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Speaker 1: Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the New Corner Office,

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Speaker 1: the podcast where we share strategies for thriving in the

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Speaker 1: new world of work, one where the location and ours

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Speaker 1: are more flexible than in the past. Today's tip is

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Speaker 1: to start all your meetings with a few minutes the

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Speaker 1: formal scheduled social time. This is a good idea for

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Speaker 1: all meetings, but it's particularly important for those done virtually.

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Speaker 1: When you walk into an in person meeting, there is

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Speaker 1: naturally a minute or two of social time as people

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Speaker 1: figure out their seats. Note if someone is just back

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Speaker 1: from vacation or complain about the cafeteria being out of coffee.

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Speaker 1: This is human nature, and there's actually nothing wrong with it. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: few individual meetings accomplish much more than nurturing the relationships

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Speaker 1: between the people who attend them. But a lot of

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Speaker 1: people don't see it that way, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: meetings are poorly run. So what winds up happening is

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Speaker 1: that the social chit chat either extends way too long,

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Speaker 1: which is frustrating for people who've got long to do lists,

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Speaker 1: or else someone snarls that no one has time for

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Speaker 1: this chit chat, and the meeting starts from a bad place.

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Speaker 1: The better option is to purposefully schedule a few minutes

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Speaker 1: of directed social time at the beginning of every meeting.

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Speaker 1: Whoever is running the meeting should take charge of doing this.

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Speaker 1: I like opening with a question that everyone gets to answer.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes the question is obvious, like what people did over

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Speaker 1: the weekend if it's Monday morning, or if there was

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Speaker 1: a major power outage in your area the night before,

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Speaker 1: how people dealt with that. Sometimes you need to be

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Speaker 1: a little more creative and come up with an icebreaker

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Speaker 1: type question your favorite restaurant or favorite author. The key

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Speaker 1: thing is that everyone goes around and answers. This makes

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Speaker 1: everyone feel included and gets people used to hearing everyone's voices,

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Speaker 1: and by keeping the social chit chat focused, you get

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Speaker 1: the upsides without the downside of falling behind on timing.

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Speaker 1: With in person meetings, there is naturally social time, but

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Speaker 1: it's even more important to do this if you're meeting

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Speaker 1: virtually A lot of people have had their maiden Zoom

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Speaker 1: meetings over the last few weeks, and as you might imagine,

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Speaker 1: there have been a lot of awkward experiences. But this

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Speaker 1: isn't inevitable. People just have to learn to run meetings differently.

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Speaker 1: So if you are running the meeting, plan to open

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Speaker 1: with a few minutes of social discussion and most important,

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Speaker 1: plan to direct it. You can't leave this to chance

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Speaker 1: when people aren't in the same room picking up on cues.

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Speaker 1: So I make sure to call on people Joe, what

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Speaker 1: did you do on Saturday? Mary? How about you? If

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Speaker 1: you don't do this, people will talk all over each other,

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Speaker 1: which leads to frustrating video conference whiplash. And I know

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Speaker 1: this isn't intuitive for social things. If you're sitting in

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Speaker 1: a bar with a group, you would never direct a

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Speaker 1: social discussion this way. You'd feel too much like a

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Speaker 1: fourth grade teacher. But different times call for different approaches.

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Speaker 1: When everyone has heard and everyone has a chance to connect,

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Speaker 1: you are going to have a great meeting, whether virtual

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Speaker 1: or face to face. So if you've got a meeting

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Speaker 1: coming up to day, think about how you could open

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Speaker 1: with a few minutes of social chit chat. And if

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Speaker 1: you've got great opening questions for your virtual meetings, I'd

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Speaker 1: love to hear about them. You can email me at

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Speaker 1: Laura at Laura Vanderkam dot com. In the meantime, this

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Speaker 1: is Laura. Thanks for listening and here's to succeeding in

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Speaker 1: the New Corner Office. The New Corner Office is a

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, visit the

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Speaker 1: i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.