Are you fed up with Death by PowerPoint online meetings? Are you frustrated by rampant multitasking, rather than great participation in your meeting? In your online meetings, have you found that participation, interaction, and collaboration have ground to a screeching halt?

Such is the culture of virtual meetings all over the world. Everyone knows that most conference calls and online meetings are awful. But our corporate leaders have accepted it, and all of us have learned to tolerate it. In fact, multitasking is one way we have learned to cope with bad online meetings.

How long would we let bad online meetings continue if leaders knew that these worst practices were holding back performance by about one-third? Research by Frost & Sullivan (2006) determined that collaboration quality (getting people to interact openly and vigorously) is a leading driver of performance. People that interact at low levels (or not at all) will perform at lower levels. In contrast, people that interact at high levels will perform at high levels. Interaction quality is everything!

So, to improve results, the mandate for change is clear. Corporate leaders must act decisively to change the ineffective online meeting culture to one that is vigorously interactive when people are not face to face. One cannot change a culture by purchasing new technology and using a few techniques. Changing the culture of the way people meet virtually takes commitment, action, and training--across time. Here are some key steps to change your company's online meeting culture, so you, too, can improve performance.

1. Identify ineffective communication practices as they exist today. Get very clear about what people commonly do now that leads to miscommunication, frustration, and rework.
2. Provide the finest collaborative technologies available to help your people collaborate, communicate, and connect in their real-time meetings. A robust web conference technology is essential for every virtual leader and team.
3. Identify which other collaboration technologies fit your organization's work. Many virtual teams will also need Instant Meeting, an Electronic team room, and possibly video conferencing, too.
4. Establish a written corporate communication plan that establishes a clear way people are to communicate, collaborate, and connect in the virtual space. Establish norms and guidelines on how to use the most critical technologies, including web conference meetings, instant message, electronic team rooms, and email.
5. Establish clear guidelines for the right medium for the message. Make sure that people understand when to send an email vs. picking up the phone vs. logging on to a web conference.
6. Upgrade audio quality. Expect nothing less than digital-quality audio. Also identify policies about using mobile phones, the mute button, and headsets.
7. In online meetings, link from the desktop, not a conference room. It is essential that everyone connect from an equal platform, so no participant is disadvantaged from being a full and equal participant in the team meeting.
8. Train your leaders how to plan and facilitate an engaging, interactive team meeting. This training is not about how to operate technology; rather it is about how to change the meeting culture so people collaborate, communicate, and connect.
9. Take 3 minutes to review the meeting effectiveness at the end of every meeting. This small step keeps everyone focused on changing their practices so meeting virtually works for them.
10. Sponsor a quarterly live webinar to reinforce elements of how to communicate, collaborate, and connect in a virtual setting, and why that is so essential for success. Feature C-level and VP level leaders, along with people throughout the organization that share their best practices. Always talk about why these new practices are important for the people, the teams, and the business.