figures or charts you have on slides.

 

At this point, be observant of your tone of voice, your facial mimicry (look at yourself in the mirror to see if your face expressions are in tune with your message) and the speed with which you are talking. Should you have an important meeting you have to host, you can always ask a colleague to give you a couple of minutes from their time to test with them how would it be (you do not have to show the entire presentation, just 10 minutes will do) so that you know what should you work more on.

From my experience, we tend to be in a hurry. When we are stressed or not used to talking in front of an audience, we tend to expedite things so we can escape the unpleasant situation. This is normal. It’s our bodies telling us we should escape the danger. But hosting a meeting is not like being chased by a tiger, even though the stress we feel might seem at the same level.

To lower your anxiety you have to consider two things: breathe and take your time.

Remember what I mentioned earlier about brain only remembering stories? Well, this should really be considered at this stage. The tone of your voice and how you explain things should be like telling a story – with calmness in your voice and being willing to respond to questions in case people do not understand something.

 

Before the meeting, think again about the fact that you are not in danger, you are simply explaining some information you gathered in a presentation. You worked hard for it, now let people see how well-prepared you are. You deserve it, that is your efforts should be recognized, so do not let nerves get the best of you.

Oh, and so you know, practice is what makes perfect – so the often you try, the more you will look and feel better when hosting a meeting.

 

At the meeting. Well, there it is. You may experience sweaty hands, trembling voice, you’ll misread, misspell, and sometimes you will make unwanted long pauses to find your words, and you know what?! It’s totally normal. What you must focus on is that you need to continue through or despite all of that.

And another point, regarding time, make sure you allocate enough time to answering questions or let the audience interact with you. A meeting should never be a one-way-street, otherwise it’s not productive or interesting, it’s just a meeting that could have been a video.

 

After the meeting. A lot of today’s meetings are recorded so that the information presented could be accessible, at a later moment, to those that could not attend the meeting. If the meeting you hosted was recorded, watch the recording two days after the meeting, at the latest. The reason is that this way you would have already forgotten some of the stress you felt during the meeting, some of the explanations you gave, and it would be easier to analyze yourself. Pay attention to what you could improve regarding the tone of your voice (if you were too low or too loud), your facial mimicry, if the explanations you provided were coherent and in connection to what it was presented on the slides. If you should notice that your voice was trembling or that you had made too many long pauses, don’t beat yourself up. Give it time, you’ll get to the point where you won’t make these errors so often.

 

If the meeting cannot be recorded, on the day of the meeting, ask a colleague of yours to take notes regarding what you should improve. On the next day (yes, you should allow yourself to breathe a little, and also the colleague to gather all ideas for the recommendations), talk with your colleague about what you should consider for a future meeting.