Mastering Virtual Communication - Part Three

Welcome to the remarkability Institute. This is Bart Queen, your host. If you joined us last week, I began a series on virtual communication. And last week, I spent the majority of our time together giving you the structure of what the meeting needed to look like. I shared with you that there were three key pieces to do it, doing something virtually successfully.

[00:01:29] Number one, there's the pre virtual meeting, getting all the logistics set up there is the actual meeting itself. Whether you're on Microsoft teams, you're on WebEx; you're on zoom, whatever kind of a platform you're using. And then there's the post virtual. Meeting critical to drive the listener forward the organization forward, get them to take the action steps that you so desire.

[00:01:58] This is the second major piece of that, and this is around the actual virtual meeting. But within that virtual meeting, you must have some type of structure that you can work with then. And all the world travel that I've had an opportunity to do in my 30 years of working with this skillset and helping organizations.

[00:02:26] One of the key things that I always enjoy is the architectural structures of things that I've had the privilege of seeing walking on the great wall of China, seeing. No true Dom seeing sacred heart, seeing things in the United States, seeing buildings and architecture all over the world. Now having spent most of my life in the Bay area as my home, that part of the world had two structures that I always admired.

[00:03:01] One is the golden gate bridge and the other. It is the Hoover dam. Both of those structures to me are just mind-boggling about how they were built, how they've created, how they have been timely and timeless, and what they brought to you. And I not only visually, but to get from one side of the bay to the other and in the Hoover dam to produce electricity and just the visual sight of such a structure.

[00:03:36] Most people. When we talk about structure, they want to fight me on this idea around content. They will say, Bart, that's not me. It constricts me. It makes me feel like it's too tight. I'm just one of those guys. That's gotta be pure freestyle. I love those people. Whether you want to be freestyle or you, want to work within a structure that you are authentic to who you are, but I want you to realize that in my example of.

[00:04:05] The golden gate bridge and the Hoover dam that structure, the structure that they use gives the bridge and the dam strength. It allows it to be continuous. It allows it to be consistent. It allows it to be timely and timeless and what it brings to us. I want your content, whether you're talking personally or professionally.

[00:04:31] To be timely and timeless with the people that you're sharing it with. One of the key things that will help you be successful in any communication situation is having a content structure that you work with them. Now today, guys are I dive into that second aspect around virtual communication.

[00:04:57] What I want you to do is walk away with the elements of the content structure that you can use anywhere. Why it is so important in the virtual world is because the level of complexity, intensity, and confusion can skyrocket purely because of the mode that we're communicating in. When it's face to face, we can reduce some of those things.

[00:05:22] But if we take these exponential factors that we have to deal with, we have to think of ways to make it seamless, effortless, make it so a listener can retain the information and, more importantly, in my mind so that they remember it. Remember, if you spend any time with me at all, you've heard me say, it's not about how do I tell them more. It's how do I get them to remember more?

[00:05:47] That becomes so critical. I want to make sure that your content, whether it's five minutes, 50 minutes, or five hours, you're doing a whole day kind of an event that people walk out the door, absorbing what you said, structure. Is the beginning piece. It is the key critical factor that will set you out from everybody else.

[00:06:13] Guys, if you will study a good keynote speech, if you will look at any successful book, if you will look at any successful movie, there is a structure that the directors, the writers, and the creators all build within. When I think about good movies. When I think about movies like Star Wars and avatar, though, some of those kinds of movies have followed a structure, and nine times out of 10, the structure that the directors followed was some form of the hero's journey.

[00:06:53] You've heard me speak of this many times. So with that idea, let's dive into this idea of our virtual content structure for the actual meeting that you're doing.

[00:07:06]Now, when I started this process with you, we talked about three major areas, the pre-meeting, the actual meeting, and the post-meeting; we're talking now about the structure within the actual meeting. This is where I'm going to focus on our time together. I want you to remember a simple principle that there are freedom and structure.

[00:07:27] I also want you to remember. We never, we memorize what we put in it. We memorize the structure itself. If you memorize the structure, you can plug and play anything you want. You can move the pieces around if you want. But here's the hard thing. We have to do the hard work and keep it simple for our listeners, especially in the virtual world.

[00:07:51] That is the principle. Number one, you have to be able to do the hard work. You gotta be able to keep it simple, do the hard work and keep it simple. I want you to remember that a confused mind will always say no. So if they're confused, they're not even going to absorb what you're talking about. So now that's principle number one, guys, let's take a look at principle.

[00:08:16] Number two. It's what I call the 75% rule. Now, this rule has been saved many times. Let's say someone invites you to come in, and they're going to give you an hour to speak. You go back to your office, you go back to your acute cubicle, and you're starting to craft content. And most of you are probably crafting content in PowerPoint.

[00:08:43] Now here's what I want you to remember about the 75% rule. It's 75% of the time you've been given is what you should try to fill. So if I've asked you to fill 60 minutes, And you apply the rule. That's 45 minutes. That's what everybody's going to think, but I want you to realize that is not correct.

[00:09:09] There's one of the things that I want you to consider factoring in. I want you to back out what you and I would call your Q and time or your banter time or the time when you're just going to really have a conversation. Maybe that's all the way through. Maybe that's just at the end, depending on how you've laid out the communication situation you're in.

[00:09:33] So if I've given you 60 minutes and you follow the 75% role, you're going to think, okay, I need to fill 45. Now, remember that's incorrect. So you take your 60 minutes back out what you want for banter Q and a. So let's make life easy and say that's 15 minutes. That leaves you 45 minutes. Now you want to take 75% of that to fill with your content.

[00:10:03] Now, a lot of you are well, Bart, that doesn't seem like very much. That's because you have such a mindset of how do I tell them more? How do I tell them more? How do I tell them more? And my mindset to help you is how do you get them to remember more? I've what I'm telling you. If I invited you to a meeting at it ended five minutes early, would you be happy or sad?

[00:...