Half of our leadership team works at our headquarters while the other half is permanently remote across the country. Can we run a hybrid session room with some people in person and others on a screen, or does that break the EOS process?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Hybrid session rooms break the operational dynamic almost every single time. When four leaders sit around a conference table and three appear on a television screen on the wall, you instantly create a two-tiered team. The in-person group has side conversations, shares nonverbal reactions, and dominates the room. The remote attendees feel like second-class observers, mute their microphones, and mentally check out during deep IDS sessions.

My policy on this is straightforward: either everyone is in the room together, or everyone is on their own individual camera. There is no middle ground.

If you have a distributed executive team, the gold standard is flying everyone in for the session days. Gathering quarterly in a dedicated, neutral off-site room builds the trust and healthy vulnerability required to debate hard issues. If budget, geography, or travel constraints make flying impossible for a specific quarterly, we shift the entire session to a fully virtual format where every single leader sits in front of their own webcam with a dedicated headset.

That level playing field keeps eye contact direct, forces equal participation, and eliminates the back-channel murmurs that ruin hybrid meetings. Do not attempt a half-in, half-out room. It dilutes the intensity of the work and leaves critical team issues unresolved.