Three times last week people contacted me to ask if we could move our in-person meetings to online ones. In every case it was people that I had previously met and therefore it felt absolutely fine for our coaching and mentoring work to move onto Zoom.
It’s interesting though that this comes after several weeks where every meeting, on pretty much every topic, has been in person. Is the novelty wearing off, and as things get busier are we going to revert back to online meetings to save time? Is that a good thing? Is it really about creating greater flexibility? Where is the balance between effective working and being Zoomed out?
There seems to be little research published on the topic to guide us. One piece, by IMD professor Robert Hooijberg describes a future of work that “multimodal”. He suggests that virtual coordination works for tasks such as establishing goals, monitoring progress and sharing information, and face-to-face interaction, is vital for innovation, and collaboration within organizations.
Or it could just be that the attraction of meeting outdoors has faded with the onset of cooler, wetter weather.
References
Hooijberg, R. (2022). Stop Zoom bashing and master the hybrid world of work. IMD. 4 January.
Stop Zoom bashing and master the hybrid world of work
by Robert HooijbergPublished 4 January 2022 in Leadership
Comments