Leading a Virtual Peer Group: Concerns & Opportunities
No discussion about creating a PaC (peer advisory council) is complete without the discussion about the legitimate concerns and opportunities virtual peer group meetings present.
Virtual Peer Group: To Zoom or Not to Zoom
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, there were plenty of professional development, training, and Mastermind groups that were held virtually. But PaCs usually were in person for several reasons:
Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meets simply weren't as prevalent; they weren’t on the radar of many business owners. This can have a generational angle to it, as there are several generations who didn’t grow up with virtual-meeting platforms or work in companies that used them. In other words, it’s not something everyone had been exposed to prior to 2020.
Peer advisory council meetings aren’t like the one-hour-ish Masterminds you probably get invited to weekly. They’re hours long and involve deep discussion and reflection. Traditionally, that’s not an easy thing to do virtually, and the majority of business PaC members aren’t likely to choose virtual as a first choice unless they’re comfortable with it. Part of what makes a meeting in person special are the side-bar conversations, the confidential environment, and the change of scenery from their office. Furthermore, for some, the commute to the meeting is used to prepare mentally for the meeting and becomes a ritual that members enjoy.
When you’re in person, you literally feel the other humans in the room. You feel their nervous systems and sense what’s going on with them. This is because we’re social mammals and we have evolved for connection. The way you sit, the gestures you make, the energy your body seems to have . . . all of that is far easier to sense when you’re in the room with someone. And, virtual typically only allows you to see others from the chest or neck up versus the whole body. And with the advent of virtual backgrounds, who knows where someone is calling in from!
Virtual-meeting platforms have a major built-in distraction. Because they’re accessed via computer, it’s far too tempting to check email, answer notifications, surf the web, or scroll social media.
Confidentiality and trust have to be assumed when virtual. You can’t see who else is in the room, and you don’t know who else might be listening.
PaCs have been around for a long time, and virtual hasn’t. As a result, there’s a mindset that the only way to do a PaC is in person and it’s too risky to try virtually. Another old mindset says virtual can’t be better because members can’t bond, pay attention, or embody the necessary elements of culture that a high-functioning council strives for. But time and the pandemic showed that virtual has a place.
The Pros of a Virtual Mastermind Group and Virtual Peer Group Meetings
Meanwhile, there are plenty of reasons virtual is actually preferable.
It delivered a surprise benefit of supporting mental health. Once Covid hit, everyone suddenly was magically able to do everything virtually, which was wonderful. And something more important happened in my councils: we went from meeting monthly to weekly to daily. Why? Because members needed support. They were extremely shaky due to the uncertainty the pandemic highlighted. They weren’t certain that their biggest asset—their business—would survive. So many unknowns, so many moving parts rapidly changing. I had no idea how important meetings would become for the mental health of my members, or how critical meetings would be for the health of their businesses. Their PaCs became a safe space for them to be vulnerable, to talk through the enormous amount of information coming at them with PPP (i.e., the paycheck protection program) and restrictions, and to check their thinking on the vast number of quick decisions they were all having to make. They had already developed trust and it was extraordinary to watch them lean on each other and look forward to their daily calls, even just to check in. As a result, the business grew 27% in the following few months! We were able to pivot into the virtual world and meet our clients’ needs where they required us to be.
People who live in and near high-traffic, congested cities love virtual because they get burned out going back and forth in traffic or see it as a waste of time. Arriving on time for meetings has become unpredictable and frustrating to navigate, and we found members love the option of virtual meetings interspersed with in-person meetings (more on this hybrid model in a bit).
Moderators who want the flexibility of not being tied to one specific location for monthly meetings find virtual a convenient, easy option.
Someone has tested positive for Covid, is recovering from surgery, or caring for a family member. They don’t want to infect others or aren’t mobile and they can still participate fully and not have to miss their meeting.
Business owners who are also busy moms or dads on tight schedules or who have little ones at home without a sitter or daycare love the virtual option. Single-parent business owners, for a variety of reasons, also benefit from virtual meetings.
CEOs who travel a lot, whether temporarily or consistently. Virtual opens up the opportunity for them to participate in a PaC in-person with attendance expectations. For example, a member who is working on an acquisition that requires them to travel for a few months missing meetings would miss in-person meetings and you might lose them as a member or even a prospect because of that. But they could attend the in-person meeting virtually while in a different location. One of our License Partners had this happen recently with a member doing an acquisition in a different country. He participated successfully for six months with his group virtually with new technology, called The Owl. The ability for those remotely to view the room 360 degrees and the eye of The Owl moves to focus in on whoever is talking. Just as though you were in the room too. It was a win-win for everyone. No turnover for the PaC, a retained member for the moderator, and consistent participation from an engaged member benefiting all the members. And no re-entry challenges when he returned to the group six months later, even if he returned because he may have felt too disconnected to do so.
The cadence of the meetings is less likely to get disrupted when they’re virtual. So, if there’s a snow storm coming and the meetings are in person, some or all members might not attend for fear of getting stranded. If the meetings were virtual, this would be less of an issue. Similarly, if the moderator themselves gets stranded or are unable to get to an in-person meeting, a virtual one takes no time to set up.
More Considerations About Virtual Peer Group Meetings
Although a whole new world of acceptance opened up for virtual meetings because of Covid and it’s clearly beneficial and preferable in many circumstances, several years of virtual-only meetings have had some negative side effects, such as Zoom fatigue. Zoom fatigue has been called “a perplexing sense of being drained while having accomplished nothing and can be decreased by turning off the camera, however, the camera provides necessary information and feedback, and turning it off isn’t optional. There can also be generational differences, with older people less thrilled by the idea of spending a lot of time online. If you were remote prior to Covid—and the majority of the workforce was not—it wasn’t nearly as disruptive as getting dressed, driving to the office, and being in person with your team for years (or decades!), and then one day . . . not. For two years.
Furthermore, if you’ve ever been in the franchise business, you know that some franchises wouldn’t allow virtual meetings because it implied you might violate your territory restrictions. But again, once Covid hit, just like for the rest of the world, adaptation to virtual became necessary.
Hybrid Meetings and Groups
Now that things have lightened up for many, lessons (and preferences) learned during Covid have revealed another way of delivering meetings—the hybrid model. As alluded to above, this is a combination of in-person and virtual and can either be an actual, scheduled alternating of in-person and virtual, or, all meetings (assuming we’re not all required to be remote again) are in person, and with the help of technology, members who can’t make it in person that month can also participate.
Which Virtual Peer Group Delivery Model is Right for You?
You might not be a fan of virtual. Not before Covid, not during, and not now. And that’s just fine! If you have to drag yourself on screen and muster up all of your energy to moderate an online meeting, and then you’re exhausted thereafter, by all means, don’t have virtual meetings.
At the same time, if you’ve chosen a global association of climate engineers for your PaC, you might want to rethink whether virtual isn’t for you. In other words, your decision process could involve several factors and be a bit complex. Not complicated, but complex and in need of contemplation of your options and what they mean for you as a moderator as well as your PaC members. Thinking long-term about your lifestyle and business evolution is important as well because when you put your councils together correctly they will last for years to come.
If you’re wondering how to start a peer group, LXCouncil is ready to provide all the guidance and information you’ll need to create a long-lasting cohort of passionate peers that can support and mentor one another.
