If you’ve ever found yourself on a conference call from hell, chances are part of it had to do with the fact that you could hear unintended background noise.
Your professionalism can suffer immensely if you’re deemed to be the source of the distraction, especially if your client is taking part. I’ve been on a team in which one such infraction happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for the demanding customer at the other end of the line. Not only was the offending colleague taken off the project, his credibility within the organization took a nosedive.
The fact is, people are willing to accommodate disruptions, to a degree. To guard yourself against embarrassment (and more serious repercussions), take the following steps during your next conference call:
1. Locate the mute button (and know what it does)
On most platforms, the mute button is represented by a mic. When it’s activated, you’re muted, meaning nothing on your end will be heard by anyone else on the call.
Orient yourself with what the mute button looks like on a number of the most popular web-conference platforms — click the links to learn more!
GoToMeeting
WebEx
Columbus State Community College
Zoom
Microsoft Teams
Source: Guiding Tech
Blue Jeans
Source: Blue Jeans Support
Skype
Source: WikiHow Tech
Google Hangouts
Source: HowToGeek
2. Understand when to use the mute button
This can get a bit tricky. It really depends on two factors:
1. Are you the meeting organizer?
2. Who else is on the call?
If you happen to be the meeting organizer, chances are you won’t be able to mute yourself for much of the meeting since it’s your responsibility to set the tempo of the discussion and ensure folks remain on track.
Especially towards the beginning of the call, remain unmuted as folks are joining into the conference, welcome them, and make small talk. Once you clearly lay out the reason for the meeting and others begin to speak, feel free to mute yourself to “clear the way” for others to talk uninterrupted.
If you’re not the meeting organizer, you can unmute yourself at the start to announce your presence and respond to small talk, then mute yourself until you actually need to talk (if at all). I’ve been on numerous meetings in which I remained muted for the whole time after the initial “meet and greet” — and that’s totally okay.
The second key consideration is to know your audience. For internal calls (i.e. those that involve your colleagues and no client participants), it’s generally okay to follow a more lax muting policy, but each situation is different. A 1:1 with a teammate that works with you is by nature going to be more casual, and likely friendly, than a 1:1 with your supervisor.
For external calls, if you’re the meeting organizer, take every precaution to ensure that you can remain on the full call without needing to mute. If you’re not the meeting organizer, it’s best to mute yourself whenever you don’t need to speak.
3. What if I really mess up this whole muting business?
If you make a habit of practicing steps 1 and 2 above for all of your future meetings, you will almost certainly not need to ask yourself this question. Needless to say, we must always be prepared when things don’t turn out the way we want them to.
Chances are others will give you a heads up before you even realize you’re unmuted. Keep an eye out on your conference platform’s chat, where a concerned colleague might ping you to say, “Hey, we can hear you typing!” (been there, done that!). More likely, someone else on the call will say, “Hey, can whoever it is that’s in a wind tunnel mute themselves? There’s a lot of background noise,” which will immediately cue you to embarrassingly locate the mute button and click it within a nanosecond.
As with any other meeting, it’s crucial to be present and make an active effort to follow what’s happening so you can pick up on the above nudges before they derail the session.
Take the appropriate action and move on. No need to apologize (which takes more time away from the meeting and can be embarrassing). You’ll know better the next time around.
