In recent years I’ve polled hundreds of people about their work in the digital age. This week, it’s what’s irritating about video?
When people:
- Don’t acknowledge others on the other side of the monitor.
- Constantly look bored or continuously check their cellphone.
- Don’t speak up.
- Use cellphones to call which is usually a poorer connection.
- Join in late.
- Don’t set up pre-call arrangements and end up having to spend call time dealing with equipment or call setup issues.
- Invite too many people to get on the video.
- Have poor backlighting and contrast.
- Talk louder than necessary.
- Are not aware of their body language.
- Don’t smile.
- Have a background that is too busy or distracting.
- On the other end start multi-tasking.
- Talk over others.
- Don’t mute their phone when appropriate.
- Move excessively in and out of view.
- Make statements like, “I know you probably can’t see this…” but then goes on to explain a graph or picture without giving details along with the point, i.e. “as you see here the numbers are…” versus “this graph shows a 30% growth rate”.
- Don’t pay attention, fidget with laptop and cellphones.
- Only speak to folks in the room not the people on the other side of the monitor too.
- Talk all over each other because of time delay.
- Are obviously having private side conversations.
- Don’t look at the camera; act stiffly around it.
- Shuffle papers noisily.
- Do not pay attention to personal appearance.
- Don’t operate the data systems correctly.
- Eat or drink while on the call.
- Use too much hand gesturing.
Now that you are reminded, reframe from doing the above!
