Yes, Some Collaborative Working Works Better Remotely

Don’t get me wrong. I miss people. Meeting and greeting colleagues, clients and suppliers is part of the joyful flow of business. When the world is a safer place, I’ll be quick to arrange real meetings with real people, share the same physical space, hear the warmth of their voices, and pick up those important non-verbal communications cues that the computer screen, as yet, is unable to convey terribly well.

Yet, as this column has long held, there will be no return to the nine-to-five and nor should there be. Some tasks are better in the solitude of one’s own space; others are collaborative and enriched by personal contact. But there is a third category too: collegiate working that is enhanced by being physically apart.

It’s AGM and conference season across much of the United States and Europe. The fear was that virtual conferencing would be a flop: people would rapidly lose interest if they were no longer able to engage in the most enjoyable and informative aspect of such events – the coffee break.

Yet the reverse has proved true. Research from DF King shows that virtual and hybrid AGMs have triggered an increase in shareholder engagement. The report General Meeting Season Review – A Year Like No Other found that FTSE 100 corporates have seen their AGM participation levels rise by 1.7% this year to reach 76% of issued share capital, after flatlining at 74.3% over the previous two years. AGM proposals have also passed with high levels of shareholder support, averaging almost 97%.

DF King director Alison Owers said that despite initial doubts over virtual AGMs, proper governance and shareholder access has been maintained and the format has resulted in greater levels of engagement.

While many peer-to-peer meetings are going to be more interesting and creative in person, remote formats can work brilliantly for larger groups. This year’s Global Peter Drucker Forum was staged online – and was a triumph. Audience interaction was much increased on previous years. The experience was wholly more democratic –speakers felt closer to hand on a laptop screen than from the traditional elevated stage. And, because participants could throw out questions in real-time, the relationship between those presenting and those watching was more visceral and interactive.

In its pre-pandemic incarnation, the Drucker Forum took place in the splendid, opulent surroundings of Vienna’s Imperial Palace. The speakers were high up on a stage, far removed from the assembled delegates. That gave a more hierarchical experience than everyone being together on a screen. The level of debate and challenge this year was far greater than before coronavirus struck.

Of course, we all missed Vienna – who wouldn’t? The thousands of informal interactions made in person on the fringes of the conference, at coffee time, or at drinks in the evenings, sometimes led to new ways of thinking; the foundation of interesting partnerships; or constructive challenges that changed the way we do business.

There is a happy middle ground somewhere. The risk is that firms become so accomplished at staging online AGMs – which, of course, have the organizational attraction of huge cost savings – that they end up reasserting all the old hierarchies that physical formats once embedded. That would be to create the worst of all possible worlds: simulating the weaknesses of physical conferencing while jettisoning the assets.

So be aware of that specter rising. But fear it not. The virtuality of modern conferencing is a radical change – and mostly one for the better. The future conference should mine the benefits of virtual debate and interaction and couple them with the joys of being around real people from time to time.