Dear Crucial Skills,
I need help addressing crosstalk in virtual meetings. During meetings I can see people trying to discreetly type and I can see facial expressions. I’m trying to ignore it and not let it bother me, but it’s distracting, and I fear its hurting morale. To be candid, I think it’s immature, unprofessional, and it feels like middle school behavior, but I don’t know how to address this or if I even should. What’s the best way to handle this?
Signed,
Virtual Traffic Coordinator
Dear Virtual Traffic Coordinator,
Virtual meetings have become a mainstay in today’s hybrid work culture. They also bring with them unique challenges. It can be especially difficult to manage distractions and crosstalk. When attendees interrupt, speak over others, or drift into chat pod side conversations, it can be frustrating, unproductive, and even impact team morale.
More impactful than the behavior itself may be the stories that we begin to tell ourselves about those engaging in the behavior. We may begin to see them as uncaring, immature, and unprofessional. These stories can lead to feelings of resentment and even damaged relationships.
To help master our stories, what if we viewed leading a meeting like directing traffic at a busy intersection during rush hour? Everyone has somewhere more important to be. They have their own opinions, ideas, and objectives. It can get out of control quickly. Crosstalk, side chats, and competing conversations are like cars trying to run red lights, weave in and out of lanes, and ignore stop signs. This is more than traffic control – it’s about safety and progress.
Here are a few guiding questions you can ask yourself to help navigate and address virtual distractions:
- What story am I telling myself about those engaging in the behavior?
- What’s a more generous story I could tell myself?
- How do I create safety to address the issue?
- What specific, observable facts can I use to describe the behavior?
- What invitation can I make to move toward better outcomes?
Let’s view it through the lens of a traffic coordinator.
ESTABLISH THE RULES
As the virtual traffic coordinator, set the tone for the meetings early by establishing the “rules of the intersections” or “rules of engagement.” Some suggestions may include:
- One voice at a time
- Everyone gets a turn
- Call on people by name
- Use virtual tools like hand-raising
- Use good chat queues
MAP THE MEANING
It’s important that you give purpose to the established rules. When everyone enters the conversation with the same purpose, collaboration flows smoothly. The easiest way to figure out the purpose is to ask yourself, “What do I really want for our meetings? For my team? For myself?” Possible answers to these questions include:
- I want everyone to feel seen and heard.
- I want collaboration, contribution, and synergy.
- I want my team to know I care.
- I want to accomplish the goals and tasks our team has been assigned.
- I want ___________ (fill in the blank).
SHARE THE MAP
It won’t be enough for you to know what you really want. Make sure everyone on the team knows the why. You may also want to include them in the process of establishing the rules and mapping the meaning.
DIRECT THE TRAFFIC
When coordinating traffic, your signals matter. You need to navigate meetings with confidence. Avoid being vague or passive, otherwise attendees won’t know when to go or when to yield.
If two or more people speak at once (crosstalk), treat it like two cars reaching a stop sign at the same time. Give direction and keep it neutral. This may sound something like, “I hear multiple voices trying to speak. Stacy, why don’t you go first and then we will circle back to Alex.”
USE STOP SIGNS
Sometimes you have to stop the traffic. This can be especially true when someone is dominating the lane or creating distractions. Don’t be afraid to bring the conversation back to the main topic when someone gets off track. Or to pause to make sure others who haven’t had a chance to speak are given the chance to do so.
HANDLE THE DETOURS
Side conversations in the chat or off-topic comments can be like side roads or U-turns that slow down the meeting. Address these conversations without emotion and stay focused on facts. You may choose to do it in the moment to the group. Regardless, remember the guiding questions shared above. It’s important in these conversations to master your stories, create safety to hear the message, focus on facts, and invite them to share.
The next time your virtual meeting feels like a six-way intersection at rush hour, remember—you are the traffic coordinator. Establish the rules, map the meaning, share the map, direct the traffic, use stop signs, and handle the detours. Doing so will help you create productive meetings where everyone gets where they need to go.
How have you navigated the virtual traffic jams in your meetings? Please add to the discussion by sharing your ideas.
I think one important reflection is missing, the mirror.
Look at the meeting from the point of view of the audience:
Is it pertinent to them, not just to you?
Are people truly invited to engage, which, by definition, must mean disagreeing with you? (Disagreement is the greatest form of respect; someone is listening and cares enough to speak.)
Do you talk at people?
Look in the mirror first.
The feeling I got while reading through this article was that these people need a get together where they can have their side bars and chit chats. Let them have their social hour…at another time? Or possibly say something along the lines of “I can see everyone wants some chit chat time – let’s push through the agenda in the next 15 minutes and then I’ll leave so you can have the rest of this hour to catch up with each other, give me a thumbs up emoji if this sounds good to you”
Addressing the “side issues” directly with those who exhibit unfocused behaviors is the best practice, but do so on a one-to-on basis.
We have an associate who would show up to virtual meetings dripping is sweat after his daily runs. He even did this in front of high-level guest speakers.
I let him know, privately, that there was “side chatter” about his behavior and let him know that it was distracting (at best) and unprofessional (at worst). He received the admonition well.
Another example is perceived “bullying” corrections in front of an entire group of meeting attendees, instead of mentoring or providing guidance. This one is better handled from the manager, as to avoid further friction/conflict.
. . . dripping with sweat . . .
You’
My post didn’t go through… my thought here is that you’re getting feedback about the meeting itself. Are there too many meetings? Not everything has to be a meeting. Meetings should be for things that need discussion, not status updates, for example.
My other thought is that you could develop a different approach to use of cameras. For some meetings, especially presentations, it should be ok to turn off the camera when in listening mode. We then turn them on as a signal we have something to say (like raising a hand). Permission to turn off cameras may save you and others a lot of stress.
Heads up: early research indicates that virtual teams with cross-talk are higher performing!
Yes, you read that correctly. It’s a sign that team members are engaged and relational.
Engage and adapt.
First, I might ask if the agenda is relevant and interesting enough to keep people’s attention. If not make it so. The suggestion for rules is important. Use the RESPECT model and have everyone who attends these meeting sign off their agreement to abide by the rules. Then hold everyone to the rules. If is distracting to you it is distracting to everyone. Could assign a role to one of the members to monitor behavior and have authority to bring everyone back to the agenda. Can also have a soft toy that can be tossed to the person who is distracting everyone. It is embarrassing, I suppose, but effective. If it is habitual take a timeout until the behavior stops or meet with the person afterwards to explain the rules again.
I would respectfully disagree with the statement “If it’s distracting to you it is distracting to everyone.” People can be very different in their mental and communicative styles; many people thrive in an environment with side chatter. Others struggle with distraction. There are very few things about which you can assume that everyone’s reaction will be the same, in fact!
In addition to different mental styles and personalities, etc., people have different cultural expectations of the rules of engagement in our evolving tech world. As some of the other comments on this article demonstrate, there are some evolving norms in some workplaces that using the chat feature in a virtual meeting is not only acceptable, but sometimes even courteous and helpful. This is certainly in the case in my tech-focused workplace. The question is not so much whether people are chatting, but how, and what the impact is on the meeting agenda.
You can disable the chat, was my first thought, if it’s really a problem. However, those people having side conversations might actually be trying to be considerate by not interrupting the person speaking. Some people are also more comfortable communicating via chat and might be doing so because of social anxiety. I think the most important thing is you have a conversation as a group about it. Having chat-on-sound-off time and chat-off-sound-on time could help.