Diffusion of responsibility – a social phenomenon commonly seen in emergency or crisis situations. It is the reason why when seeing a fire while driving, you are less likely to report it, thinking surely with the amount of traffic on the road, someone else will call for help. Often in instances like this, the fire can go unreported for some time as a collective group of individuals will have this same thought process. This type of behaviour can also impact how likely individuals are to interact and contribute in large meeting environments. Hence a key challenge often faced when running sizeable virtual meetings is this diffusion of responsibility. How can we overcome this effect and instead create an environment that encourages voluntary engagement, particularly in a setting where there is a call to action and a need to develop solutions to critical problems?
Industries across the board are being challenged to minimise the impact of travel and working restrictions on their workstreams and their businesses. For many, this has meant that the way in which workshops and meetings are run needs to be reshaped, bringing along an entirely new set of challenges.
What does this new world mean for our strategic planning processes? Does execution of our brand planning meetings and competitor simulation workshops in a virtual setting impact the outputs? Is it best to park these activities until in-person off-sites are feasible?
A study performed by the Harvard Business Review involved 200 attendees in comparing a face-to-face experience vs. the same session run in a virtual setting. It was found that 86% of participants reported ‘as high’ or ‘higher’ levels of engagement in their remote session when compared to the same experience run face-to-face. These results were largely attributed to a set of best practices used to run the virtual session. At a time when virtual meetings are the most appropriate option, how can we leverage best practices to optimise our own interactions to ensure maximum engagement, rather than postponing them? Engagement is at the heart of buy-in to any decision-making process, and now more than ever it is a critical element to get right.
The success of various strategic planning processes carried out entirely online is largely dependent on bringing together the right people, leveraging the right tools and ensuring meeting designs are effectively tailored to enable that deep level of engagement and bring tangible value.
The Right Tools
When aiming to effectively replicate the engagement normally experienced through in-person workshops, the medium by which participants communicate is key. With many options available, it is important to choose a platform that allows for multiple structured ways in which attendees can fully engage. The ideal platforms will provide tools that enable:
- Hosting of polls to prioritise issues and solutions
- Movement of participants between virtual breakout rooms and larger plenary sessions
- Incorporation of quiz or game features into presentation content
- Live video interaction amongst attendees
- Ideation sessions/ brainstorming through virtual whiteboards
All these capabilities help to maintain the quality of discussion and level of engagement.
However, to effectively maximise this set of tools to generate a robust set of meeting outputs, a customised, well-designed session is another key piece of the puzzle.
Tailored workshop design
As with face-to-face workshops, the meeting process should be specifically designed to deliver the agreed-upon objectives. The need for meetings to take place virtually, however, only elevates the importance of an organised, well-structured design. Not only does this ensure the team’s needs are effectively met, but it also allows for specific process adjustments to address key engagement challenges often seen with virtual sessions (e.g. diffusion of responsibility, difficulty maintaining focus, virtual meeting ‘fatigue’ etc.).
When designing meetings to fit a team’s specific objectives, there are a few key ‘meeting design must-haves’:
- Clear objectives
- Relevant and concise pre-reads or engaging pre-work
- Well thought-out agenda
- Defined set of tasks
- View of next steps
However, when there is a need to run the session through a virtual platform, there are additional considerations that may help to overcome engagement challenges:
- ‘Deconstructing’ full-day meetings to several ‘bite-size’ sessions throughout the week
- Introducing additional level of structure within each task (e.g. sub-tasks to be completed in a brief, finite amount of time)
- Establishing accountability and encouraging team loyalty by working in small breakout groups
- Providing visibility of collective group progress towards objectives throughout each phase of the meeting
In the context of recent events, it is clear that to continue driving success within our various strategic planning workstreams, we must adapt and adjust our processes. However, given these processes require bringing together/engaging with our key stakeholders regularly, postponing touchpoints until it is feasible to run in-person meetings is simply not an option. Getting engagement right and ensuring impactful interactions (whether virtual or face to face) will ensure a successful strategy that is underpinned by innovative ideas and a commitment to execution.
For more information on optimising your strategic planning processes in an increasingly virtual world, get in touch with us!
