Dr. Robyn Wilson
Having difficult conversations in the virtual world Important conversations are the backbones of good management and leadership. Ideally, they need both parties to be engaged, safe, and committed in the dialogue
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primarily because we all had to do it! We quickly learned about the wonders of platforms like Zoom, and team meetings have sort of worked. We have also had more time for conversations, given we are not traveling. And more empathy and compassion have been evident for the most part (though how this is done maybe a bit hit and miss). On the other side though, our workdays are 10-20 percent longer, there are high expectations around
output, and managers are squeezed between their bosses and their people around the need for results. Many of us are missing faceto-face connections, including team get-togethers and the energy these bring. Many managers are missing the higher confidence they have by being able to “read the room” and their team(s). However, as we further explore, there is more happening to us than we may realize, particularly around important conversations. We feel people are
f e a t u r e
ifficult conversations are tough at the best of times. In the remote working world, they are feeling tougher. We miss human interaction; sharing the same physical space, eye-toeye contact, and bumping into our colleagues around the office. In this article, we explore what is happening around important workplace conversations during this remote/hybrid working period, as well as provide some tips and mental frameworks that could help navigate the common challenges faced. It’s obvious that COVID is here for some time, and, given the experiences of the last year, workplaces will continue to evolve into hybrid blends of working. So, finding ways to improve these crucial conversations in a range of environments, is necessary.
What really happened to our conversations when we went virtual?
Remote working has worked, may 2021 |
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