Harvard Business Review Guides Ultimate Boxed Set (16 Books)

CHAPTER 23

What Everyone Should Know About Running Virtual Meetings

by Paul Axtell

To make sure that your virtual meetings are adding value and velocity to your projects, do three things:

Focus on relationships.

The quality of people’s relationships in a meeting determines the quality of the conversations that will occur during the meeting. That’s why it’s important to set aside time to build relationships among team members.

Start with casual conversation.

Make it a practice for the conference lines to be open 10 minutes early, and designate that time for catching up. Ask someone to be there to greet and talk with people once the lines are open. If you’re leading the meeting, prepare ahead of time so that you can spend time chatting rather than ...