Manage Well -- Virtual Meetings?

In my role as executive director of Christian Higher Education Canada (CHEC) I report to a governing board. The board typically meets via a video conference call. But this last week CHEC hosted a conference and with all the board members present for the conference, we also had a board meeting. In person. In a small board room. It was a typical meeting – reports, financial updates, action items and motions past. But at the end one of the members of the board expressed strongly how much he appreciated meeting in person. He highlighted that the focused engagement with one of the key issues was only possible because we were all in the room. Everyone agreed.

And so the question comes up again. Is something lost when we so easily default to an on-line option when in the past we would have assumed our meetings would be in person? Can we only have significant deliberation when we are present to one another?

There was the option of virtual and on-line before the 2020 pandemic. But with Covid, everyone updated their technology and for many they saw the potential to meet regularly if not always from a distance – virtually. What was a necessity through the pandemic has now become accepted. For some it is the norm, not a pandemic exception.

Education: whole programs and in some cases the whole schools entirely on line. Not just through the pandemic, but on-going: fairly standard now that even if there is a in-person cohort, the professor also has a screen before them with the images of all the on-line students enrolled in the class. Yes, some schools did this before the pandemic; but now it is standard.

Spiritual Direction: directors who only meet with their directees through video conference calls.

Businesses and Corporations: Even though some major companies – Amazon last week – are insisting that their employees are in the office five days a week, many still allow for work from home [or the coffee shop] for some if not all days of the working week.

Churches: congregations that now live-stream their services and open worship with a greeting to those present and then a supplemental greeting to “those who have joined us on line.”

And more.

We need to talk about this. What is gained might be self-evident. But what is lost? And can we ask if what is gained is worth it, given what is lost? What can happen virtually and what simply cannot happen through a video-inernet feed?

Do we need to be present to one another? Embodied; at this time and in this place? If we are fundamentally relational creatures, can a virtual and disembodied connection suffice? And if it is not the same, what inadvertent habits or ways of being are we cultivating through a default to on-line?

When someone says they did their entire academic program on line, what implications does this have for them and for their education? Were they formed in mind, heart and soul? Was it truly an education or only the transfer of information?

When someone only attends church on line, what does this mean for the cultivation of the essential habits or practices that shape their religious experience?

When you only know your work colleagues through a virtual link, what is lost when it comes to the comradery that fosters effective collaboration and creativity in the workplace?

Of note is that businesses are asking this question and making the resolution that in-person matters. I noticed yet another major corporation is reference in the New York Times — their notice to their employees that while some work from a distance will be accepted, they need to be in the office at least three days of five each week. What they are saying is that presence matters. The connection at the water cooler matters. The meeting in the hallway makes a difference. But are schools, churches, pastors and spiritual directors asking the hard questions? Or are we motivated by convenience and, for schools, tuition dollars?

Coming out of the pandemic, the board of governors of the university where I served decided we would go back to meeting in person. Some protested the cost and the inconvenience of flying to where we would meet. But the board chair was insistent: we would meet in person and in person only. I celebrate her resolve. She was not a luddite; she was not opposed to using technology. Not at all. And yet she insisted we would meet in person. When pressed she did not articulate clearly why this mattered. But she knew intuitively that in tenuous times, in challenging circumstances, in times of transition, we need to be in the room – shaking hands, chatting when we break for coffee, able to hear the nuance in the verbal exchanges, and able to pick up the non-verbals that are so crucial to our working relationships. And for that, we needed to be present to one another.

Perhaps there is no going back. And perhaps we do not need to go back. But could it be that a board – whether church council, or school committee or board, or working group, need to be in person at least some of the time? Perhaps a way forward is for a board to agree that at the very least we will meet once a year in person even if the other two meetings are on line. But, and this is vital: it is all or nothing. It is in person and in person only. The room is compromised, the sense of connection is not the same, if there is the video option. It throws off the dynamic in the room, just as it does in a classroom where you have a few who are not present but only “attending” by video conference. We might not feel it at church on Sunday: that there are those who are part of the on-line cohort. But it is not the same with a classroom or a board meeting.

So the proposal: all in, fully present. At this time and in this place. As a board; this will be our policy and protocol, at least once a year if not more often. We view it as essential to our capacity to be trustees together of the mission of the organization.