Who’s on Your Virtual Call?
Imagine the scene. You’re in another Zoom breakout room looking at a sea of faces, and you notice Alice’s eyes suddenly dart downwards and her eyes narrow. You’re aware she’s not really paying attention & is distracted – what might it mean? You can see that Duncan hasn’t turned his camera on today yet he’s normally the first to arrive with a virtual background behind him, you wonder if he is ok.
And then there’s the quieter Peter, whose voice is today quite clipped, curt and you notice he’s not making any eye contact & isn’t really engaging. By contrast, there’s Fiona whose effusive hand gestures block her face on screen, whose energy is overwhelming and who wants to fill the space with chatter. She’s not normally like this so what’s going on there?
Video calls aren’t natural
Video conferencing calls are now how we do business but it’s an un-natural way to communicate. It’s not natural to stare so intently at the person who is speaking and to hold eye contact for so long. I don’t know about you but, in my years of working in offices meeting people face to face every day, I never turned round as I was leaving a meeting and waved at everyone! Somehow, it’s what we do now on video calls!
Reading people is much harder virtually because you only have a head & shoulder image to read, rather than someone’s whole person. Body language & how someone speaks are suddenly more important but it’s not something we typically think about.
Are you aware of your own style?
- Do you ever stop & think about how you come across on video calls?
- Are you aware of your own body language?
- Have you ever thought about what your verbal style & body language says about you?
- Do you adapt your style to better suit who you’re chatting to or are you the same all the time?
Would you like to understand how to communicate better on these calls? How to interpret different body language clues?
Help is at hand!
If so, then my upcoming workshop “Who’s on your Virtual Call?” on 11th March is designed just for you. It’s a 2.5 hour Zoom workshop where we will explore communication style, both yours and others’, body language, verbal style and how it has been impacted by virtual working. I’ve run this workshop recently with larger businesses and had great feedback so I’ve decided to open it out to individuals, small business owners and solopreneurs. I’m making this course available at an introductory price of £49 and tickets are available on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/141271126743
Tickets are limited as I want to make sure everyone has a chance to engage and get involved so don’t miss out!
I hope to see you there!
