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Suddenly Hybrid? Manage the Modern Meeting with Karin Reed (Ep. #44)

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February 1, 2022
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Building Better Managers Podcast Episode #44: Suddenly Hybrid? New Productivity & Engagement Strategies with Karin Reed

The global workforce is changing rapidly - many companies are choosing to stay remote, while others have adopted the hybrid model because they see the benefits and many team members like the combination of some remote and some in-person days.

In a previous episode (#28 here) Karin Reed spoke on Suddenly Virtual: Making Remote Meetings Work about how to make remote meetings both engaging and productive.

Her latest book, Suddenly Hybrid, is full of new examples of how to work with this new wave of hybrid-remote workplaces, which is most likely here to stay.

In this episode:

Meet Karin:

  • Karin is a confidence creator. Her mission is to empower her clients, whether they come from the c-suite or the sales force, to speak with ease to any audience on any platform – in person, on camera or through virtual communication tools.
  • Her methodology is based on more than 20+ years of experience as an award-winning news anchor, on-camera spokesperson and commercial actress.
  • Karin has been a trusted trainer and consultant for companies ranging from early-stage start-up to Fortune 100. Her warm and encouraging approach have made even the most reluctant public speakers into compelling communicators at companies like Lenovo, SAS Institute and Teva Pharmaceuticals. She’s also developed a strong following in academia – leading workshops at elite institutions such as Stanford, Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill.
  • Her first book, On-Camera Coach: Tools and Techniques for Business Professionals in a Video-Driven World, was a #1 Hot New Release in Business Communications on Amazon in 2017.

Why Hybrid Meetings Are Here To Stay

  • There's been such a change in how people want to work and really are demanding to work. Hybrid work means that you can basically trying to meet the needs of your workforce, you have to figure out a way to get people to be able to collaborate to meet to gather, regardless of where they are geographically.
  • Hybrid meetings allow you to do that because you have some people who are co-located (they're in the same room together), while others are joining in from their webcams from wherever they happen to be at that given time. That can be a great opportunity to make the meeting as inclusive as possible because you're allowing them to meet where they are, where they want to be.

The Keys To Better Hybrid Meetings

  • In order to have an effective hybrid meeting, you have to have the right technology in place.
  • The logistics are also important. For example, if the majority of people will be in the conference room, you have to create what we call "presence for all" - that means everybody can be clearly seen and heard.
  • And that goes both ways. Those who are in the conference room need to have adequate audio fidelity. The audio system you set up must allow everyone to be heard no matter where they are seated. Remote team members need to have good equipment that will allow them to be heard adequately and to be seen crisply. You want your image to be as as crisp as possible so people can read your facial expressions because our body language is so important.
  • There are also techniques that a leader of a meeting can do to help with that. If you are leading the meeting from in the room, we suggest that you be a narrator for the remote attendees of the body language that is observed. Virtual attendees probably can't see the eye rolls and other cues in the meeting room. As a meeting leader, I would say, "Hey, Joe, it looks like you're rolling out your eyes about that, you know, you obviously are not completely on board, tell me a little bit more." That allows the people who are joining virtually to feel like they are there and can see what's what's really going on. Those nonverbals are more difficult to read if you're joining virtually, so it's up to the meeting leader to be aware of that, and then to raise the collective awareness of all of what the body language is saying.
  • The leader also is responsible to make everybody aware of who is in the meeting - the people in the physical space and at the virtual table as well.
  • Then be sure to encourage their participation. If you can be an advocate to hear from those who are virtual, that will be a way of ensuring a more effective hybrid meeting. "We haven't heard from Wendy in a while. Wendy, can you weigh in on this, I'd like to hear your opinion, I know that you have a lot of experience in this space." That can be very helpful. You can do it in in a an informal way, or  actually make it more formal.
  • Assigning "room buddies" for those who are joining virtually is a really interesting concept - to have someone in the meeting that is an advocate for the virtual participants.
  • You want to avoid ending up just having the conversation dominated by those who are in the actual physical room,

Trends

  • The trends indicate that there will be a hybrid approach to work. Primarily for safety reasons, people want to ensure that they maintain their good health and the health of others.
  • As the pandemic starts to wane, there is also going to be an evaluation: some folks who are desperate to get back into the brick and mortar office, and for other folks, remote work has really been great.
  • Virtual meetings are not going to go away, but best practices are definitely taking shape.
  • You actually have to get them to all engage together, so that's going to require strong facilitation on the part of the leader.

Downloads & Resources

Follow Karin on LinkedIn here.

Check out Speaker Dynamics here.

Subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform!

Check out our blog articles on Leadership here.

About Karin Reed

Karin is a confidence creator. Her mission is to empower her clients, whether they come from the c-suite or the sales force, to speak with ease to any audience on any platform – in person, on camera or through virtual communication tools.

Her methodology is based on more than 20+ years of experience as an award-winning news anchor, on-camera spokesperson and commercial actress.

Karin has been a trusted trainer and consultant for companies ranging from early-stage start-up to Fortune 100. Her warm and encouraging approach have made even the most reluctant public speakers into compelling communicators at companies like Lenovo, SAS Institute and Teva Pharmaceuticals. She’s also developed a strong following in academia – leading workshops at elite institutions such as Stanford, Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill.

Her first book, On-Camera Coach: Tools and Techniques for Business Professionals in a Video-Driven World, was a #1 Hot New Release in Business Communications on Amazon in 2017.

View the episode transcript

Wendy Hanson  0:24  

Welcome, everybody. I am so happy you're joining us today because we have a extremely important topic. As you all know, our workforce is changing rapidly. Many companies are choosing to stay remote, or at least partially because they've seen the benefits. And many folks liked the option of being remote and being in person on some days. A few months ago, I talked with our guests that we're going to speak to today, Karen read about her book, suddenly virtual making remote meetings work. It was awesome to learn all those tips. And I wanted to share her wisdom and insight about how to make remote meetings, both engaging and productive. She certainly did that I would look back in our podcasts and you'd be able to listen to that from Karen brown her first book. Now, she has done more research, and is has a new book coming out. It came out yesterday, suddenly hybrid. And it's full of examples of how to work with this new wave of hybrid remote work, which is most likely here to stay, at least for many companies. So let me tell you a little bit about Karen before we bring her in. Karen M. Reed is an Emmy award winning journalist and CEO of speaker dynamics, a corporate communication training firm featured in Forbes while speaking through a webcam might be relatively new to much of the world. Karen has been teaching business professionals how to be effective on camera communicators for nearly a decade, a three time offer author, she has been quoted as a thought leader by various prestigious publications, including mag Inc, magazine, Fast Company Business Insider, and was named an author who inspires us by McKinsey and Company. We are so lucky to have her to talk about her new book. Welcome, Karen.

Karin Reed  2:19  

Wendy, I want to just thank you for having me back, because I loved our first conversation. And I'm so excited to have another conversation with you today about a really important topic.

Wendy Hanson  2:28  

Oh, yes. And I love. I love the research that you've done, and so much that you've learned that all of us out there, when you work inside one company, you're not quite sure what other people are doing. So we get the benefit of all of your work as we talk about remote hybrid virtual. So thank you for being here and sharing that,

Karin Reed  2:48  

definitely I want to make sure to give a huge shout out to my co author, Dr. Joseph Allen. Because when you talk about research, he is the data guy, he's the one who has been, you know, gathering all the information and you know, making sure that what we are reporting on is based in science and, you know, without him, you know, I am such a lesser person and a lesser author. So, I mean, our collaboration has been really fabulous. Yeah,

Wendy Hanson  3:14  

well, I think life is all about collaboration. I am certainly a proponent that when we co create with someone else, one in one equals three, it's not just do yes. So totally agree. I think that's, that's first lesson for today. Yes, find a collaborative partner, you know, when you're doing any kind of project, it will go.

Karin Reed  3:33  

That's so true. And you have to find the right collaborator, for sure. Because, you know, one of the things you know, Joe comes from academia, which is, you know, not known to be the fastest, you know, organization to work within, but, and I come from TV news, which is, you know, you know, deadlines that are seconds away, so having the two of us combine forces and still, you know, be able to work really well together as crazy. I mean, he's actually more responsive than I am. So it's been it's been fabulous.

Wendy Hanson  4:01  

Sounds like a good balance. Yeah, absolutely. Good. So let's start with why are hybrid meetings inevitable in the future of work? What have you learned through your research?

Karin Reed  4:12  

Well, I think when you kind of hit on it, there's been such a change in how people want to work and really are demanding to work. Meo hybrid work means that you can basically work from wherever, whenever. And if you are leaning into that, and and, you know, trying to meet the needs of your workforce, you have to figure out a way to get people to be able to collaborate to meet to gather, regardless of where they are geographically. So hybrid meetings allow you to do that because a hybrid mania is one where perhaps you have some people who are co located which means like they're in the same room together. And then you have others who are joining in from their webcams from wherever they happen to be at that given time. And that can be a great opportunity to make the meeting as inclusive as possible because you're allowing them to meet where they are, where they want to be.

Wendy Hanson  5:10  

What I'm curious about the co located because we've, we've heard a number of feedbacks from this on companies, one company said, if people are in an office, they should absolutely just be on their their webcams and not sit in a big room, which we know is true. Because you cannot run a meeting with five people in a big room when you can't see their mouth moving on, on the video, and then how do you make the other people still included? So So that's an interesting dilemma.

Karin Reed  5:40  

Well, I think the old advice that you would hear is avoid hybrid meetings at all cost, because they're just too hard. You know, you have a different situation than what we've seen thus far, you know, so you had one communication medium, whenever we were all meeting face to face, you know, it was the air that we were breathing, whenever we went fully virtual, we had one communication medium, that was the screen. And that was kind of egalitarian, and how everybody showed up in the same size boxes, in hybrid, you have a combination of both. And the danger is you can have a two tiered system. So for example, if you are a leader, and you're leading that meeting from within the conference room, there is an inherent in room bias that you're going to have to fight. And consequently, those who are joining remotely, do, you know run into the potential of disappearing from that meeting unless they're actively participating? So so I can understand why some companies are saying, No, we aren't going to do hybrid at all, we're just going to have everybody stay virtual, you know, or no, we only meet, you know, in person when everybody's in person just because of the complexity of the computer communication networks. But it's really not feasible to do that. I mean, you could send everybody to the webcast. But then honestly, what's the point of having them in the office that they can't meet together to collaborate, and there is actually a lot of value, even for certain numbers of those who are in the meeting to have that, that in person experience as long as they are including the people who are remote in the conversation as well. Because you know, I think about it, from a communication expert standpoint, if you are giving a speech up onstage, what I counseled people to do is to your shrink the room, personalize it by talking to individuals in the audience, because even if you are in the audience, and they're not connecting directly with you, it feels more personal, whenever you see them connecting with individuals in the room. And so that can be the same situation for a hybrid meeting where, okay, perhaps you aren't sitting in the physical space and you, you aren't the one turning to your neighbor to the left, there's still some value in seeing other people connect in that way provided that you are brought into the environment as well.

Wendy Hanson  8:00  

And is there a challenge when you have five people say in a conference room, and they're in the meeting, and then you're bringing people in on Zoom or a webcam that my experience has been, I can't always hear what those people are saying, you know, I can't read their lips. Yes, if you're remote. So that becomes a challenge,

Karin Reed  8:19  

you're bringing up a really important point, in order to have an effective hybrid meeting, you have to have the right technology in place. Because if you think I'm going to have a hybrid meeting, and I'm going to be you know, just having a majority of people in conference, or we'll put a laptop at the end of the conference room table, open it up and you know, hit the the team's meeting link or the zoom any link, that's not a hybrid meeting that is going to work, you have to create what we call presence for all that means everybody can be clearly seen and heard. And that goes both ways. So for example, those who are in the conference room, need to have adequate audio fidelity. So you have to make sure that whatever audio system you set up is one that allows you to be heard no matter where you are seated, because you're absolutely right. It's really difficult sometimes if they have just one microphone at the front of the room, and you've got people who are sitting at the other end of the room for people to hear what's going on and then you are going to be marginalized as a remote attendee. By the same token, if you are wanting to take advantage of attending a meeting remotely, you need to have good equipment that will allow you to be heard adequately and to be seen, you know, crisply, you know, you want your image to be as as crisp as possible so people can read your facial expressions because our body language is so important. But there are also techniques that a leader of a meeting can do to help with that. Just to give you one quick example, if you are leading the meeting from in the room, we suggest that you be a narrator for the remote attendees of the body language that is observed. Because you're you're talking about you can't really hear what's going on in the conversation. If you're A virtual attendee, that you probably also can't see the eye rolls, for example of somebody in the meeting room. And so as a meeting leader, I would say, Hey, Joe, it looks like you're rolling out your eyes about that, you know, you obviously are not completely on board, tell me a little bit more, that allows the people who are joining virtually to feel like okay, I'm there, I see, I can see what's what's going on. I, you know, those, those nonverbals are more difficult to read, if you're joining virtually. So it's up to the meeting leader to be aware of that, and then to raise the collective awareness of all of what the body language is saying.

Wendy Hanson  10:36  

Okay, yeah. Another, I don't know, if you've used the

Karin Reed  10:40  

owl. I've seen it. I have not used it. And

Wendy Hanson  10:44  

my consciousness again, yeah, okay. When, when I was in California, and we had our team in California, and then we had some on the East Coast, we use the owl. And it was amazing. Because what it would do is, it would point out the people in the room that were speaking, and it made the experience so much better for the remote people. So I think that's another alternative than I just want to remember to that, as we get together with those hybrid type meetings, that's a great tool to have in an office.

Karin Reed  11:16  

And it definitely if you if you have a smaller team, I think it can work really well. Because then it's not spinning crazily on the road trying to capture all the individuals if six people so right. And it's a good thing to also point out, Wendy, that the technology advances that have happened over the past, you know, two years have been ridiculous, you know, there has been so much innovation, that there are a lot of tools out there that are trying to solve these problems that we're talking about. My concern, though, is there is a great, you know, range wide range of, of technical proficiency for those who would be using those tools. So you might have some really cool software that allows him for example, for virtual whiteboarding, but you could have that same person in the meeting, say, I'm considered a victory if I can share my screen. So So you have to be aware of that and not just assume that a tool is going to solve all the problems? Yeah,

Wendy Hanson  12:20  

yeah. Because a virtual whiteboard is little different than a real whiteboard that you can easily come up and do something. But you need a little bit of skills there.

Karin Reed  12:29  

Right, exactly. And if you're doing a hybrid meeting, and you just have a physical whiteboard, you're not allowing for what we would call collaboration equity, because the people who are remote, they can't walk up with a, you know, a marker and start scribbling on the board. They can, it's impossible.

Wendy Hanson  12:47  

Yeah. You had some great points about the leader of the meeting, keeping the remote people involved and reading their body language. How do the in person attendees, like what kind of mindset do they need? How do they adjust their mindset to be held? This inclusiveness

Karin Reed  13:05  

right? Well, I think the key is like the leader does set the tone, because they really need to make everybody aware of who is in the meeting room. And it's not just the people in the physical space, it's everyone who is, you know, at the virtual table as well. And so it starts from there. But then also, as an attendee, it's really important for you to recognize all the people in the room as well, and then be sure to encourage their participation, there are a couple of different ways you can do that, you know, if you are just somebody who can be an advocate to hear from those who are virtual, that will be a way of ensuring a more effective hybrid meeting, you know, just say, hey, you know, we haven't heard from Wendy in a while. Wendy, can you weigh in on this, I'd like to hear your opinion, I know that you have a lot of experience in this space, like that can be helpful. So you can do it in in a an informal way. Or what I've seen in some companies is they're actually making it more formal well, where they will assign in room buddies, for those who are joining virtually, which I think is a really interesting concept. So like, before you go into the meeting, you know, okay, so when they say that you were in the meeting, and I'm remote, you know, that we're buddies, and you know, you're part of your job. And that meeting is to be an advocate for me to be an in room ally. So rather than you just responding to, you know, whatever questions being asked, or the topic that's being discussed, you would also have the responsibility of saying, hey, let's hear from Karen. So, so if you develop those one to one, advocacy, relationships, that can also help to make sure that you have even participation. Because if you don't, you know, you may end up just having the conversation dominated by those who are in the actual physical room, and then you don't have all the ideas, the richness of the ideas of the entire meeting group, and your decision ultimately, may be inferior and

Wendy Hanson  15:00  

Can when you have bigger meetings and you have a number of people on remote and you have some people that say, I don't want to turn on my camera? How do you how do you handle those things? Because we have that challenge sometimes in our group training of BetterManager, you know, people will come on and say, Oh, I don't want to turn on my camera. And it's like, it's really hard to get the vibe and relate to somebody, how do you handle that?

Karin Reed  15:23  

There are so many different nuances to that question. So, you know, first of all, it depends on what the purpose is of the meeting itself, you know, so there are some, like, for example, townhall meetings, where you have everybody showing up. And, in my opinion, if it's a large meeting, and there's not expected collaboration, having the camera on is not as important. In some ways, it can be even a little bit distracting, because if you see all of these boxes, and people are moving around, as they inevitably do, that can be distracting for the person who's speaking the person who's sharing the information. But if you are in a meeting where there is interaction expected and and warranted, if you have your camera off, then you are diminishing your presence in that meeting, and you are likely to be sidelined or even, you know, disappear from the conversation, you want to in a hybrid meeting, try to be as present as largely present as possible. And that requires you to make it as rich of a presence as possible. So for example, you know, if you are just audio alone, you are not going to have as rich of a presence as if you are using audio and video. And this is really important. For example, if you are new to an organization, people need to put a face with a name, don't keep your camera off, because you will have a more difficult time creating those connections and networking. It's just how we are wired as human beings. You know, if you are in a meeting, though, and you know, people know you you've worked together for a long time, that might be an opportunity to turn the webcam off, because like I'll know, you know, the facial expressions that would accompany a comment that you're making, like, if you're making a joke, I'll know that you have a smile on your face, I don't need to see that. But if you don't know people as well, it's really important to have the camera on. So does that help? I don't know if I answered your original question.

Wendy Hanson  17:30  

No, I've I, you know, I've been in meetings with you know, 50 people, and then it's not an impact, but when you have a group of like 12, and they're showing up and hiding behind the, you know, it's I think it's kind of our responsibility, and certainly the neuroscience behind it, of being able to see somebody, you know, that's how we try to get people to make sure they turn on their cameras, we talk about how the brain needs that, and they need that connection.

Karin Reed  17:57  

Yeah, and actually, I'm sure you talk about this all the time. And you know, the big challenge that we are seeing is just this meaning explosion that has occurred where just your days are, you know, clogged with meeting invites from, you know, first thing in the morning until you know, the end of your day, and that can be exhausting. So, you know, I would say that the biggest solution that you can immediately employs don't have as many meetings and, you know, reserve those hybrid meetings for when you have collaboration, that is a necessity, you know, if you're not collaborating, you probably don't need to have a hybrid meeting. There are ways to share information now in asynchronous ways that can be really rich to nuanced you know, send a video of, you know, explaining an update on a project and, you know, share your screen so that you can, you know, demonstrate, you know, through slides or you know, whatever you're doing so that people can actually see the visual along with your verbal, send them that recorded video and then allow them to watch it at a time that is convenient for them. Because, you know, being mindful of that is really important. If you have to stop your think time, in order to go to a meeting that honestly probably didn't have to be at in the first place. That's a real problem. And that's when you're going to start to see productivity dips, right.

Wendy Hanson  19:18  

Speaking of productivity, dips, how do we manage that in this world, as the team switches to this new way of gathering because, boy, it wasn't that interesting. In the beginning of the pandemic, everybody said, How am I going to know that people are working? What their remote that's sure about that. And I think I don't know if your research backs this up, but my, my personal research is like people are working way too much now because they can't get off. So it's just the opposite problem of what was anticipated back in 2019.

Karin Reed  19:52  

We're working longer, you know, we it's funny because our commutes were often replaced by more work. So you Actually productivity, either stayed the same or actually went up during the pandemic. And, you know, I think it's important to recognize that as we try to go into this new hybrid workforce, you need to train people, you need to train them on, you know, the tech as well as on just the people skills. So leaving it to chance is a recipe for disaster. So if you want to truly build, you know, be a hybrid workforce, then you need to actually give support for it. And, you know, I mentioned, just having the tools doesn't do the trick, you have to train them on how to use the technology. You know, I talked about how, when I was training a Salesforce, there were a bunch of people who were being trained on how to go from a virtual handshake sales model to or in person handshake sales model to a virtual one. And I was on a one on one call with somebody. And, and, and she showed up and our image was all grainy, and I said, you know, do they send you webcams? And she said, Oh, yeah, it's in the closet, I haven't taken it out of the box. I was like, what? Why? And so we spent that one on one session, you know, unboxing, her webcam and plugging it in, that is just an example, a pretty low level example of the barriers to the usage of new technology. So you know, there's great technology tools, you got to train people on it, and it doesn't take a lot, it can be like a half an hour, you know, session that it does just to help people know how to manage it. The skill were though, no, which is, you know, having people understand how to recalibrate the way they interact in a meeting is equally as important. And that's understanding, okay, we can't have a free for all of discussion in a hybrid meeting, because it'll be impossible for the virtual folks to get a word in edgewise. You have to, you know, develop some sort of turn taking policy that people have to stick with, you know, because otherwise, you're gonna have that two tiered system one more time, you know, making sure that people are aware and are willing to do pre work so that when you go into the meeting, you're at a higher level of understanding of the topic that's being discussed, being more mindful of laying out what the meeting is about having an agenda. These are all things that, you know, leaders may or may not have done. But it's mission critical now, in a hybrid setting, because there are just too many other things that you have to think about going into that meeting, and not having a plan in place is going to be really problematic.

Wendy Hanson  22:37  

Yeah. I love the idea of pre work, and certainly an agenda so that people understand, you know, what's going to be happening at the meeting. Because the other problem is you're running often from one meeting to the next. I've only heard a few companies that have said, we've made all our 30 minute meetings 25. And we've made all our 60 minute meetings 50 to respect the human body, also the ability to stand up out of your chair, because some people are sitting there all day long.

Karin Reed  23:04  

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think that I have seen some changes with that, when we were companies are starting to recognize that they have to make a change because of burnout. So that has been interesting to kind of watch from my vantage point where I, at the beginning of the pandemic, not, maybe I would say a couple months in, I was working with a client, and I was doing training for them. And it was about, you know, five minutes after the hour, and I just had a handful of people who were showing up and there were a lot more who had not yet and the person who was on the other side said, oh, yeah, that's kind of our culture, you know, 10 minutes into a meeting is actually on time for us. And I'm like, ooh, that's probably not a good idea. So I think that people are starting to recognize that, you know, giving that pad at the top is not, you know, going to lead to better productivity. But shortening the meetings, and also, having a reasonably sized agenda is important. You know, because sometimes I think people tried to take 10 pounds of information, put it into, you know, a five pound bag. And and that's, that's not going to work either. So there's been a lot of focus on how to make these meetings better, just because you have to because of the meeting isation of our of our workplace at this point. Yeah.

Wendy Hanson  24:19  

I'm also hearing when you're talking about well, we need tool training, like from it, how we do things. And then we need another training, which is, here's our new protocol, or here's how the culture is going to work when we do these meetings so that everybody can be heard. And that probably has to be repeated periodically, because we know especially the second one if they got the tools and they haven't messed them up that works. But really remembering here's the protocol for our meetings. It may be even a beginning slide on something that people say Don't forget,

Karin Reed  24:51  

what's the turn taking policy. How do you get in the conversation cue you know, don't just butt in you have to like raise your emoji hand raise your physical hand. Say in chat that you want to, you know, make a comment. And then it's up to the leader to hold people accountable to that too, because you don't want to let that, you know, get out of control. And another thing I would suggest for the leader of a hybrid meeting is to rotate how they lead that meeting, you know, sometimes lead it from a position of being in the room sometimes leave it from a position of joining virtually, because that sends a strong signal that says, Hey, your participation is valuable, regardless of where you're coming in from. And I think it's important for the leader to kind of set that tone right from the top. And the other thing that we advocate to one day is creating a team meeting agreement, which is where you kind of codify all of these different policies, you know, when do you need to have your video on when do you not need to have your video on? What is the turn taking policy, you know, how far in advance Are you going to have to submit pre work, you know, all of these things that, you know, put it on, you know, paper in air quotes there, so that people know what the expectations are, if you don't have expectations laid out. People don't know, you know, the standard that they had to hold themselves to, and and then they're not going to achieve it without being told what it is. Right. Right. Yes,

Wendy Hanson  26:15  

that's a great point. And, and, gosh, I hope companies that are listening to this, you know, take this very seriously, because it's going to make a big difference as we go forward.

Karin Reed  26:25  

Well, and the book itself has so many checklists and tools, and and, you know, that team meeting agreement, we actually have a whole long list of things to include in it, you know, and you need to pull on some resources, you know, because there are too many considerations for hybrid, that may not come to mind immediately. But whenever you look at it, you're like, oh, yeah, that would be a good thing to implement. So, you know, we really are hoping that suddenly, hybrid becomes that practical resource that people can use.

Wendy Hanson  26:55  

Yeah. And I love from having worked with you on your last book, that, you know, being taking action, after learning these things, is what you really want to see, you want people to make a change. So this is research to back it up. But I love the fact that you have checklists, and all these different things. We don't have to reinvent the wheel, you know, you can adapt the wheel, but don't reinvent it.

Karin Reed  27:17  

Right. I mean, it's really, it's, it's, it's practical advice. And you know, that that's what I like to do in my training, but also, you know, like to write about in my book, so I feel like anybody who gives time to me, you know, deserves to walk away feeling like they are better as a result immediately, you know, what can you implement immediately? And, you know, that's where I kind of take my joy. So I, you know, I do it in training, I do it in the books, and, you know, it's nice to hear what people are like, Yeah, you know, as I was reading it, I was changing things on the fly. I was suddenly virtual people were writing me and say, yeah, it just did how I have my camera, you know, and, you know, I no longer see the ceiling fan and in my shot. And I mean, that made a big difference. And like, yes, it did. But it's, it's not hard to implement or difficult to understand. It's just having your awareness raised.

Wendy Hanson  28:11  

Yeah. Well, I was fortunate, you gave me some tips today, as we got on this, even though it's an audio call, we can see each other and, and there are just little nuances. If we know them, and you have a lot of them written down in the book, we can say, oh, that's how I get the lighting, right. Oh, that's how I fit my glasses. So I don't have glare. Lots of little things that who would know. And we move so quickly, that it's not even we don't have time to research. So we are very indebted to you that you and your partner have done a lot of great research. And what one last question, and then I want you to tell us a little bit more how people can get in touch with you and things like that. But what what was your biggest surprise when you were doing the research and things? Like what was the biggest surprise that came out? Yeah.

Karin Reed  29:02  

So Joe was did a really cool study where he was looking at how people were gathering from this core group. And it was it was a pretty big group, but he asked them before the pandemic, you know, how they were meeting that he asked them during maybe four months into the pandemic, how they were gathering, and then he got to actually ask them the following year, okay, how are you gathering? And, you know, so he was able to see, okay, really face to face, mostly prior to the pandemic, mostly via video, during the pandemic. And, you know, in the most recent, you know, data gathering, we were seeing your video still holding strong and then hybrid creeping up. But what he expected to find, you know, was that hybrid meetings that were happening thus far, we're terrible, but it was just the opposite. What he found was that people found hybrid meanings, equally as effective as any other modality and oftentimes more more effective, more satisfying, with better participation across the board and less bad meeting behaviors, which was fascinating to see. Because truly, we thought, okay, this is too hard, you know, hybrid meetings are really difficult, they're going to be terrible at first. That wasn't the case, those who were actually adopting hybrid meetings and underscoring, using best practices, I found them to work really, really well. So that was a surprise to the scientist, it was a surprise to me as well, but but one that I think we should all listen to, because these hybrid meetings have a lot of promise, provided that you are a bit intentional going into it.

Wendy Hanson  30:37  

That's great. Well, I know a lot of people are going to want to read your book. And I love that, we're going to have very specific things we can learn from that. So tell people more how they can get a hold of the book and reach you. And what are some other things that you're up to, besides writing books, which are very quick at this point?

Karin Reed  30:58  

Thank you, well, well, suddenly, hybrid is out. So you can actually find it anywhere you buy books. So suddenly, hybrid, managing the modern meeting is out there and ready for you to consume. You know, we also have a companion website that goes with the book that has all the checklists, and the tools, the the frameworks that we offer that you can go to after you purchase the book, and you can access to it. And so a lot of people like that they're downloadable, and it's really easy to be able to take those and then apply it to your own organization. So suddenly, hybrid, we would love for you to purchase it, that'd be great. from a training perspective, my company once again, is speaker dynamics. And we do training in every industry vertical possible on how to manage, you know, a virtual setting how to communicate in a hybrid setting, Joe, and I've been doing a lot of joint webinars on on hybrid meetings. And it's kind of fun, because you see that collaboration come to life, whenever we're facilitating a webinar together. But really, we add speaker dynamics help people to speak with ease across any platform. So that can be in person on camera, or through virtual communication tools. And they've all been really important over the past, you know, year and a half. So thank you, I appreciate you giving the opportunity to put in that plug. But we've been very fortunate to be in the position that we've been in, have been teaching video communication for a long time having been a news anchor prior to and when the pandemic hit, you know, I went from training the executive leadership team to training the entire enterprise on how to be on camera communicators. So it's been a bit of, you know, drinking from the firehose, but gosh, what an exceptional position to be in and gratifying for sure. So

Wendy Hanson  32:47  

and really come from your your strengths and your experience. And you're just kind of remoulding them as you go forward saying, well, that's shifted. So I'm going to shift to and learn more that I could share. Well,

Karin Reed  32:59  

I think you know, that the Lifelong Learner moniker I think fits me pretty well, I. And I think that's why I enjoy journalism so much, just because I learned something new every day. And I love that stuff. So if I am intrigued by something, I have a tendency just to kind of follow that thread for a while. And, you know, there's been just so much rapid change. It's been interesting to be on the forefront of that for sure.

Wendy Hanson  33:22  

Yeah. Well, thank you, Karen. Again, I know this is not our last podcast, you'll probably have something else coming out in the future. And I love how practical your advices and that with the book, we're really going to be able to have things and just download them. Oh my God, that's wonderful. So that we can create our own checklists and make these hybrid meetings really worthwhile because they're here to stay. Yes,

Karin Reed  33:46  

they are. Wendy.

Wendy Hanson  33:48  

Life has changed. And we don't know what that's going to look like, as we said earlier, tomorrow, or in q3, q4, so Exactly,

Karin Reed  33:55  

exactly. Well, it's been great talking to you. Thank you so much for having me.

Wendy Hanson  34:00  

Oh, thank you. And thank you all for listening. And I hope you've gotten a lot of good advice out of this. So get make sure you pay attention to the people that are that are remote so that you can lower them in. I love some of Karen's ideas about that. So have a wonderful day everybody be well.

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