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Strong Closings
While the advice we have to offer here is reminiscent of the closing advice we would give any meeting planner, some differences for videoconferences are useful to highlight.
- If you have a moderator, that person will generally make the summary. One way to keep interest in your virtual meeting high—right up to the end—is to announce at the beginning of your meeting that you are going to ask someone for a summary at its conclusion. All participants will take good notes and will also pay attention to whoever is selected to summarize. They will want to compare their own summaries with whoever is chosen to speak for the group.
- The summary should include answers to these questions: What are we going to do? Who will do it? What are the next steps? What are the deadlines? How will we communicate these tasks to each other? When will we meet again? Keep in mind that if the summary involves several people, it will take more time.
- Thank everyone—especially those who have gotten up early or are staying up late—for both their attendance and participation. Tell them you are looking forward to “seeing” them again in your next videoconference. Then wave good-bye—the gesture is becoming standard in virtual meetings. On the telephone both parties say good-bye and hang up, thereby ending the connection. That doesn’t necessarily happen in a videoconference. After you have said good-bye, simply get up and leave. There is no need to stare blankly at each other, nervously waiting for the equipment to disconnect.
- Make sure you end on time. If you are in a VC studio, a group of people may be waiting to set up for their own video meeting. Other sites may be using portable rollabout systems that have been scheduled by other people.
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“FRANKLY, MY DEAR,
I DON’T GIVE A DAMN”
Everything was in place for a prestigious financial institution’s multisite videoconference. The meeting opened with an overview by the moderator. An excellent panel delineated the issues that the group needed to consider. The distant locations seemed to be integrated into the virtual meeting. An appropriate process was even selected for identifying the challenges and solutions the multisite group faced. Unfortunately, not enough time was allocated to finish the sharing after the breakout groups did their work.
The facilitator of the process had to be at another event. He left abruptly at 11:45 A.M. The moderator, who was part of the group, could have picked up the process and completed it for the facilitator, but lunch was waiting outside, and we all know how important it is to eat lunch exactly when it arrives.
One man leaving the room, used the memorable closing words from Gone with the Wind, to summarize how he felt. “Why do we do these things if they go nowhere? Especially when we pay all this money to involve our international teams. Maybe they just want to show off our new videoconferencing equipment. I guess it’s just more of ‘Frankly,my dear, I don’t give a damn.’”