Continuing October’s theme of “Energizing Your Team”, let’s talk about energy on a Teams or Zoom call…
Take a second to think about the last small virtual meeting you sat in where someone said, “Let me just share my screen for a second.”
Do you remember your immediate feeling?
Do you remember the energy in “the room” shifting?
In a small virtual meeting, the real asset is the people on the call. The faces, the reactions, the ability to read the room and respond in real time. That back-and-forth is not incidental to the meeting. It is critical TO the meeting.
(If you are holding small virtual meetings with your camera off, unless you are truly indisposed, and then I question why you’re taking a scheduled meeting in such a position in the first place, it is no longer acceptable to have your camera off. Since COVID, the world has accepted the reality that people work from home and other spaces. Most people truly don’t care that you use your Peloton to hang your drying laundry. You think they do, but honestly, they don’t. Turn the camera on and connect, instead of hide. Enough on that.)
The moment a screen share kicks in and slides start rolling, something changes. Faces shrink to thumbnails or vanish entirely, the back-and-forth conversation stops, and people quietly shift into audience mode. What was to be a discussion or working session becomes a presentation. Who signed up for that?
Here is the thing about slides or spreadsheets: they are linear by design. They move in one direction, on one timeline, at one pace. Conversations do not follow that structure. When you lead with a deck or screen share, you lose your ability to follow the room and its energy as it unfolds. You also send a subtle message, probably without meaning to, that the content on the screen matters more than the thinking in the room.
The good news is the fix is simple.
If you have material people need to engage with, send it before the meeting.
Let people arrive prepared.
If something genuinely needs to be read together in the moment, just pause and give everyone two minutes to read it silently. People can read. A short pre-read respects everyone’s time and keeps the conversation at the center, which is exactly where it belongs.
Why am I writing this?
I am writing this because I just did exactly what I am describing. Recently I caught myself in a meeting I was partly responsible for running, watching the conversation flatten the moment I shared my screen. I had prepared with good intentions and still shifted the energy from dialogue to audience. Noticing it in real time was a useful reminder that knowing something and practicing what you preach are two different things.
If you are calling a meeting, prepare for it. Bring the right people and send them what they need in advance. Come prepared. And let the conversation be the point, not the deck or the screen share.
Challenge yourself to change your next team meeting. Give your slides or shares movement – send them before, send them after as a follow-up to the discussion, or just leave them behind.
By the way, you can use this strategy with anyone you meet with…your CPA, Attorney, Doctor, Child’s Teacher…. Don’t waste precious time together sharing information you want them to discuss with you. Send it ahead.