Many of us have fresh experiences of working from home. And while #WFH will remain a trendy hashtag for a long time yet, some of us will be making the journey back to shared offices. Wouldn’t it be great if we could hold onto the best elements from our domestic professional arrangements, along with the most valuable aspects of being face-to-face in person again?
When we are not face-to-face with each other in real rooms, we can lose people’s attention very easily. Participants drift away mentally – and who knows what happens when the camera is turned off? So the quality of input drops and the work suffers. Yet there are really simple ways to engage and sustain people’s attention on a topic…
One of my colleagues was preparing to facilitate a corporate event for 200 or so people in a conference room, and she was worried.
She wanted to lead them through a physical activity in random pairs, in which the partners would alternate a count to 3. It’s a classic improvisational warm-up activity designed to generate experiences of connection…
Your team has been working hard in a difficult and novel working environment, and you’d like to reward them for their efforts.
In your next online team meeting you want to involve them in deciding on a treat. You ask them for ideas: ‘What would everyone like to do? How can we spend our budget?’
We’re told that people are getting ‘Zoom Fatigue’, which results in meetings that lack energy and get too little accomplished.
When people are logged-in to one monotonous meeting after another, each one demanding intense concentration, it’s no surprise they are switching off. Switching off their cameras, sound and engagement.
As a facilitator, your attention is dragged in at least three different directions – towards the content, the process and the people.
It’s your responsibility to look after all these dimensions. But, for a whole range of reasons, there are times when your participants are no longer on-board. No matter how clever the…
