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?’
Too many face-to-face meetings, workshops and conferences are bitterly disappointing. Poorly structured, ineptly hosted and devoid of either energy or results, they leave you wondering why the event took place at all.
And, particularly since the arrival of Covid, the same is true of online events.
Of course, we do know why these events take place.
