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鈥淧lease unmute yourself鈥� has replaced 鈥淧lease raise your hand鈥� in COVID-era classrooms. It鈥檚 also become the most frequent request during formal superintendent searches.

Having recently led or supported more than a dozen searches for school boards seeking new executive leadership during the coronavirus pandemic, I have returned to my classroom teaching roots when it comes to monitoring group behavior. My role now involves teaching both consultants and school boards that conducting online focus groups, town halls and community forums increases community participation and yields more useful, candid feedback.

In preparation for searches, I鈥檝e been mentoring associates in the vagaries of videoconferencing platforms 鈥� yes, you use Chrome and not Firefox to screen share in Google Meet; Zoom webinars and Zoom meetings are different; and Microsoft Teams appears to have more tech glitches than Webex. As executive search consultants, we have become unlikely experts on the use of all these platforms. We find ourselves teaching community members how to unmute and how to 鈥淩aise Hands,鈥� post anonymous questions or comments to a search committee or candidate finalists, and how to use the chat function to ensure their voices are heard.

As in classroom teaching, the greatest rewards are when students succeed. Seeing the faces of retired administrators now working as consultants light up when they master a videoconferencing tool or board members admire their newfound tech acumen is enormously gratifying. Most rewarding is the depth and breadth of feedback collected during virtual community engagement sessions, a key factor in any successful search.