Has anyone ever noticed you being unhappy on the outside when in fact you were happy on the inside? That’s because sometimes we need a gentle reminder to notify our face.
How you show up inside of your Zoom camera video input will depend upon your awareness of the issues that can come up that will either distract participants from hearing your message, increase the likelihood of you getting tuned out, or prevent you from doing business as if conducting in person.
There are two variables to examine. Awareness of how you show up compared to others and the action you are taking while in the meetings. Let’s take a closer look.
Unaware and not taking action
You might not know what you don’t know and that’s ok. That’s your choice to stay up with the trends or not, no matter your role or responsibility in life. If you are responsible for leading others, creating value for others, and serving others, then at some point you will see the pain not to change is so much more than the pain to change the way you show up in #screentoscreen meetings.
Unaware and taking action
You might not know what to do while experimenting with new ideas and that is terrific. The challenge though is that when you don’t know what the risks are prior to experimenting or have learned from other’s mistakes, you increase the likelihood of yourself making mistakes too. A great example of this is requesting permission to share your screen to read a slide presentation and everyone tunes out. Another example is having poor lighting and others can’t see your facial expressions. Sometimes it takes a friend, a coach, or a mentor to call you out on what you could be doing differently.
Aware and not taking action
Five years ago you could have argued that video collaboration tools were optional to doing business. Today, in many cases you don’t have a choice. I’m still in awe of how many people suspect business will go back to normal when customer paradigms for being served and sold have changed. There are people who are struggling with how they show up on video and organizations still refuse to invest in their people. Sure, you can learn best practices by watching YouTube videos and develop your own training library acquired from someone else, but that doesn’t mean you can implement and will make an impact in the marketplace.
Aware and taking action
It’s easy to witness who has stepped up in the post-COVID era by investing in their people. You can’t hide behind closed office doors anymore. The entire world has been invited into your living room exposing an environment that have 100% control over showing similar to a broadcast television studio. It’s totally different Zoom experience when you learn to integrate several ways inside of your camera and serve others. You can’t go back to doing it the old way, which still the majority of how users show up today.
