How To Manage Hybrid Meetings

Hybrid meetings are becoming the new norm. Making hybrid meetings work well requires planning, preparation and know-how – skillsets that are different from managing traditional face-to-face meetings. Fortunately, the new book, Suddenly Hybrid: Managing The Modern Meeting, supplies leaders a practical guidebook that clearly outlines what works and what does not work when planning and managing hybrid meetings.

“We encourage you to not read the book passively but rather to actively engage with it by using its tools to assess yourself and your organization,” share the authors Karin M. Reed and Joseph A. Allen, PHD. Those tools include checklists and chapter takeaways.

Hybrid meetings, the new norm for many companies, are much more complex in terms of how people are connected versus the traditional face-to-face meeting. Hybrid meetings are where some people are in the same room, and some are linked in remotely. Some are face-to-face while others are connected via telephone, videoconference, or both.

“Now the environment includes paying attention to the people you’re physically with, the people on the phone, and the people on camera. Accordingly, the cognitive load for these meetings can quickly become immense,” the authors explain.

The book details how to:

Do the extra pre-work you will need to take in advance of your hybrid meeting
Develop strategies to get people talking
Prevent the “meeting after the meeting”
Combat video fatigue and multitasking
Avoid potential pitfalls when leading a hybrid meeting

Reed is CEO of Speaker Dynamics. She is an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist. She now focuses on helping business professionals to be confident communicators on any platform – in person, on camera, or through virtual communication tools.

Allen is Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Utah. His research focus is on the study of workplace meetings, organizational community engagement, and occupational safety and health.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

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