Newsletter: Academic Theory for Zoom Fatigue + Thoughts on 'International Women's Day'
Ticonderoga Learning & Talent Newsletter
What's in this Newsletter?
Jobs & Talent
Academic Thoughts on Zoom Fatigue
International Women's Day
Professional & Personal Updates
Jobs & Talent:
Jobs in the Greater NYC Area:
Vice President of Talent Management at Mastercard:
Looking for both operational and strategic talent experience with approx 10 years HR experience. This position reports directly to the Chief Talent Officer and has direct reports. Key duties include content ownership: performance management, succession planning, talent planning, career development, mentoring, executive coaching. This role has not been publicly shared; please contact me directly if you have someone in mind.A colleague at the Federal Reserve is hiring for a few roles:
Message me if any of this strikes a chord...
Zoom Fatigue & What To Do About It
We've been talking about Zoom fatigue for almost a year now. Do we truly feel more exhausted after a few hours on Zoom in our pajamas (from the waist-down) than we would after a full day at the office?
(Raises hand! Me!)
This recent academic article, Nonverbal overload: A theoretical argument for the causes of Zoom fatigue, caught my eye.
(A quick aside.... calling something "a theoretical argument" is a fancy academicism for saying "yeah, so, here's what I think." Granted, it has to reference other academic work for it to be substantive. But it's brilliant! It makes a well-reasoned point sound like high-brow science. I love it.)
The piece is excellent and worth reading. It's extremely digestible for academic ink. The author posits four distinct causes for Zoom fatigue: extensive close eye gaze, cognitive overload, extensive self-viewing, and reduced mobility. I'll briefly explain each and then share my own prescriptions for how to mitigate these concerns:
Excessive close eye gaze: Videoconferencing not only demands eye contact, but we are much closer to other faces - within what's considered 'intimate distance' by research (Hall, 1966) - when we're on Zoom. This is tiring.
Cognitive overload: In-person, it requires virtually no conscious effort to both read and send conversational signals. On Zoom, we expend a ton of energy reading micro-expressions, over-emphasizing body language, raising our voices to be heard, managing technology while listening, etc. It all adds up.
Extensive self-viewing: We don't normally look at ourselves much (in my case, ideally never). Now, we do. And that constant self-reflection moderates our behavior and strains our prefrontal cortices.
Reduced mobility: During in person meetings we move around. We fidget, get up for water, walk around, etc. On Zoom, we have to stay within our camera's field of view. That limits us.
This makes perfect sense to me. So, what should we do about it? I've got a few suggestions. The key to (nearly) all of them is that they ought to happen at the team (if not organizational) level. Simply implementing these suggestions individually may be alienating and strange.
So my essential recommendation is to sit down with your colleagues and intentionally establish new norms. Such as:
Move back. Space-allowing, of course. Encourage teammates to sit further from their cameras to minimize intimate-distance eye gaze. Buying an auxiliary camera is really helpful (I use this one and love it).
Avert Your Eyes: When we're at in-person meetings our eyes wander all the time. On Zoom, the default is that we are expected to be looking at the screen/others the entire time. Instead, give your team permission to glance around, stare at side-monitors, peek at their phone, etc. If the expectation is set team-wide then nobody is being disrespectful when they engage in these human behaviors.
Move around: Similarly, give your team permission to move around, stand up, walk around, bounce a ball, etc. Having an auxiliary camera helps here too.
Use Reactions: Rather than expend significant energy transmitting and reading micro (or macro) expressions, create an expectation to frequently use the reaction tools built into these platforms. Ongoing thumbs up, smiley faces, laughs, hand raises, etc. can make up for videoconferencing's lack of subtle paralinguistics with far less strain on us as communicators.
Make it a Call: If you have a small group consider opting for a phone call. Phone calls give us more freedom to move around and decrease the energy spent trying to decode body language. Now, we've all been on a large conference call with multiple people trying to speak at once. It's awful. So once the group size begins to hit 4-5 or more, videoconferencing can be more optimal because it is much easier to signal that you want to jump into a conversation when others can see you. The advanced option: Do a Zoom call with all videos off (a conference call) but encourage the use of reactions (hand raises, likes, etc.). That format allows for the upside of a conference call without as much who's-talking confusion.
International Women's Day
I was pleased to see so many companies visibly celebrating International Women's Day. Sort of.
Don't get me wrong, I love it when organizations attempt social good. Call me a downer, but every time I saw a social media post, press release, or public statement my mind immediately went to "Why just today? What are they doing to actually help this cause beyond publicly signaling?"
To offer a less socially-charged example, I tend to feel the same way on Earth Day. How about committing to sustainability or carbon neutrality? How about putting your money where your mouth is?
Now, I may be being too harsh. (After all, I'm that guy who watches the Olympics and laments that we're all still so divided by national boundaries). These public displays of goodwill do help amplify an important message, impact culture, and are quite possibly a net positive. Though I'd offer that just paying lip service to supporting women worldwide without backing it up in practice is liable to do more harm than good. It allows us to feel like we're part of a solution while we perpetuate inequities.
So if your organization has been out there shouting about celebrating women in the workplace, hyping your values of diversity, or generally showcasing support for a cause... what are they doing beyond shouting? If you see a disconnect between their words and actions, it might be an artifact of a larger discrepancy between espoused and enacted values. So keep an eye on that. It may be an indicator.
For my many readers in formal leadership positions at your organizations, what steps can you take to practice what you preach? Can your organization commit to transparently sharing pay data and equal pay for equal work? Can you revamp recruiting, hiring, and promotion practices to minimize the statistically absurd gender disparities that make up the leadership ranks of most organizations? Can you commit to publicly acknowledging shortcomings and articulating clear goals for improvement?
If you want to know what an organization values, don't look at the Corporate Values printed on the walls at HQ and on the company website. Don't look at the press releases and social media posts. Look at the balance sheet.
Professional & Personal News
Charlotte turns 15 months old today and man am I in love with this kiddo! She began daycare at the start of March and adjusted flawlessly. (Like, too flawlessly. Didn't even cry when we dropped her off. It was a bit insulting...). Jess and I miss having her around but are trying to make the most of having a solid eight ours of uninterrupted time to work each day. She's sleeping really well, laughing a ton (she's a goofball... wonder where that comes from), and seems a generally fun toddler. Her mom as just been amazing. So Jess, if by some strange miracle you're reading this, you're awesome. (Also, honey, I think we're out of paper towels).
I'm quite excited and proud to share that I've been selected to the list of 40 Under 40 in Leadership! It's rare to find public accolades in my professional space so this really means a great deal to me. I want to offer a special thanks to one of our readers, Todd Burner, Chief Product Officer at Kastle Systems, for his friendship, mentorship, and nomination.
My friend, Peter Bromka, writes a terrific weekly newsletter about running called "The Positive Split". If you're interested in running, please subscribe. I will have a guest piece coming out next week.
I'm thinking of hosting a virtual open-cohort of the Extreme Presentation course later this spring. It would likely be two sessions of 2.5 hours each. Let me know if you're interested in attending!
That's it for this edition - please reach out if I can be at all helpful.
Stay safe, stay inside. Be compassionate and intentional.