Take steps to avoid ‘Zoom fatigue’ among board members
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30895 |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
DECEMBER 2020 NONPROFIT BUSINESS ADVISOR
7
© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC • All rights reserved
DOI: 10.1002/nba
Industry News
Take steps to avoid ‘Zoom fatigue’ among board
members
With the COVID-19 pandemic seeing a new surge
across the country, health experts expect that social
distancing and limits on group gatherings will con-
tinue for the foreseeable future. What that means for
nonprots, among other things, is that their board
meetings will continue to be virtual, using online
platforms like Zoom, GoToMeeting and others that
make it relatively easy for boards to get together in
one place, see one another and discuss the topics of
concern to the organization.
However, the way that people interact on group
meeting platforms differs from how they interact in
person, experts say—in fact, virtual meetings could
very well be more taxing on them, and if left un-
checked, could lead to what some are calling “Zoom
fatigue.”
According to Barbra Kavanaugh of Brighter
Strategies, an organizational development and change
management consultancy, attending the board meet-
ing is likely not the only thing your board members
have done online that day.
“Happy hours, doctor visits and even family
dinners—almost every kind of personal interaction
is now happening on video,” Kavanaugh explains
in a blog post on this topic. “This means that your
board meeting might be the third, fourth, even sixth
on-line meeting in each board member’s day—and
they are tired.”
Making things worse, she says, are some of the key
ways in which virtual meetings differ from in-person
meetings. For example:
• We typically don’t look at someone’s face the
whole time they are talking to us in person—we may
look around the room or make eye contact with other
participants, for example. But in a virtual meeting,
we tend to focus intently on the person speaking,
even though there is no real eye contact or feedback
between speaker and listener.
• We can adjust our seating or standing position
or even walk away while listening to someone speak,
Kavanaugh said, but in virtual meetings, we tend to
stay put so that our webcams are xed on us for other
participants to see.
• In a typical meeting, we sometimes have side
conversations with people nearby to catch up or
clarify a point under discussion. And we are accus-
tomed to a certain “give and take” in conversations,
where we might complete someone else’s sentence,
or interrupt them to make a point, she said. But in
a virtual meeting, this isn’t easily done—at least not
without a messaging app—and if there’s more than
one person speaking at a time, it’s difcult to make
out what each person is saying.
In short, Kavanaugh explained, virtual conver-
sations can feel frustrating and constrained, and
board members can easily become both physically
and emotionally exhausted by having to adjust to
this “new normal.”
According to Kavanaugh, nonprots looking to
avoid Zoom fatigue should carefully consider whether
every meeting needs to be on a virtual platform. For
example, some committee or planning meetings may
be done on conference calls, she said, and boards can
check consensus by email or by using survey applica-
tions. Further, you can use chat apps to provide an
easy and informal place for board members to ask
questions or share ideas with other members. The
important thing is to give them time away from their
computer monitors and webcams through less-formal
ways of engaging with one another that still get the
job done.
For more information, visit https://www.
brighterstrategies.com. ■
system will include two additional indicators to be
rolled out over the next 18–24 months:
• Leadership and Adaptability, which looks at
whether the organization’s leadership, strategy and
ability to innovate help achieve the organization’s
mission; and
• Culture and Community, which evaluates
whether the organization has strong people opera-
tions/HR, connectedness with communities served,
reputation, and diversity, equity and inclusion
measures.
For more information, visit https://www.
charitynavigator.org. ■
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