If you do the math, many of us have been spending a good part of our working lives in online meetings for almost five years now. Working from home, in the office, on the train, in a hotel—camera on, mic on, “Can you hear me?”.
By now, we should all be absolute pros. Like driving: if you’ve got thousands of miles of experience, you automatically drive better—right? Unfortunately, no. If you drive a lot, you mainly become one thing: practiced. Whether you develop good or bad habits is a completely different question.
It’s the same with online meetings: frequency does not replace quality. We’ve learned how to find the mic—but not necessarily how to truly come across effectively online.
Routine is not the same as professionalism
In the “offline world,” we would never think of saying:
“I’ve been giving presentations for years, so I don’t need to prepare anymore.”
Online, we do it all the time:
- The camera is positioned however it happens to be.
- The light comes “from somewhere.”
- The screen is a colorful jumble of files, tabs, and notifications.
- Teams, Zoom, or Webex settings? Clicked once at some point—never looked at again.
The problem: our meeting routine has developed faster than our quality standards. We’ve learned how to get through somehow—not how to stand out with confidence.
At the same time, expectations have risen: clients, colleagues, leaders—everyone is tired of mediocre meetings. Anyone who comes across as clear, structured, and professional today stands out immediately.
Three common online meeting pitfalls
Let’s look at a few classics you definitely know—maybe even from your own experience:
1. “We can’t see you, but we can kind of hear you”
The tech works “sort of”: the image is dark, backlight from the window, camera from below (complete with Zoom chin), audio okay but echoey.
The message on the relationship level:
“I didn’t really bother.”
Often, it’s the small things: a front-facing light source, camera at eye level, a tidy real background. These basics are part of a professional virtual presence—and can be handled with two or three conscious decisions.
2. “I’ll just share… oh… wait… wrong screen”
You share your screen and everyone sees:
- 47 files on the desktop
- 12 bright red badges in Outlook or Teams
- the private browser tab with “cheap Tuscany vacation”
Content-wise, your presentation may be excellent. But by the time you’ve found the right slide, some of the attention is gone—and a bit of trust along with it.
Here, too, it’s simple routines: turn off system notifications, quickly tidy up the desktop (quick fix: create a “Desktop” folder and move everything in), hide the bookmarks bar, test Presenter View before the meeting starts.
3. “Teams will do that automatically”
Many people see Microsoft Teams, Zoom & Co. as neutral infrastructure: send a link, join, done.
In reality, you make a series of decisions before the meeting even starts:
- Who can bypass the lobby?
- Who is the host, who is the presenter, who is a guest?
- Are Q&A, chat, or reactions helpful—or more distracting?
- Are breakout rooms prepared, or will we be guessing mid-meeting who goes where?
These small decisions determine whether your meeting feels structured and professional—or random and improvised. That’s exactly why it’s worth defining the meeting setup consciously instead of sticking with the default settings.
The real question: How seriously do you take your digital stage?
In person, we know the drill: before an important presentation, we check the room, test the projector and mic, and mentally tune in to the audience.
Online, many do the exact opposite: we click from one appointment straight into the next and hope everything will somehow work out.
Yet the screen has become our most important stage:
- For client conversations.
- For internal decisions.
- For leadership, feedback, and project steering.
Digital professionalism is no longer an extra—it is part of our job profile.
Once you understand that, you suddenly look at these questions differently:
- How do I want to be perceived online?
- How easy do I make it for others to follow me?
- How much cognitive load do I create through technical chaos—and how much focus do I enable?
Small adjustments, big impact
The good news: for 80% of a professional impression, you do not need expensive studios—just a few conscious decisions and routines:
- Set it up properly once—camera, mic, internet, test call.
- Take your presence seriously—light, camera, background, framing.
- Declutter screen sharing—notifications, desktop, browser.
- Design the tool setup—roles, lobby, Q&A, breakouts.
- Prepare the presentation—right monitor, Presenter View, laser pointer color.
At first glance, that’s all it takes—but these small adjustments decide whether your online meeting looks like a “necessary evil” or like: “Okay, someone put thought into this.”
So where do you start?
Reflection is the first step:
- Which of the pitfalls described above do you recognize in yourself?
- What is one thing you want to do differently, consciously, before your next meeting?
So you don’t have to reinvent this every time, we’ve put all these points on one page: a compact online meeting checklist you can quickly run through before important appointments.
You’ll find:
- the most important basics for tech & setup,
- clear guidance for your virtual presence,
- and practical points on Teams settings, screen sharing, and presentations
Download: Online Meeting Essentials
If you would like to not just “get through” your next meeting, but design it professionally and intentionally, you can download our Online Meeting Essentials here:
You may then realize: we may have been sitting in online meetings constantly for five years—but today was the moment you started to truly shape them.
