Virtual meetings are the beginning of creating a cohesive and collaborative remote team. When your team is distributed over several time zones having regular meetings is vital to your culture. We strongly suggest that you utilize a video conferencing tool, such as Zoom, so that your team members can see one another and interact.

If you've not read Patrick Lencioni's Death by Meeting, you need to grab that book today! It will help you begin to eliminate wasteful meetings from your team's calendar and make every virtual meeting count. Today, we'll get you jump started by sharing five quick takeaways from Lencioni's book.

Know the Purpose of Your Meeting

• Set a purpose

• Stick to that purpose

• Only invite the key players

Clarify What is at Stake

• No one wants a pointless meeting

• Give them a reason to care

Hook Them from the Outset

• Engage everyone in the first 10 minutes

• Be creative and dramatic

Set Aside Enough Time

• Accomplish what you set out to accomplish

• The key is to end with clarity and commitment from your team

Provoke Conflict

• Conflict is not personal

• Conflict should be ideologically emotional

•  Seek out opposing views and ensure that they are entirely aired.

If you’d like to learn more about Death by Meeting, and other great books and resources from Patrick Lencioni and the Table Group you can check them out HERE.