4 ms·

for me the biggest problem is how the flow of natural conversation is broken in video calls. 1 person gets to talk as long as they dont get interrupted or leav

for me the biggest problem is how the flow of natural conversation is broken in video calls. 1 person gets to talk as long as they dont get interrupted or leave a long enough gap for other folks to speak up. its like talking but with a 5 second latency. so what ends up happening is people dont like to be rude, so they dont speak up unless theres a long gap of silence. but gaps dont happen because usually 1-2 people hoard the discussion, you know the type who never pause between sentences and drone on and on. in real life those people would be sidelined because people look away and have side conversations. but in a virtual meeting these people hijack every conversation for the entire hour

chc 4y ago
Absolutely. Sometimes with coworkers I'm relatively close to, we'll have those side conversations in a Slack chat...but then that's just making the argument for Slack.
doubled112 4y ago
I constantly accidentally interrupt in video calls. I had a hard time with long distance on phones as a kid too. Not sure if I'm the problem or the tech.
justinlloyd 4y ago
Then that is a failure of the person running the meeting. You, as an individual, can also deploy several redirection techniques to shut those people down in either virtual meetings or in-person meetings. Tacit approval is either given by non-verbal acknowledgement (looking at them), vocalized agreement, e.g. "uhuh", "yeah", "and then what happened?", or by silence. I have an internal count that I do when someone starts talking and I become conscious of the interlocutor: "Hey, I need to interject, you raise a valid point about X but I have a question around it, <name of other participant>, what do you think of <completely unrelated subject>?" And you repeat the "Hey, I need to interject,hey, I have a question, Hey, I need to interject" until the other person stops long enough. Some days, you just have to be firm and get into the conversation. You can also just butt in with "Hey, that's interesting but it sounds like we are lost in the technical weeds, could we please take this offline or move it to a different meeting?" If the person running the meeting doesn't pick up on that, they shouldn't be running the meeting. I also like to drop in "Hey, I have to cut this short, I've got another meeting I need to run too, can we move this along?" People are very unaware when talking on the phone or in a video meeting. Like literally they become deaf. After three or four attempts of interjecting in a very short period of time of just 15 seconds or so, if the person isn't listening, I've just started talking directly to the meeting running directly over them and saying "we need to move on. Can you mute him?" It might be considered rude, but it's what everyone is thinking.
- e_y_ 4y ago
  My team has (not entirely consistently) tried to encourage people to use the "raise hand" button in the video call software if someone would like to speak. The currently person talking can either pause, or finish up what they're saying and then hand things over to the person who raised their hand.
  - justinlloyd 4y ago
    Yes, that is a good method. But some are oblivious, and again, it comes down to the meeting runner to enforce that. "I need to cut in here, Justin has had his hand raised for some time and I want to address his points or questions before we wander away from the topic." Again, meeting running/manager needs to be firm. The people that drone on and on are frequently oblivious to everything except what they want to say next.
- TrevorJ 4y ago
  I still think this is much more of a problem with video calls. Sure, the person running the meeting can take concrete steps to mitigate it slightly, but it's still added friction relative to in-person sessions. What you are describing may be a better way to hold a generic video meeting but it does really highlight how bad video calls are for brainstorming in particular. What you are describing would be terrible for that.
- arthurcolle 4y ago
  The redirection process though is a huge amount of effort which might be why OP (or someone else in the thread) mentioned their thought process specifically around video calls being a more painful way to engage in discussions

chc 4y ago

Absolutely. Sometimes with coworkers I'm relatively close to, we'll have those side conversations in a Slack chat...but then that's just making the argument for Slack.

doubled112 4y ago

I constantly accidentally interrupt in video calls. I had a hard time with long distance on phones as a kid too. Not sure if I'm the problem or the tech.

justinlloyd 4y ago

Then that is a failure of the person running the meeting. You, as an individual, can also deploy several redirection techniques to shut those people down in either virtual meetings or in-person meetings. Tacit approval is either given by non-verbal acknowledgement (looking at them), vocalized agreement, e.g. "uhuh", "yeah", "and then what happened?", or by silence. I have an internal count that I do when someone starts talking and I become conscious of the interlocutor: "Hey, I need to interject, you raise a valid point about X but I have a question around it, <name of other participant>, what do you think of <completely unrelated subject>?" And you repeat the "Hey, I need to interject,hey, I have a question, Hey, I need to interject" until the other person stops long enough. Some days, you just have to be firm and get into the conversation. You can also just butt in with "Hey, that's interesting but it sounds like we are lost in the technical weeds, could we please take this offline or move it to a different meeting?" If the person running the meeting doesn't pick up on that, they shouldn't be running the meeting. I also like to drop in "Hey, I have to cut this short, I've got another meeting I need to run too, can we move this along?" People are very unaware when talking on the phone or in a video meeting. Like literally they become deaf. After three or four attempts of interjecting in a very short period of time of just 15 seconds or so, if the person isn't listening, I've just started talking directly to the meeting running directly over them and saying "we need to move on. Can you mute him?" It might be considered rude, but it's what everyone is thinking.

e_y_ 4y ago
My team has (not entirely consistently) tried to encourage people to use the "raise hand" button in the video call software if someone would like to speak. The currently person talking can either pause, or finish up what they're saying and then hand things over to the person who raised their hand.
- justinlloyd 4y ago
  Yes, that is a good method. But some are oblivious, and again, it comes down to the meeting runner to enforce that. "I need to cut in here, Justin has had his hand raised for some time and I want to address his points or questions before we wander away from the topic." Again, meeting running/manager needs to be firm. The people that drone on and on are frequently oblivious to everything except what they want to say next.
TrevorJ 4y ago
I still think this is much more of a problem with video calls. Sure, the person running the meeting can take concrete steps to mitigate it slightly, but it's still added friction relative to in-person sessions. What you are describing may be a better way to hold a generic video meeting but it does really highlight how bad video calls are for brainstorming in particular. What you are describing would be terrible for that.
arthurcolle 4y ago
The redirection process though is a huge amount of effort which might be why OP (or someone else in the thread) mentioned their thought process specifically around video calls being a more painful way to engage in discussions