VIM Executive Coaching has recently (and expectedly) encountered executive leaders who have become enthralled with the multiple video-conferencing platforms that have now become available.
“Time-saver!” “Life-saver!” and “Ideal project management tool!” are terms that have been recently heard from clients and prospective clients who are convinced that video-conferencing and virtual anything, are the next wave of leadership tools. It is as though Dorothy and Toto really have found the key to getting home to Kansas!
The Wizard of Oz
Remember The Wizard of Oz? Of course, you do. Only Toto, the cute terrier, was on to the Great Oz at first, sneaking behind the curtain, and tugging on his pant-leg and giving away his larger-than-life presence.
The movie pre-dated television, of course, and certainly computers, along with Zoom, GoToMeeting, Google Hangouts, Webex and the rest. But there was Oz, projected on a screen Zoom-like, surrounded by flames, echoes and a lot of unnecessary drama that had nothing to do with leadership.
Indeed, when Oz stepped from behind the curtain, he was a wizened, old fellow who readily admitted he didn’t have the answers, let alone being all-knowing and all-seeing. Oz reached into a box and gave the Tin Man a diploma for his intelligence and the Lion a medal for his bravery and “heart,” but he readily admitted that they already had such qualities. They just needed to believe they had them. Oz had turned from pretending to be omniscient to being authentic. He was real, and himself, and simply compassionate.
So now we come to leadership in the time of COVID-19, social upheaval and a period of incredible, pressure-cooking stress. And, as it is turning out, Toto and Dorothy are still lost.
Writer Andrew Martins for an article on Business Daily (June 3, 2020) summarized the present-day leadership obsession with conference calls:
“Along with the normal stressors of a work meeting, experts suggest constant exposure to online meetings can affect mental health and stress levels.”
As it turns out, a conference call with several people, each talking at (not to) one another, posing and posturing from little boxes may be more stress-producing and far less productive than we care to admit. In fact, psychologists warn that many of us are tuning out and turning away from this form of communication.
Get Real
The experts are also telling us that other forms of communication, such as a face-to-face meeting (a socially-distanced one with a face mask), telephone call or email may be more effective in getting a message across. The reasons are or should be obvious: the leader is more real, more responsive and more authentic in such moments. Even with social distancing, face masks and the like, the current penchant for virtual everything cannot replace authenticity.
Oz was an intimidating figure to be sure, but only to those who feared his form over the actual substance or artificial projection on a screen over human contact. The movie, as most all movies, was at least part fiction. Leadership, however, must be real and in the moment.
As leaders seek to hold their virtual meetings (Zoom, alone, has 300 million per day), it must be asked if the meeting has purpose and intent or is simply a posture at leadership.
There will be other platforms of course, and even when this virtual form of communication is usurped and rolled into the “next best thing,” nothing will ever surpass mindfulness. In the end, those who play at being Oz must realize that the greatest moments for Oz were outside the curtain, when Oz was merely human.