We’ve run our wells dry.
Before March 2020, most of us never experienced remote work the way it exists today. Before then, it represented a day away from the hustle and bustle of the office, a needed quiet space free of the normal office banter and distractions. “Calling in” to a meeting meant most people were together in a room, but you were on the phone, and if you were lucky, someone would screen share so you could see what the group was looking at.
For a while remote worked with no ill-effect. My observations would suggest that success came because our connection to our co-workers was already established, and enriched by a variety of experiences, trials, shared meals, jokes, and hallway discussions.
Three years in, the well has run dry. We no longer have a deep reserve of relational capital. Most people who have joined the company since March 2020 have not shared the same level of relational signals. The way we passed on our culture, and our values is no longer viable, and we’ve used up most of the cultural ballast we had built up.
The paradigm has shifted, and we need a new way to build that important level of connection. What does that have to do with remote meetings and video? We need to utilize web meetings as an important moment for connection and belonging. Web meetings are now the norm, and we need to leverage them at every opportunity. Don’t be content to merely show up. Aspire to show up and make it count.
How? From what I’ve observed, one of the critical differentiators between those who merely show up, and those who drive connection is their video presence.
The point of video is visible communication.
- You’re communicating non-verbally when you have video on. There are a few things you communicate just as a bare minimum:
- You’re paying attention.
- You want to be there.
- More importantly, you’re giving non-verbal queue’s like “I hear what you’re saying, and I’m thinking about it” or “I appreciate you, and we’re on the same team”.
- Along with that, you’re saying, I’m present here with you, I’m willing to relate to you, I’m willing for you to see who I am, I’m being vulnerable, and working for a sense of community and connection.
Remote work is missing physical presence
Your aim should be that people feel in the end like they were in a room with you. What happens when you’re in a room with someone? You know how differently that feels, how engaging it is, and how significantly it can improve interactions and collaboration. In order to approximate
- Make sure you are big-enough in the frame of your video to give the general feeling of sitting next to you at a table. Typically, you should be on your video from the chest up, and filling about 1/3 of the window frame.
- You should be in your video frame straight on. You don’t have a conversation with someone looking down on them, or at the side of their head do you? If the view is looking down on you, there will be very subtle relational queues that you do not want. Think about the context where it’s appropriate for someone to be talking down to you. There’s an implied hierarchy when you are above or below someone physically. That happens subtly in video as well.
- The clarity of your video contributes significantly. The better resolution, the more real it feels.
- Having a difference in focus between you and the background also gives a more natural feel to what it’s like sitting at a table with you.
- The dynamic range of light in your video also contributes to this. Our eyes resolve a WAY larger dynamic range than video can capture. It’s a good idea to max out range of light intensity from dark shadows to bright highlights so that you’re providing as much dynamic range as the camera provides.
A few other principles to beef up your relational proximity:
- We need to see you: The background should only supply visual interest, but it should not in any way draw the eye away from you. Think about your background as a break-room for the eye. You don’t do your main work there, but if you end up there, you want it to be restful.
- Your background is a break-room for the eyes. People will be looking there.
- Your background should not be distractingly attention grabbing.
- Likewise, if it looks like a wasteland, or a bedroom, it feels unprofessional, unpolished.
- A simple background with a cohesive color pallette, and a few interesting items that can represent a little bit about who you are should be your target.
- You should be the brightest thing in view: As the main show, your face is really the only thing we want to see. Think about being in person with someone, you’re mostly engaging with them through eye contact by looking at their face. Everything else in your video should serve the purpose of making your face more prominent and visible so people can make eye contact with you. This is a key aspect of presence. Can people see your eyes and feel (even though you can’t reciprocate) like they’re making eye contact with you. The eyes. The window to the soul.
- Audio is more important: Your visible presence should correspond in quality, and support your vocal presence.
- You still have to smile: Once you are more visible, you’re essentially amplifying the effect of your presence, but you still have to have a positive effect. A resting smile will amplify positivity, and a resting grumpy face will amplify negativity. I think this is also similar to acting, you might have to smile more dramatically than would be natural in real life. This is something I catch about myself often. Smiling isn’t bad for you either, it can elevate your own mood and positivity.
How can you tell when it’s working?
- You might not be able to tell, especially if people aren’t on video
- If they are, you might see people being more responsive to you, or more engaged.
- People might give you feedback unrelated to your video, but relational in nature
- Someone might comment on your video presence.
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