Keeping the fun, interactivity and impact via virtual means.

Whether you are a young person ready to take your next career step, a mum heading back to work after some years out focusing on bringing up children, or heading into the menopause and struggling with lack of sleep and decreasing confidence. It doesn’t mean that self-development should stop, just because we’re locked indoors. 

Over the last week, since Covid-19 has stopped all gatherings, business and leadership coaches have been focusing on bringing their content virtually. And we, at Flying Start XP are no exception. Thankfully we already have a virtual offering for our coaching but this has mainly focused on 1:1 sessions or small groups through the platform Zoom. It’s easy to share links to the Zoom app, download, connect, share screens, see each other and generally feel like you’re in the same room. I have lived so much of my life, over the last year, already on Zoom, having virtual cuppas and also glasses of wine with colleagues, clients and friends. 

What I hadn’t realised was how much else Zoom could offer in regards to functionality, and since we’ve given ourselves the challenge of redesigning a 2-day interactive Future Leaders Programme for 24 young people, aged between 17 – 30 with 6 facilitators, for the Prince’s Trust, it’s been amazing to see what else Zoom offers. 

So I wanted to share with you how to make an online meeting a lot more interactive:-

• Set up your meeting as normal via sending the Zoom link to all participants
• Welcome your guests online as you would normally and get them to play with some of the functions
  • send a message in chat
  • get people to chat with everyone or send individual notes ( you can turn this function off if worried that people will be chatting when they should be focusing!)
• Share your screen to take them through any ppt or images or videos you would like them to see. Basically you can share anything you have on your screen (so be careful what’s on your screen!!)
• You can even create a Whiteboard for everyone to input on or you can write on as everyone throws in ideas – think of you normal brainstorming
• When you want them to do some work in small groups – send them to breakout rooms. As host, you can visit all the breakout rooms to listen in OR just send them messages with different instructions
• To check learning or to find out opinions – why not run a poll, where they can give multiple answers or just 1 single option. You can then share results immediately. 
• There are signs that people can use to show which helps see how engaged they are or even if they need a cup of tea. 
• If one of your team can’t make the meeting, you can record it and share it with them so they don’t miss out. 

The cost is inexpensive at £11.99 per month and it allows you to keep working and keep building up relationships with your clients, even if you can’t physically meet with them. There are Zoom tutorials which are easy to access too. 

Zoom doesn’t just work for business meetings or training, you can be really creative. Over the weekend, I helped get a friend set up running her pilates sessions via Zoom successfully and today I talked to the organist at my church as he wants to make sure that Easter Sunday doesn’t miss out on the Easter Hymns, so we’re going to broadcast the hymns via a Zoom link. 

Coaching and Development 

So if you are someone who is looking for further development, to grow confidence, self-awareness and understanding of others, wants to focus on becoming a more authentic leader, or is working in a small team who is newly formed and needs to become efficient, fast. Do give me a call as the work I do with young adults through Flying Start XP and then middle managers, teams and SLTs through my business company TLRdynamics,  can offer you some support and leadership growth. Our online sessions aren’t going anywhere and we’ve even added more!