Marisa T. Martin

It’s hard to stay focused and engaged when you’re talking into a little piece of plastic. I should know: I am fully remote, working from my too-quiet home office almost 100% of the time (until I get stir-crazy and head to my nearest overpriced coffee shop).

After a series of on-site meetings a few weeks ago, I was blown away by the recollection that meetings used to be much easier. So much easier! You can see me, I can see you, we can talk about life and kids and laugh together – or not, which we can decide together through body language.

While I haven’t found an answer for virtual body language – short of webcams, which can be frustratingly difficult to use in the corporate world – I have found a trick that helps me stay focused during roundtables: photos. Before a meeting, I’ll pull up a photo of each participant and keep them on my screen. Talking to the picture feels strange at first, but it works, I’m telling you, it works.

In fact, it works so well that I’ll be including speaker photos in the corner of our presentation decks for big meetings. I say this all the time, and it’s so true: anymore, we’re all remote from someone on our team. So if the boss is in North America, we’ll display his photo to the folks in India and vice versa. I’ll let you knew how that goes.

What if you don’t have a spiffy corporate directory with photographs? Use fake ones. Have a library of faces and pick a few for each meeting. Really!