Only 15 inches
Video Meeting Culture
Martin Bartels
16 October 2020
In recent months most of us have rushed from one online video meeting to another. Some of these meetings we have found frustrating, others not.
Online meetings will remain with us after Covid both because the conferencing technology has reached a high standard and their potential for greater efficiency and savings has become obvious. There will soon be more physical meetings again, but rather as an exception.
It is therefore appropriate to think carefully about new forms of communication that will be a part of our everyday professional lives for the foreseeable future. After all, we strive to work in a way that fosters progress and success. And we are slowly realising that we can achieve much more with video meetings. Thus, we should aim for these meetings to be as effective as possible.
In line with our habits we have transferred both good and bad working practices from the pre-Covid era to the post-Covid era. This also applies to meetings, wherein Covid has exacerbated existing difficulties. We should strive to seize the opportunity to adjust our working practices to the new possibilities and constraints.
The proposals presented in this paper are pragmatic. They are based on the acceptance of practical necessities and are derived from observations. In addition, empirical findings by specialists are helpful in this context. In the end it is empiricism that counts, not personal preference.
This article is focused on professional events, e.g. board and business meetings, shareholder meetings, scientific conferences and sales pitches.
Why we need meetings
The professional meeting is the appropriate place to gather people who together have the ability to perform specific tasks. It is about presenting proposals for good decisions, improving them, deciding on them and bringing them to fruition. The meeting also has the purpose of assessing the implementation of previously made decisions and to modify them if necessary. It can also be used to exchange information and experiences that are not available outside the meeting.
After a constructive meeting, the participants are satisfied because they have enjoyed the movement towards a goal and know what they have to do by when as well as why it is necessary. Good meetings are incentives for good work.
The shift to video meetings is not radical
There is no reason to jettison proven practices
https://hbr.org/1976/03/how-to-run-a-meeting
and throw away fruitful modern conclusions coming out of organisational psychology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oeoy3zCgTHU
and empirical research on process management.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmV6_fH5NkU
Classic approaches still apply to a large extent. And the event management industry is showing its ability to adapt, but at higher cost levels:
We owe a debt of gratitude to the programmers who have developed the now high standard of conference technology. They have been working for years with sophisticated messaging systems, acoustic and visual networks, through which they distribute tasks, track progress, exchange assessments, and complement each other in a flexible way, regardless of the place of work. They work as if they were taking part in meetings all day long. In their work environment, brevity and accuracy are virtues. Their technical tasks do not make them models for the business world, but pioneers.
In what respect is the DNA of video meetings different from physical ones?
The choice of the appropriate technology and its correct use can be debated,
https://www.techradar.com/best/best-video-conferencing-software
but there is no bottleneck here.
Participants are free to choose where they wish to meet. The place can be their own flat, the office, a hotel room or a business centre. It is only important that fast internet is available and that focus and discretion are guaranteed. This new and previously underappreciated flexibility creates room for manoeuvre in terms of time and place. It increases efficiency.
The visual contact with participants and shared documents is much worse than in the old world, because it is confined to a fixed frame of usually only 15 inches. This permanent limitation goes strongly against human nature, and reading texts and numbers and even facial expressions takes effort and patience. Smaller print on the screen is barely legible. Fatigue sets in earlier than in physical meetings. Fatigue lowers the probability of making good decisions.
Acoustics are transmitted via small loudspeakers or a headset. This is also of lower quality than in a physical meeting.
Commonalities that are helpful for finding consensus among people, such as drinking coffee or eating snacks together, are not possible.
The following comparison is therefore apt: Less water can be passed through a thinner pipe than through a thicker one.
The above inevitable constraints suggest that there is no reason to think that everything has got better now. They can be mitigated with even better technology, but not eliminated. They imply that it has become more difficult to convince participants with pertinent arguments and to reach them on the emotional level.
The firm interim conclusion is that it is necessary to compensate for the technical constraints.
Preparation
In the past, thorough preparation has always been a good foundation for meetings leading to good results. However, in the case of video meetings, additional preparation can help address the constraints mentioned, helping to take full advantage of the new medium. The necessary change includes the overdue reduction of weaknesses from the old world of physical meetings.
In effect, this means that the leader of the video meeting has much more responsibility than in physical meetings. The role is comparable with the conductor of a symphony orchestra. The conductor knows the requirements of the audience and the critics, (s)he selects the musicians for the instruments, (s)he knows their strengths and the patterns of their interaction, and (s)he plans exactly how to ensure success through proper interplay. The conductor makes the decisive contributions to the success of the concert before and after the performance.
Goal setting:
Goal setting is always primarily about activity. So, items that trigger the activity of participants and are of practical use to the outside world (clients, company, organisation) must dominate the meeting. Unclear goals lead nowhere and impair the motivation of the participants. Tasks resulting from the preparatory dialogue between the chairperson and a specialist must be clear enough for the specialist to be able to work out an easily understandable and consensus-oriented proposal: workflow, time, resources, expenditure.
Submissions for set goals:
The participant responsible for an item should send her or his substantiated submission to the participants a few days before the meeting. These can then concentrate on their preparation and clarify some or most of the questions bilaterally.
Form of submissions:
Strictly logical thinking is always suspected of distancing itself from reality, which cannot always be logical. The objection is fair. On the other hand, the serious effort to bring a maximum of logical order into a text is always helpful. The participants understand quickly and can put forward their arguments. In the new context this is more important than before.
Powerpoint has the advantage that this medium meets the natural human need for colours and images. In physical meetings Powerpoint is often used massively. However, it is an illusion that viewers can still understand the logic of the argumentation after a few slides. Even the highest intelligence will then only take up individual aspects.
“Cognitive Load Theory”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stJ-MkTgRFs
provides valuable information on how to reduce the substance of presentations to a level that is still understandable.
Distributing a Powerpoint presentation to the participants in a video meeting in advance eases the difficulty somewhat, but not completely.
The transmission of many slides in a video conference (screen sharing) makes a discussion at a high professional level difficult, simply because the participants can only follow via a small screen.
There are respectable institutions and companies, inter alia Amazon, that have banned Powerpoint altogether
https://tomtunguz.com/written-board-meetings/
These institutions usually require concise memos of not more than 6 pages instead. Yes, such a tight framework can make even the best specialist sweat. But this argument also applies to the authors of Japanese haikus consisting of only three or four lines. However, their impact can be overwhelming.
The use of Excel spreadsheets only in a video conference is even more doubtful. It is hardly possible to correctly grasp numbers in the small space available and to react to them intelligently. In any case, participants need to have such documents on their screens a few days before the meeting.
Form of exchanges:
Since video meeting technologies allow only one speaker at a time, it is difficult to maintain a fluent dialogue, and silent characters become even more silent. Nevertheless, their knowledge is important for the quality of the results. Therefore, the leader of the meeting has to make sure, more than in a physical meeting, that each participant is consulted.
Agenda:
The agenda, distributed at an early stage, therefore consists of items on which decisions are to be taken, each accompanied by an annex containing a proposal, and references to reports, the contents of which are briefly summarised. Every item on the agenda needs to be conducive to action. Only short messages or concise reports should be an exception.
Timeline
There is a lot of research on how long participants in an event can maintain their attention under normal conditions (not via the screen):
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/advan.00109.2016
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-09311-w
This capability may also be impaired by the increasing influence of the media on our perception:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190415081959.htm
https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/
At the Congresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, delegates listened to monotonous and agonising speeches for many hours, always staying wide awake and showing enthusiasm. No one complained about difficulties with comprehension.
There are credible people who are firmly convinced that they followed and enjoyed every minute of Richard Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelungs", which lasts over 15 hours (with breaks).
These unusual groups of people have not yet been the object of scientific research. And I have never met anyone from either example in a physical or video meeting. It would therefore not be appropriate to infer requirements for participants in video meetings from their unusual skills.
The ideal duration of a video meeting can therefore only be described in such a way that a brevity of perhaps one hour is a desirable goal. Within this framework, the engagement of most participants should be able to remain constant. One of the pillars of this proposal is “C. Northcote Parkinson's law”,
https://memory.ai/timely-blog/what-parkinsons-law-can-teach-companies-about-productivity
which states that the given time frame effectively incites people to accomplish their assignments within it. Conversely, the work for a task expands to fill the time allotted to it.
If it is not possible to deal with a complex issue in one meeting, a second meeting should be held quickly.
The end of cosiness
We must recognise that participants in video meetings can only live up to their responsibilities if a large part of the work is done before or after the meeting either individually, in couples or in small groups. Of course this is regrettable, but there is no other way to achieve efficiency. Efficiency is an obligation, not an option.
The horse-drawn carriage was closer to human nature than the car. And yet it became a rarity, simply because it is slower. The quote “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” is attributed to Henry Ford. Its authenticity is controversial, and yet it fits the situation we face today.
To set the stage
Lao Tzu’s words sum up a dramatic contemporary scenario: While in some parts of the world people are increasingly affected by water scarcity, others face the growing threat of too much water due to extremely heavy rainfall and rising sea levels.
While the poem captures the ambivalence of water perfectly, the words "soft and weak" also seem to describe the way modern civilisations have responded to it. Their foggy perception and sluggish action is just as dangerous as the threats themselves.
Why Water?
The focus of this essay is to use the prominent example of water to help identify concrete approaches for dealing rationally with the issue of climate change. Climate change affects us in many ways, including the expansion of deserts, forest fires, the salinisation of soils, landslides, extreme weather events, agricultural crop losses, loss of biodiversity, spread of disease and human and wildlife migration.
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Scientists and engineers have laid the foundations for our prosperity. And only these elites can show us the way to overcome the harmful externalities of these very engines of our wealth. This article supports the thesis that we are technologically and organisationally in a position to successfully meet these challenges, step by step.
One obstacle to the mobilisation of existing resources lies in the fact that the general public has only a vague understanding of the issue. They do not realise that, unless we make controlled sacrifices, nature will impose uncontrollable sacrifices on us.
We urgently need to overcome the human tendency to trivialise and understand with our minds and hearts what will happen if we do not listen to the guidance of our scientists and engineers. However, while these experts hold the keys to the right strategies, they are only trained to communicate with other scientists. This leads to a situation of misunderstanding and therefore a lack of adequate action.
Blurred perception of facts
Every day, we are all exposed to an overdose of reports about minor and major disasters in all forms of media. We more or less defend ourselves against this by ignoring some news, i.e. reducing the strain on our nerves by filtering information. It is human nature to rely on the mostly correct assumption that unpleasant developments will eventually end and change for the better. In the case of climate change, however, looking away and hoping things resolve themselves doesn’t appear to be a winning strategy.
A wealth of scientific analyses on climate change is available to everyone, but these are mostly comprehensible only for other scientists.
We should openly acknowledge that most people in the northern hemisphere have a sense of empathy for people "in the south" who are plagued by overpowering rains, flooded lowlands, islands disappearing into the water, eroding coastlines or droughts. However, the geographical distance and lack of awareness of the frequency of such disasters dilute solidarity. Collective psychological repression can set in quickly.
Most people in the northern hemisphere do not consider an increase in average temperatures of a few degrees to be alarming. Many even express relief that the winter is often milder than in the past. Loud protests by campaigners are experienced and understood by most citizens as a disturbance or perhaps exaggerated fearmongering.
At the level of policy, scientifically informed decision-makers attend international conferences on climate change, where they negotiate with other decision-makers on action plans that have no teeth but are presented as hard-won progress. And they are increasingly supporting “green” sectors of the economy. However, they are often reluctant to share the full extent of their knowledge about the problem because they do not want to jeopardise their recognition by “rocking the boat”.
The factual impact level is decisive for citizens
There is controversy about the interplay of causes of climate warming (industrial emissions, volcanic activity, ocean currents, etc.). We don't want to debate that here. What is more relevant are the changes in global average temperatures and their trends, as determined by scientific methods.
- Uniqueness: The most important fact is that a warming of 1.5%, 2% or even more is highly unusual in geological terms. If we are looking for a comparable global warming of this magnitude, we have to go back to the Pliocene: "Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum". This period was 5.3 to 1.8 million years before our era. The causes back then were different and the temperature rise did not occur at the same speed as today. A comparison with the more imaginable “Medieval Warm Period” in the years from 750 to 1350 CE may appear plausible at first sight. However, this consideration cannot reassure us, because the temperatures were lower than today, and it was not a global phenomenon.
- Causality: Increasing global warming is causing glaciers and polar ice sheets to melt. At the same time, the increased temperatures in the oceans are causing the mass of water to expand. The combination of both factors has an impact on islands and the coastlines of the continents. These include the rising of sea levels and temporary or long lasting floods inland. The number of extreme rainfall events inland with destructive power has increased significantly in recent decades, with regional differences. East Asia is most affected. An additional knock-on effect results from the release of the greenhouse gas methane, much of which has been previously locked up in frozen land and is now being released as it thaws.
- Dimension: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) has concluded that there has been a 1% increase of average temperatures since preindustrial times until 2017. The IPCC projects another 0.5% increase over the next 20 years. This assumes what is not certain, namely that greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced immediately, quickly and on a large scale. However, the latest "sclerosponge thermometry" research results suggest that the rise in average temperature is 0.5°C higher than the IPCC consensus. This means that by the end of this decade, almost 20 years earlier than expected, global warming could already be 2°C above pre-industrial levels. . In the following, however, we continue to refer to the lower IPCC estimates. According to IPCC calculations, it is to be expected that water levels will rise between 0.65 and 1.1 metres by the year 2100. Other models project between 1 and 3 metres by the year 2100. Not all coastal areas will be exposed in the same way. Ocean currents, tidal range and the topography of the coastal areas will make major differences. Through simulations, readers are given a vivid idea of how water will change our living conditions. It is important to note that the northern hemisphere does not enjoy a privilege, meaning that torrential rain, flooding and storm surges are increasing and will continue to do so there too. It should be noted that sea level rises of up to 30 metres are not unusual in geological history.
- Other causes:
There have been dramatic rises in sea levels in history that were linked to the melting of ice at the end of an ice age, i.e. not to the CO2 content of the atmosphere. At the end of the last ice age, around 10,000 years ago, there was a rise of up to 120 metres, albeit through a slower process than the change caused by climate gases today. The result was a significant retreat of coastlines.
Instantaneous interruption or reversal of a climatic process?
Changes to the climate are not new in human history, and certain events have triggered reductions in temperature. A striking example of a break in climatic developments is the eruption of an Icelandic volcano in the year 536 CE, whose dust made the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere so opaque to sunlight over a period of more than 20 years that temperatures fell drastically ("Little Ice Age").
Recently, it has been hypothesised that ice ages were triggered by asteroids.
It may be tempting to pin our hopes on the possibility of such events helping us to mitigate climate change, but while we cannot rule them out, events of this kind are rare and unpredictable, we must not include them in projections. It would be absurd to hope for random external causes that could interrupt or stop the progress of global warming. While hope is a human propensity, it is not suitable for contingency planning.
Our real bottleneck
What is preventing us from taking appropriate action to minimise and reverse the rise in average temperatures?
Citizen perception of the nature and dimension of the threat is inevitably blurred, because the daily reports from the media are mostly unstructured and not comprehensible to non-scientists. The reports do not allow us to recognise the essentials.
Citizens need an overview that is communicated in an honest, understandable and clearly structured way. Only when citizens have realised the nature and scale of the problem will decision-makers have the courage to take action with determination. In essence, it is about legitimising protection strategies that are considered unpopular today.
Given that citizens do not have access to graspable knowledge, we have a transformation problem. And this can be overcome if science presents the overall scenario from a certain distance. Figuratively speaking: It is not about describing every pixel point of an image, but about showing the image as a whole. The holistic representation deviates from the usual approach of scientists, because each of them is professionally held to focus on "pixel points" in their respective area of specialisation. This is the only way science makes progress, but that's not what is needed here.
The contours of the hologram can be communicated in an understandable way using e.g. the key points mentioned above:
- uniqueness: there has never been a rise in atmospheric temperatures as fast as now
- causality: the most important trigger is industrial emissions
- dimension: a rise in atmospheric temperatures of 1.5 or 2° Celsius or more above pre-industrialisation levels will massively weaken our civilisations
- other causes: additional factors can further exacerbate the process
If the effect of a detail is not legible, the presentation of the measurement can be improved. In particular, the exponential impact of very small changes in average temperatures in the atmosphere goes very much against human intuition. We can compensate for this disadvantage in perspective: Instead of referring to changes in temperature in degrees Celsius, we should consistently communicate changes in basis points, i.e. in hundredths of a degree Celsius. For example, labelling a temperature rise as "32 basis points" would be correct and would make the difference easier to comprehend than "0.32 °C". This method is a common practice in the financial industry. There, too, this method of representation is helpful in raising awareness that a small change can have massive implications.
Comparing our planet with human bodies helps us to comprehend the effect of changes in temperature: If your body temperature rises by 1° Celsius, you have a fever and are not feeling well. If the temperature rises by 1.5 or even 2° Celsius, you are very ill and hardly able to work. It is similar with our planet: If it experiences increases in average temperatures of this magnitude, it shows the symptoms of a "serious illness". However, this "fever" does not go away after a few days.Truthful and comprehensible holographic description will work like a call to action as sensible citizens will refuse to accept the idea that their lives, that of their children or that of their grandchildren, will be exposed to significant and unparalleled danger.
Here is a simple example of a call to action: It is true that the onset of toothache does not necessarily trigger a reaction in us straight away. We are perhaps still hoping that it will go away on its own. But at some point we turn to the dentist for help. We may later find the dentist's bill stressful, but the relief of finding a solution to the problem outweighs this. It is necessary that we anticipate, that we sense the expected greater pain, in order to take the initiative.
Governments will only act vigorously when informed citizens demand it vigorously. There has been pressure from sections of the population for a long time, but its direction has always been vague and therefore not sufficiently effective.
And like a dentist, a government cannot act for free, but will send bills to taxpayers. The later the comprehensive strategy is implemented, the higher the bill.
Defensive and offensive measures
The necessary government action plans are not the subject of this article. It should only be mentioned that defensive measures are necessary first, e.g., improved meteorological warning systems, raising and strengthening of dams and dykes on the sea coast and rivers, preparation for the abandonment of non-defensible areas. In addition, measures are needed to halt the dangerous trend and then slowly reverse it. These essentially consist of avoiding emissions and removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Desperate measures?
The keyword for desperate actions is "geoengineering". This could imply approaches such as making either the atmosphere or our oceans absorb less sunlight or bind more CO2. While these approaches sound exciting, they are not fully developed and run the risk of causing irreversible damage. As such it is unlikely they will be used.
Sabotage of the communication of scientific work
There are two groups working against open and fair communication between science and the citizens.
Refuseniks who are not interested in facts work against this. They are used to believing their own feelings and those of their friends from social networks. There should be no discussion with them, because deviations from their assumptions act as fuel for them. Science will not lead them out of their dream worlds.
Then there are the sceptics, who may have expert knowledge but only select those parts of it for their thinking and communication that seem to support their rejection of action. This is a dangerous species, because “expert” sceptics can claim some credibility and can disrupt societal communication successfully. The only way to weaken these people is to persistently ask them for better and well-founded alternatives. Then they have to provide verifiable answers or quietly hoist the white flag.
Acknowledgements:
My heartfelt thanks go to Professor Reinhard Gast. As a practising geologist and experienced researcher, he has helped me to grasp the exponential impact of seemingly minimal changes in the temperature of our atmosphere, similar to our own bodies, and the uniqueness of the current situation.
Authorship disclosure:
Fully human generated