How to maximize inclusion and impact in the virtual world.

If you struggle to get a word in during virtual team meetings, you’re not alone. Instead of piling on, learn how to make the unconscious conscious and cultivate conversational comfort for all.

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You’re in a virtual meeting and your team is talking about a project you’re working on. You have something to say, but each time you open your mouth to speak, someone else jumps in.

You already feel uneasy speaking up spontaneously and this environment doesn’t make it any easier. Your heart starts beating fast, your thoughts are racing, and you wonder if anyone cares about what you have to say anyway.

You manage to get a word in, but the conversation moves on so fast that you don’t think anyone heard it. Only moments later, someone else says exactly what you said and gets applauded for taking your credit.

This is the daily reality for far too many remote workers, and it’s gotta change. According to remote work statistics, 26% of U.S. employees work remotely. But as a society, we haven’t quite figured out how to maximize inclusion and collaboration in the virtual realm.

Zoom perpetuates systemic oppression with behaviors like talking over, interrupting, and taking credit for others’ contributions. But with strategic intention, virtual meetings can become a place where all voices can be heard.

Virtual spaces are personal spaces

Three years ago, most of us were thrust into the virtual world by force (except for essential workers who were forced to the front-lines). We were in survival mode, leaders and teams alike, and didn’t have the capacity to be strategic about how to make remote work work for all.

Studies show that Zoom meetings can increase anxiety and fatigue due to non-verbal cues. I call it the virtual validation void. Many of us are leaning in, over-indexing on how we’re being perceived, and over-thinking and over-exerting to feel connected and validated, especially with senior leaders.

Three years in, it’s essential that team leaders prioritize being strategic with virtual communication, to ensure all voices are heard and included in remote team meetings.

Over the past few months, I’ve had the honor of supporting multiple distributed teams in interactive workshops and trainings to help them strategically and collaboratively build a process for virtual meetings to maximize inclusion and impact.

I recently worked with a startup with a full-team size of ~35 to collectively design how they can better collaborate, communicate, and connect with each other while working remotely. When we met on Zoom, I asked a question to the team with no instruction on how to contribute—a few folks started speaking at once, and then everyone got quiet. The chat then became very active but the same voices were speaking up.

It was clear to me that without clarity on how to contribute, this team was left with question marks that prioritized only certain voices speaking up and being heard (typically, those whose identities align with the Dominant Default: white cis straight male “confident”-projecting).

Together, we designed a framework to help the team have more productive and powerful interactions, conversations, and meetings, both on Zoom and when they’re in more hybrid ways of working.

It’s essential for teams to create structure in “spontaneous” speaking moments like team meetings and one-on-ones to enable better collaboration between more soft-spoken voices and stronger ones.

Prioritize presence and power

Maybe you are on a team but don't feel like you have the authority to help your teammates be more strategic in virtual meetings. In these instances, it is so difficult to maintain power and presence when you are trying to get a word in. Especially in virtual spaces, getting a word in can perpetuate oppressive behaviors like interrupting or talking over, and can also lead to a lack of deep listening which disrupts our ability to retain and understand information.

And for those of us who struggle with unspoken anxiety (likely most of us!), trying to get a word in on Zoom only increases behaviors like leaning in, speaking fast, overthinking or thinking ahead, and filling the space because we are afraid to pause and let ourselves think. The problem is that all of these behaviors feed anxiety and unconscious communication, making it harder for us to feel in control and confident when speaking up in virtual meetings off-the-cuff.

Spaciousness and silence are necessary elements to help conversations be inclusive, compelling, and impactful. When a team’s meeting culture is unintentional, it will almost always default to prioritizing voices who are typically heard (those who align with the Dominant Default)—this increases the pace of all meetings and interactions and excludes voices who may be more soft-spoken due to anxiety, underrepresentation, or feeling unsafe.

Conversational responsibility

Here are my suggestions for how to stop getting a word in and start communicating with more power and presence in virtual meetings:

Take up space and time

When you are put on the spot in a meeting, the tendency is to speak fast and try to get everything in before you may be interrupted. This only contributes to the intensity of virtual meetings and can actually lead to you being more likely to be interrupted because you are actively decreasing your hormonal confidence by speaking fast. Social scientists have proven that taking up space and taking your time improves hormonal confidence, which is necessary to help us feel comfortable and in control when speaking up in important impromptu moments. Instead of subconsciously getting absorbed by the Dominant Default, try to incorporate micro-pauses, tiny beats that enable you to align your rate of speech with your rate of thinking. Instead of leaning in which can feed speaking fast, lean back to prioritize physical comfort and expansiveness. This will not only help you project confidence, it will actually help you counter anxiety and feel more comfortable which can have a profound effect on the tone of the entire meeting.

Take the conversation

When you do decide to speak, “take the conversation” by using filler consciously—this creates a micro pause where you can re-ground, take a breath, or organize your thoughts to move forward with more intention and presence. Say something (anything!) like, “That is… (micro-pause)… I believe…”. When you continue speaking after a micro-pause, you do not even have to finish the thought that you previously started. As long as you take the conversation with confidence and micro-pause with clarity, it will help you regulate your pacing and maintain more power and control in the virtual world.

make the unconscious conscious

If you have authority on your team, my biggest suggestion is to set aside time to strategically collaborate on how you want to communicate as a team moving forward. You may think you know why people are not speaking up but it is important to remember that we can't contribute in a comfortable and confident way unless we feel seen, safe, and supported. Set aside an afternoon or take the opportunity to have an offsite where the team can focus on strategic planning instead of the day-to-day grind. This can be a tremendous opportunity for team-building and bonding but also an effective and efficient way to create a framework that your team can reference and use as a shared foundation when communicating, connecting, and collaborating in the hybrid environment. You can hire a facilitator like me (click here for my corporate offerings) or keep the work in-house, empowering your team to take the reins in building processes that support all voices being heard. Follow tips from remote leaders like Sarah Milstein who recommends ideas like “one on video, all on video” to democratize screentime for hybrid teams so everyone is seen in the same way during video calls.

being heard in our new virtual reality

I love working with remote teams because it is really fun to see their virtual team dynamics at work. Unmuting and speaking up is only one way to contribute and be heard in the virtual world. Many of the teams I support have an entire culture in the Zoom chat which runs parallel to team meetings. There is so much humor and camaraderie in the chat and it is a wonderful way to have your voice be heard if you don't feel like there is space to speak up. As a team, you can collectively decide how to meaningfully contribute, especially if the gathering is more than eight people. I recommend using nonverbal feedback buttons in Zoom, and cheering on your teammates in a positive way. Raising a virtual hand can be a good option, and even explicitly saying that it is acceptable to unmute and speak up can be an invitation for more soft-spoken voices to be heard. You can also suggest using a circle format, where every voice is given an opportunity to contribute by going around in a circle with the order being decided using the Progressive Stack, which invites underrepresented voices to speak first.

Intention is key

The most important thing is to talk about talking instead of allowing communication to continue to be unconscious. What behaviors do you observe in team meetings that disrupt collaboration and contributions from your whole team? Let me know in the comments!

Stop Trying to Get a Word in on Zoom Meetings