From Inc. This Morning

Plenty of business leaders name their conference rooms. Chris Dyer names his meetings instead.

The founder and CEO of background-check company PeopleG2 has been a remote leader for nearly 11 years. He’s done it successfully, with PeopleG2 booking $5 million in 2019 revenue and landing on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in America four times since 2013. And along the way, he estimates, his company has held more than 100,000 virtual meetings.

Inc. web producer Sophie Downes called Dyer up to talk about the art of virtual meetings. One of his best tips: Sort your meetings into different types, each with a name and a predetermined set of rules, so employees know exactly what to expect going in.

A few examples:

• Cockroach meetings for solving minor issues. “If you have a cockroach in your bathroom, it’s a small problem,” Dyer says.
• Tiger meetings for discussing more complex subjects. (“If there’s a tiger in your bathroom, it’s a bigger problem.”)
• Ostrich meetings for seeking information or help with a task. (“Help me get my head out of the sand.”)
• Tsunami meetings for devising responses to hypothetical down-the-road scenarios.

Across the board, Dyer notes, all virtual meetings must start on time, end early, and have a clear agenda. Perhaps most importantly, you need to build extra empathy into each one--especially in moments of unprecedented global anxiety.

How? Dyer has some suggestions for that and more, so read Downes’s story to learn Dyer’s secrets to running highly effective virtual meetings