Faceless meeting

When the pandemic hit, there came a necessity of working from home. Well, work can't stop, right? The world improvised, and everyone started using zoom and meet calls extensively. Everyone began spending hours on calls daily and trying to explain things and get everyone on the same page, all this to a point where it got exhausting.

One of the reasons why the number of meetings and length of sessions increased is keeping the video off during a meeting. I am not saying this will apply in all cases, but yes it does apply to most.

Ever wondered why this happens when you are working from home? When you are having a conversation with someone in person you pay complete attention to that person, you are 100% committed to that conversation, if it is you who is talking, you can understand by the facial cues of the other person if they understand what you are talking about or not. Nonverbal cues like a head shake or a smile go a long way. You can also figure out if they are interested in what you have to say, or if what you are saying is good or not. We relate to each other through body language, it makes up almost 60% of our communications. It makes it easier to trust someone and get comfortable around them.

Now let's take an example of a session where I am discussing clean code. There are about 15 people in the session, and 10 of them have their videos turned off. While I'm talking I won't know if those 10 people understand anything that I am saying or not, it will be like talking to a wall, which certainly would demotivate the speaker. Humans are hardwired to connect, and keeping the video off creates a disconnect.

Thoughts start popping into the head of the speaker, are the people interested? is someone multitasking? is someone on the call just for the white noise?

If everyone has their videos turned on the speaker gets more confidence, and the conversations get more engaging and exciting. If people are prone to multitasking they can focus on the meeting, if the video is on, it easier to ask questions to each other and avoid misunderstandings.

There will be exceptions when a person has to turn the video off, situations such as being in a distracting environment, feeling under the weather, or the internet connection is really bad. Things like multitasking, being lazy, dressed like a slob should not be excused for not turning on the video IMO.

Now that the pandemic is almost over, and work from home model works, many companies have started implementing full-time wfh or a hybrid approach, which means more virtual meetings. Keep the video on to have more effective meetings.

Let me know what your thoughts are.