Speaker 1: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics
Speaker 1: use by the world's most successful people to get so
Speaker 1: much out of their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Ima.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 1: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work date.
Speaker 1: Before we get on to today's show, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to say a big thank you to all the lovely
Speaker 1: listeners that have been leaving reviews. I think in the
Speaker 1: Australian Apple Podcasts app there an hour over for one
Speaker 1: hundred reviews for How I Work, mostly five stars. Thank you,
Speaker 1: You're awesome. And I thought i'd just read out a
Speaker 1: couple of lovely reviews that I've received in the last
Speaker 1: few weeks that I really do just bring such a
Speaker 1: big smile to my face. So this one's from Fiery five.
Speaker 1: Have've just discovered this podcast and I'm really enjoying pulling
Speaker 1: gems out of every episode, many of which are very
Speaker 1: quick and easy to apply. Thanks Amantha, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Then from Presh fifteen, this is an incredible podcast hosted
Speaker 1: by Mattha Imber, who is a great interviewer. I listened
Speaker 1: to this before my workday and it puts me in
Speaker 1: such a positive and productive mindset. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: And one other one that I got recently from Ti
Speaker 1: huruas love that your podcast very in length. I find
Speaker 1: the episodes useful and I've been able to apply some
Speaker 1: of the strategies to improve my performance at work. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much. Well, thank you guys, Thank you. And look,
Speaker 1: if you're enjoying the work that I do on How
Speaker 1: I Work, you might be keen to check out another
Speaker 1: podcast that I launched a couple of months ago now
Speaker 1: called how to Date. How to Date, which I linked
Speaker 1: to in the show notes. And this is a podcast
Speaker 1: all about the crazy world of dating when you did
Speaker 1: not think that you would be dating again in this lifetime.
Speaker 1: So it is our podcast, hosted by myself and my
Speaker 1: closest girlfriend Monique, and we interview all sorts of experts
Speaker 1: from around the world on how to get better at dating. So,
Speaker 1: if you're interested in that, if you're single, or maybe
Speaker 1: if you're not single but you just want to live
Speaker 1: vicariously through Monique and I, search for How to Date
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your podcasts. Okay, let's get onto
Speaker 1: today's mini episode. Which is all about how to avoid
Speaker 1: virtual meeting fatigue. So, despite lockdown restrictions easing across Australia,
Speaker 1: if you happen to be based here, many of us
Speaker 1: are still working from home and for a lot of us,
Speaker 1: we've discovered that we actually like working from home for
Speaker 1: the majority of the time and have no desire to
Speaker 1: go back to the office five days a week. And
Speaker 1: if workers and teams remain distributed, with some people working
Speaker 1: from home and some working from the office, virtual meetings
Speaker 1: will rain. Unfortunately, virtual meetings have a pretty bad reputation,
Speaker 1: which is often rightly deserved. They can be tire, in
Speaker 1: effectively run, and often a chance for us to take
Speaker 1: a sneaky check of our email or social media feeds
Speaker 1: when things get a bit dull. I know I have
Speaker 1: been there now. Our negative relationship with virtual meetings is
Speaker 1: a serious problem. Research has consistently found the satisfaction with
Speaker 1: meetings predicts how satisfied we are with our jobs. So
Speaker 1: one study found that more than fifteen percent of our
Speaker 1: job satisfaction is based on our satisfaction with the meetings
Speaker 1: we attend, and other studies have found that meeting satisfaction
Speaker 1: is the single biggest predictor of job satisfaction, so it's
Speaker 1: important that we use our time well in meetings. And
Speaker 1: this is even more true of virtual meetings because of
Speaker 1: the additional problems they pose. So if the virtual meetings
Speaker 1: that you're attending or running are sacking the life out
Speaker 1: of you and others, here are a few strategies to
Speaker 1: make virtual meetings more productive and less sleep inducing. Okay,
Speaker 1: my first hip is to cap virtual meetings at thirty
Speaker 1: minutes or at very least take frequent breaks. So research
Speaker 1: from Microsoft found that virtual meeting fatigue is indeed a
Speaker 1: real thing. Researchers from Microsoft's Human Factors Lab had participants
Speaker 1: where an EEG device that monitored brain weighs sharing virtual meetings.
Speaker 1: Perhaps not surprisingly, the research has found that people's concentration
Speaker 1: started to fade at the thirty to forty minute mark
Speaker 1: when a person's days were filled with virtual meetings. Stress
Speaker 1: levels began to rise after about two hours into their
Speaker 1: meeting filled day. So the researchers suggested that focusing on
Speaker 1: a screen to extract relevant information can be exhausting and
Speaker 1: it can be hard to remain engaged. In addition, due
Speaker 1: to the limited nonverbal cues it can be harder to
Speaker 1: get a read on people and know whose turn it
Speaker 1: is to talk, for example. And finally, when sharing screens
Speaker 1: a like you do when you're sharing a presentation or something,
Speaker 1: the view of people becomes tiny and almost eliminates any
Speaker 1: visual cues that you were previously able to get. So
Speaker 1: cap virtual meetings at thirty minutes, and if they have
Speaker 1: to go longer, take short regular breaks to help people
Speaker 1: maintain focus and energy. Okay, my next tip is to
Speaker 1: ask better questions. So what's the first question that gets
Speaker 1: asked in most meetings? Aside from can you hear me?
Speaker 1: Put yourself off mute? Well, most meetings start with the
Speaker 1: question how are you going? And how do people answer? Good? Fine? Okay?
Speaker 1: So boring questions elicit boring answers and fail to build
Speaker 1: stronger connections. Challenging yourself to ask a more provocative or
Speaker 1: interesting question that will elicit a surprising answer or gain
Speaker 1: further insight into the person or people you are meeting
Speaker 1: with is a very effective way to go. So, for example,
Speaker 1: you might start a meeting by asking what are people
Speaker 1: most proud of this week? What's the their favorite room
Speaker 1: in their home, or what's an unexpected upside from COVID.
Speaker 1: So asking better questions is one method to create a
Speaker 1: high quality connection, which is a term coined by Professor
Speaker 1: Jane Dutton from the University of Michigan. High Quality connections
Speaker 1: are interactions you have with someone virtually or face to
Speaker 1: face in which both people feel lit up and energized
Speaker 1: by the connection. And the beauty of high quality connections
Speaker 1: is that they don't require significant time. They can be
Speaker 1: as short as just a five minute conversation. So research
Speaker 1: shows that high quality connections have a myriad of benefits,
Speaker 1: including helping us be more creative, resilient, and even live longer.
Speaker 1: But beyond helping us thrive individually, they also contribute to
Speaker 1: team and organizational effectiveness. So when teams have high quality connections,
Speaker 1: which you can build through meetings and asking better questions,
Speaker 1: team members are more creative, more coordinated, and more likely
Speaker 1: to have mutual respect for one another. Now, the final
Speaker 1: tip I have is to default to the telephone. So,
Speaker 1: in the world of remote work, people's default meeting time
Speaker 1: is a meeting type has actually become video. So to
Speaker 1: help overcome virtual meeting fatigue, experiment with having phone meetings
Speaker 1: as your default. So on his podcast Work Life, Wharton
Speaker 1: professor Adam Grant, who has also been a guest on
Speaker 1: How I Work, shared research that we are actually better
Speaker 1: at reading emotions and empathizing with people over the phone
Speaker 1: compared to via video, which seems completely counterintuitive, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: So the phone eliminates all the visual cues that can
Speaker 1: distract from us honing in on the actual human we
Speaker 1: are communicating with, and also phone calls allow us to
Speaker 1: be moving around and thus reduce the fatigue that can
Speaker 1: set in when we are desk bound all day. So
Speaker 1: if you are suffering from virtual meeting fatigue, try one
Speaker 1: of these three strategies, maybe this week to help make
Speaker 1: your meetings a whole lot better. That is it for
Speaker 1: today's show. If you are enjoying How I Work, make
Speaker 1: sure that you've hit the subscribe button wherever you listen
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Speaker 1: to whenever a new episode drops, which regular listeners will
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Speaker 1: and leave one today in Apple Podcasts. It really does
Speaker 1: make my day and a huge thank you to everyone
Speaker 1: that has taken the time to do that. That is
Speaker 1: it for today's show and I will see you next time.