Regular readers of this blog have heard that I went “over the hill” this summer: I turned 60. It’s been quite a ride!
Along with taking time to reflect on the journey this far, I’ve started culling through my extensive library, passing on books I don’t need to carry with me for the next decade, and reclaiming those I can’t live without. One I can’t live without is Homer’s Odyssey. Curiously, re-reading this ancient story over the last couple of weeks has given me some new insights about our modern lives – including things like remote work and virtual meetings. One seems particularly useful. You tell me…
Time changes many things, but one thing that’s never changed is that human beings need to interact socially and work together in order to accomplish all but the most rudimentary tasks.
We need to build meaningful relationships, bond with co-workers and clients, align people around key messages and directions, nourish collaboration and innovation, share information and knowledge with one another, and encourage each others’ contributions and accomplishments. Right?
Over the last 40 years, the human journey from the Industrial Age to the Information Age has spawned national economies that are at once more complex and more interdependent. And these economies require more people – across the globe – to work together. At the same time, individuals, families, local economies, and the Earth itself, are struggling mightily to adapt to this increasing complexity and interdependence.
Since the end of World War II, people across the Western world have simply assumed that we can and will travel healthy distances almost every day to work together face-to-face. But both local and global travel are expensive, both in time and dollars spent. And travel fills the air with carbon byproducts. After fifty-plus years of explosive growth in human travel, the specter of climate change grows darker and heavier every day, across the globe.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
So, we’re “between a rock and a hard place,” as the saying goes. Human beings need each other’s help more than ever to accomplish complex tasks we cannot do on our own. At the same time, neither our individual pocketbooks, nor our organizations, nor our fragile planet can afford for the whole human race to travel around all the time so we can work together in the same place.
It’s a difficult passage, this transition to the 21st century.
The difficulty of the passage is quite similar, actually, to the difficulty of a passage the classical hero, Odysseus, had to make as he journeyed home to Troy a few thousand years ago. In fact, it was the difficulty of Odysseus’ passage between the Scylla and Charybdis that be the progenitor of our modern phrase, “between a rock and a hard place.”
In case you don’t remember, on his way home to Troy, Odysseus faced – and overcame – many perils. During one of the toughest, he had to pass through a strait flanked by twin terrors. On one side was a whirlpool, called Charybdis, which would sink the ship. On the other side of the strait was a monster called Scylla, the six-headed daughter of Crataeis, who would seize and eat six men. Neither side was going to yield an easy passage for Odysseus.
And, as we journey together into the 21st century, we’re navigating between two equally tough choices, as well. We’re passing between Scylla and Charybdis every time we have to choose between meeting with people face-to-face (incurring the associated costs – both in time and money) and meeting with people virtually (foregoing opportunities to read body language and facial expressions and bond with others – physically and emotionally – in familiar and time-honored ways).
Just as Odysseus had to make one bad choice or another, as we sail deeper into the complex waters of 21st century work, we have to make a sacrifice, too. Odysseus chose to pass closer to the Scylla, allowing her to take six of his men, instead of chancing losing the whole ship in the whirlpool of the Charybdis.
Every time we have to chose between conserving capital and expanding the reach of our services, we have to decide to drop irreplaceable cash and time into the whirlpool or sacrifice a fully-embodied experience with others. And, frankly, there just aren’t any good choices. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or fantasizing.
Face-to-face meetings are absolutely crucial for some social transactions. Online meetings are actually better for some transactions than face-to-face meetings. But, when you’re passing through the choppy, muddy waters between those two extremes, we all simply have to make some tough choices, just like Odysseus.
5 Questions to Sharpen Up Your Virtual Meeting Chops
So, what’s my best advice for those times in the middle? While I’m certainly no Tiresias, I am training my clients to use five fundamental questions to help them make tough choices about how they’re going to use web conferences as effectively as they would once have used face-to-face meetings – so they can pocket time and money for other things.
I urge you, too, to use these questions to clarify your virtual meeting plans and strategies:
These are tough questions. And the answers can’t be finessed. If you’re going to accomplish your goals using virtual meetings, you need to know – and use – the answers to these questions to structure your meetings as well as your between-meeting-communication. Any lack of clarity about any of this will compromise your chances of skirting the dangers.
Don’t kid yourself! People who are not actively developing their skills at using virtual meeting rooms as real-time multi-media communication “devices,” are in real peril as we journey deeper into the 21st Century. The good news is, with good help, developing online meeting skills is not that difficult.
My little e-book, “The Coach’s Short List,” is available if you want a solid set of simple structures to help you get started.
So, what insights does this simple metaphor stimulate for you?
