To meet or not to meet? (in person)

Today I wake up at home rather than in a hotel room several hours away. Instead of meeting a client in person as we typically do in that location each month, today we will have a two-hour video call.  Why? Chaos with trains caused my trip up last night to be cancelled, so we shifted to a video call. Instead of taking about 20 hours and on an overnight stay to facilitate a monthly “in-person” meeting, we met online and that meant all of the rest of my time was free for other things.

Based on that, should I always meet that person on video rather than in person? No, in fact. Our monthly meetings are always very focussed and require deep focus. We normally aid that by going for a long walk before then finishing off with lunch in a lovely café. The conversations on video are really useful, but not quite the same level of value as being in person.

Linked to this, yesterday I also went up to central London twice during the day. Each time was about a two-hour round trip and each time the trip was to spend an hour or two meeting someone in person, so at least three hours were taken for each one-hour meeting. Worthwhile? Absolutely! In each case, the person I was meeting was someone I had never yet met in person, even though we had spoken (on video, of course!) numerous times since meeting during the pandemic lockdown periods.

It was really wonderful to meet both of those people in person yesterday and I was very happy to invest the time to meet them in person, just as I am happy to take the time to meet that client in person each month.

There is no right or wrong, then, to the question of “to meet or not to meet?”, the key is to consciously consider when to meet in person and when to meet on video and choose accordingly.

One more thought. We could bring far more consciousness to meetings in general, not only whether to meet in person or on video, but also such things as; why are we meeting? what are we seeking to achieve from the meeting? what preparation is needed? who is to attend? how can we be sure everyone feels listened to?

Recently my guest on #whatcomesnextlive was Dr Carrie Goucher of Fewer Faster Bolder. She is so passionate about making meetings more effective that she took this into four years of research study for a PhD in the topic! I encourage you to listen to her thoughts.