Connection in the time of coronavirus: five ways to make your video calls work for you

I’ve spent the past 20 years honing this exact skill set to help people show up with their A game on the phone and on video. I’m going to show you the five secrets of great calls so you can use the COVID-19 lockdown to build your skills for the digital age.

1. Think little and often, short and sweet

These days, physical distance doesn’t have to mean emotional distance. But as author Simon Sinek suggests, it does mean that we lose the tiny connection-building interactions at work that we’d have had in the office. Replicate them by making your calls little and often; Sinek suggests virtual morning or evening huddles to keep the trust and emotional closeness. Keep calls short and sweet too.

Virtual calls should be at least 50 per cent shorter than face to face meetings. With clients, keep the short and sweet principle too — that hour meeting face to face might need to be revisited as a 30-minute call. And no one ever minds if you finish early.

2. Look after the group dynamic

Good calls are calls where you hear all voices, making sure that everyone speaks rather than letting a couple of loquacious types dominate.

Be firm with the over-talker and look after the group dynamic. If you don’t move things on as host, you quickly lose their focus. Honour the needs of the whole group by saying, ‘Thank you. Great idea, John, and as we are giving equal time to everyone, let’s now move on to Rachel.’

Know this: if you don’t have time to hear all voices then you have too many people on the call. As a rule, don’t invite anyone who you don’t need a contribution from.

3. Plan like a pro

So often remote meetings are scrambled and ad hoc as everyone rocks up to the call reeling from their inbox. I want to encourage you to show up with the preparedness of a podcast/radio host and you will find that you get a lot more from calls — as any producer will tell you, the more structured things are, the more you can relax and connect in the moment.

• Prep your intro and outro: clarify the purpose of the call and what you want to achieve. Think about timings carefully and commit to sticking to them on the call.

• Contributors: once your timings are clear, you can then let people know in advance what you want them to contribute and how much time they have. It makes for a much richer discussion if people have had time to think in advance.

• Structure in segments: to keep your audience engaged think like a good radio producer and plan short segments of content. Think about how you give each a different energy vocally — serious, upbeat, thoughtful, like good broadcast. A relaxed rehearsal can be really helpful — voice notes is a good tool to check in on your vocal energy before the call.

4. Find your calm

It’s so tempting when working from home to procrastinate until two minutes before the call and then suddenly have to scramble. This is a mistake. You know the tech will let you down. Or you will let the tech down and forget how to unmute yourself. Or your headphones will be down the back of the sofa. Don’t do it to yourself. Schedule enough time before the call to log in and get set up. If you’re on video, check what everyone else can see around you — is your space tidy? Check you look together too — at least from the desk up.

5. Have them at hello

As you dial in make sure you start strong. A good rule for calls is ‘go first’ — creating the energy you want the call to have. It starts with your ‘hello’. Research has shown that people respond best to a smile in the voice on the phone — even if they can’t see you. Make sure that your first words are upbeat and energised, and that you maintain that energy on the call.

When your calls are upbeat and focused, you are much more likely to maintain trust and connection with colleagues and clients while the world gets to grips with coronavirus. And you will set yourself up for a new way of working that may well be here to stay. And when you think about the benefits to the climate and to the bottom line of businesses, more telecommuting and less carbon-fuelled commuting could be a very good thing indeed.

Caroline Goyder’s new book, Find Your Voice: The Secret To Talking With Confidence In Any Situation, is out now (£12.99; Vermilion)