Under en af vores daglige gåture havde vi inviteret en god ven, der er leder i en større kommune, med.
Vi kan kalde hende Dorthe. Hun fortalte følgende historie:
“Jeg arbejder rigtig meget for tiden. Faktisk har jeg planlagte onlinemøder fra otte morgen til tidligst 16 – hver dag. Og det bliver mere og mere umuligt at skelne dem fra hinanden”
Vi har alle sammen svært ved at huske hvad der er blevet talt om på hvilket møde, hvem der var med og hvornår det var. Og det er fordi alle møderne ligner hinanden. Man har ikke noget at hænge sin hukommelse op på.”
“Everything takes longer because all meetings flow together. And EVERYTHING is a meeting or in writing; nothing is informal and fast. - Municipal leader
It is not a unique case that people are getting tired of the virtual meetings, has difficulty concentrating and has difficulty distinguishing them from each other. We hear it from several in our network, especially in this round of COVID-19 shutdown. The virtual office is so yesterday's news, and for some people who work internationally, the virtual office has been the new normal since March, and they are tired.
Virtual team fatigue
Microsoft har samlet viden ind siden pandemiens start og kommer frem til den – ikke overraskende – konklusion at virtual meeting fatigue er en særdeles virkelig og meget almindelig ting. Det er der flere årsager til, bl.a. at det kræver væsentlig mere energi for os at koncentrere os i den virtuelle verden, hvor vi både er overdrevent opmærksomme på hvordan vi selv tager os ud på skærmen, hvordan der ser ud hjemme hos kollegerne og eventuelle forstyrrelser i deres og vores eget bagland.
But it is only the tip of the iceberg, for there are deeper reasons why we become exhausted. Associate professor at Insead, Gianpiero Petriglieri, describes what we might call “virtual dissonance,” in that our brains are together, but our bodies experience that we are not. Dissonance between what the brain experiences and what the body experiences costs an incredible amount of energy.
“I spoke to an old therapist friend … and finally understood why everyone’s so exhausted after the video calls. It’s the plausible deniability of each other’s absence. Our minds tricked into the idea of being together when our bodies feel we’re not.” – Gianpiero Petriglieri
We also need to work even harder to decode non-verbal cues in virtual meetings. As our friend Dorthe says, "You can't feel the room in the same way." EVERYTHING must therefore be communicated verbally when we can not in the same way read body language and facial expressions. This means that it everything moves slower - to the great frustration of some.
Another challenge that our friend told us about is that there are no visual markers to pin the memory on. After a day of virtual meetings uninterrupted for 8 hours, it is completely impossible to distinguish them from each other.
Ok, that sound like an absolute bummer. Isn't there something we can do?
Of course there is, just read on:
- Take a break, for crying out load! Some research shows that we concentrate better when we only need to for a short time and get some active breaks. Use, for example, the POMODORO technique, where you work concentrated on a task for a maximum of 20 minutes before taking a 5-minute break. After 4 "pomodori", the brain needs a half hour break to recharge. Use your brain in a markedly different way by doing ten push ups, going for a walk, doing Jumping Jacks, or putting on “Night Fever” and dance like nobody's watching. This also applies in team meetings.
- Don't multitask. It is directly detrimental to your concentration and productivity. A new study from Stanford University shows that faced with three simple tasks, people who multitask a lot perform significantly worse than people who do not multitask a lot. - So stop thinking that you can read an email, send a text, write a shopping list and listen to what happens in the meeting, because you can't. Not at all.
- Make sure you can't see yourself on the screen. Studies show that we focus a lot of our energy on staring at ourselves and being preoccupied with how we look on screen. Eliminate the distraction by removing your own image from the screen and using a neutral background so that your collection of cat-plates does not distract your colleagues.
- Use only the phone once in a while, so that you can get away from the screen - prioritise between Zoom, email and phone. Everything doesn't have to take place on Zoom. Maybe a conference call can be attended during a walk?
- Team check - make sure to set aside time to listen to where the team members are once a week, to get a quick sense of each other, Where are you on the motivation and energy barometer? Psychological well-being and professional well-being thus go hand in hand in teamwork and in all collaboration. The personal affects the professional and vice versa.
- Brain breakers In your regular team meetings, team members can take turns to make "brain breakers", eg a fun object, a fun fact, an active break or something along those lines - "oh yes, that was the meeting Bente brought a pink rubber duck. I remember we agreed on xyz". This way we make an anchor, or a visual marker - you can, for example, name the meeting after the object. That way we avoid everything "zooming" together.
- Social Hang Out … Do not undereestimate the social aspect and community. Teams and collaboration depend on continuous interaction and recognition and feeling that one is a part of something. Introduce a social event online or live depending on the opportunities, weekly, every two weeks or monthly. It's up to you, as long as it happens. For example, you can let responsibility for the event rotate between team members. And yes it is mandatory to attend, so schedule it during working hours.
What does the future look like?
Virtual meetings are here to stay, no doubt about it, but there is one biological human factor we need to deal with: we are not built to be chained in front of a 17”screen 8-10 hours a day. In fact, we can not stand it. There are different scenarios one can think about:
- For example, should we work fewer hours a day if work includes a monitor?
- Should we consider 4 days working week which is implemented in some companies already?
- Will the significant improvements on digital platforms and equipment, for instance full-blown VR, enable us to deceive the senses sufficiently so that we no longer experience the virtual dissonance?
Whatever the future holds, have the talk in your teams, brainstorm on how to make each other better and support each other positively and maintain a good work climate. Get out and get some fresh air and do some exercise. Keep up the good work and stay safe.
Notes:
Article from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2020/07/16/three-cures-for-virtual-meeting-fatigue-according-to-new-microsoft-research/
Article from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200421-why-zoom-video-chats-are-so-exhausting
Article from Frontiers: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00589/full
Artikel fra Stanford: https://news.stanford.edu/2009/08/24/multitask-research-study-082409/ and https://news.stanford.edu/2020/10/28/poor-memory-tied-attention-lapses-media-multitasking/