Digital Fireside Chats

Webinars on how industries are responding to COVID-19? Check. Pop-up Zoom happy hours so colleagues can connect for a moment and not talk about Coronavirus? Check. As I scan the feed, there is another element of connection that organizations should consider - the digital fireside chat.

At times of rapid change and uncertainty, we seek voices of leadership for a sense of stability and unity. While well-vetted emails and missives can succeed in providing information and direction, there is a human element that these don’t embody.

For the next few weeks, associations should consider weekly digital fireside chats – brief, open video invites to the membership at large, each week hosted by another Board member or leader. The organization can provide them with a 2 minute update to kickoff, and then have it be a space where members can give insights to what they are seeing on the ground, ask questions for the organization to explore, or give open feedback on what they need. The objective is not that the Board member hosting is all knowing – they should not provide answers where there isn’t clarity – but that the organization’s leadership is demonstrating a professional caring for their members and the member voice. This is a way to tangibly demonstrate that in this time of uncertainty there are avenues of dialogue and input that connect leadership to those that they serve.

For a digital fireside chat to succeed, a few elements should be considered:

1.   There should be a staff moderator that can work the back end of meeting – seeing who ‘raises their hand’ and passing along questions

2.   Have a staff or another leader on the line that can dialogue with the leader who is hosting – the format you are going for here is interaction and discussion. Even as participants ask questions, the goal may not be to answer, it may be to discuss and ask questions back to achieve greater understanding.

3.   Success is not measured by quantity – perhaps 2 people will attend, and perhaps 50 – to some extent it is the organization creating the space that is the very element of success.

4.   Explicitly state if there is a room or person cap – if there is greater demand, increase the number of these that you run – don’t put an overwhelming number of people in one ‘room.’

5.   There is risk in not knowing who will say what. There is risk in that each leader hosting will have their own style and presence. By the time you have run 3-4 of these, you will have gained enough mastery that these risks will be somewhat mitigated by experience in knowing how to structure and respond.

If there was a time our members’ needed strong and caring voices of leadership from their association, it is now. Create the space, set the table for connection, and succeed in building loyalty in a time of adversity through embodying a community of leaders that listen.