For years, scientists have studied and identified the herding instinct as one of the most basic drives of human and animal behavior. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the challenges created by the physical separation of coworkers brought about by the restrictive measures of COVID. Virtual meetings enabled businesspeople to work collaboratively, but the instinct to be physically present, persists.
Now that more and more businesses are reopening and workers are gradually returning to their offices in staggered days and numbers, a new form of virtual meetings has emerged: hybrid, in which some people assemble in person in a conference room and some log on from individual remote locations. But this format introduces a challenge to the most essential element in interpersonal communication, the role of the eyes.
Business colleagues having a video conference. Startup business professionals making strategies ... [+]
Think of the two common social observations:
· “I like people who look you straight in the eye.”
· “I don’t trust people who don’t look me in the eye.”
Those perceptions define the success or failure of interpersonal communications.
As important eye engagement is in person, it becomes even more important in virtual meetings. That’s because the participants’ images are reduced to the size of postage stamps; in hybrid meetings, engagement is challenged even further because the people in a conference room speak to a single camera mounted high over a large monitor at one end of the room.
This angle introduces yet another challenge. A recent Wall Street Journal article on the subject defines the angle as an “impersonal, drone-like conference-room view” because it violates one of the most important principles of virtual meetings I described in a prior Forbes blog about virtual presentations:
Speak at the level of the webcam or you will appear to be looking down or up at them.
In photography and cinematography, when the camera is positioned above a subject, it is known as a high angle shot; when it is below a subject, a low angle shot. Each of these positions creates a different emotional message. In his book “Photographic Psychology,” John Suler, a Professor of Psychology at Rider University, notes that the high angle makes “the subject appear to be in an inferior position relative to your dominant and more powerful point of view”; and a low angle shot creates “the feeling that the subject is big, high, powerful, dominant, imposing, authoritative, or menacing.”
To experience the feelings Suler describes, try the following exercise.
Stand up next to a seated colleague and look down at that person; then crouch down and look up at that person. You and that person—the stand-in for your audience—will undoubtedly feel the difference.
Claude Taylor, who runs a popular Twitter account called Room Rater with his partner Jessie Bahrey, understands the importance of this the visual angle. Taylor and Bahrey rate the look and feel—including camera angles—of virtual meetings on a scale of 1 to 10. Recently, the two released a new book, “How to Zoom Your Room” and Taylor had a Zoom call with MSNBC’s Katie Phang to promote the book. After the call, Taylor realized that he had violated his own advice and Tweeted, “My camera height is too low and I have no excuse.”
The WSJ article goes on to offer a solution: “BYO Laptop…If people in the conference room turn on their laptop webcams, the people at home can see everybody’s face framed individually like during Covid times.” Then call into meeting from the conference, use the system audio, and you’ll optimized your hybrid meeting.
Whether you use your laptop’s webcam or a dedicated camera, look your virtual audience straight in the eye by speaking to them at eye level.
The eyes have it.
