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This is one article from the Charter Issue, June,
2002.
For other stories and articles, go to the Current Issue.
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Teleconferencing
Collaboration's
Lowest Common Denominator
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Perhaps you've used Microsoft's NetMeeting, you may be a video
conferencing expert, you might have an intranet for your team...or not. But, you're
certain to use the telephone. The phone has been
an essential feature of business for longer than most
of us have been employed. And, for the past
decade, who among us hasn't spend long hours
participating in teleconferences?
Are you getting real value out of those
multiparty phone calls? Could time be better spent? Are
you sure everybody is putting their best efforts forward...even though you can't see them? Is
everyone working toward the same goals, even when they're not connected? |
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If your organization is like most, much of your
teleconference time is nonproductive: It's hard to brainstorm, there's
often no clear agreement on what the meeting's
about and where it's headed, and many of the remote
participants have their phones on mute while they
attend to other matters, only occasionally
listening—in case something they deem important pops up.
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"I spend 80% of my
workday
in teleconferences!" —IBM Executive
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Success Strategies
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Preparation — getting clear about what you
want to achieve, and how you're going to get it,
and communicating that to the participants,
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Participants — making sure the people who'll
be invited will make a contribution, and will be
able to do something better as a consequence,
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Skills — making sure people have the
unique skills necessary to be effective participants, and
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Technology — selecting the right mix of technologies to make the process productive.
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Preparation
The first question: Is this teleconference
necessary? If you have a "standing" weekly or
monthly teleconference, for instance, cancel it if there's
nothing to be said. That will make the calls you
do hold more important. If you circulate a virtually
empty draft agenda two days before and nobody adds
anything to it, notify everyone that teleconference
is cancelled so they can go do something productive. The second question: What outcome do you want?
Is there a specific question to which you need an answer? Some information you need to share
to which people are expected to have some response?
Is this a broadcast of information from one point
to many others? Your outcome must be clear and stated in just a few words, like "Purpose: To
decide which vendor to engage for the Pearl project."
If your teleconference is worth holding and you know what you want to achieve, it is worth
spending time planning for it to be successful.
Preparation shows you believe this event important,
that participation is important, and it encourages
others to do their homework before the phone rings.
That makes the teleconference itself more productive; it means we can avoid wasting time
spinning everyone up to speed, which often consumes half
of a teleconference. (In a future issue we'll talk
about meeting preparation and how it's best done.)
Planning starts with an agenda. Assign
specific time slots for every topic, so people know what's
going to be discussed, and for how long. Create a
logical progression, from one topic to the next, that
inevitably leads to the result you need. Make sure
everyone gets a copy a couple of days before the
meeting, so they can ask you to amend it if they've
got hot topics and other ideas to add. Ideally, the
agenda is part of the invitation (or a reminder, closer to
the event), so people can accept or decline based on
what they see you want to accomplish.
Participants
When you're prepared, you know whom to invite. You must be selective, because that avoids
people wasting their time...or, worse, learning that you
generally conduct teleconferences they experience
as timewasting. Next, manage the quality of your teleconference by controlling participation. Invite only people
who can and will:
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Have something to contribute to the result,
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Learn from what others have to say, or
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Both
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Skills
| People aren't born with teleconferencing skills, they
have to be cultivated. From childhood, we've learned
to interact with people face-to-face, and that was
reinforced through our school and early work years. So, it's an acquired skill to
remember that an inanimate phone represents one or
more people who were invited, who want to
contribute, but aren't in the same room with us.
If you're in the conference room, you need to
remain aware of those participating by phone and reach out to them. The remote participants need
to take responsibility for making sure they get
heard; the shy person may be at a disadvantage if they
don't speak up and interrupt as necessary. |
Feeling ignored by those in the main conference room?
Can't hear what's going on because they've
forgotten you're out there? Rap sharply three times on your own microphone with a
finger (repeat with a pencil, if you must). The sudden noise at the other end will remind people
to pay attention to you, even though you're not in
their room. |
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Leading a teleconference is a challenge. Not
only do you have to make sure things get done, but
you have to make sure everybody's kept engaged.
Sometimes, you even have to shut off dialog that's
irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
You also have to make sure everybody contributes:
If you notice participants are silent, is it
because they're distracted by things at their desk, bored
with what's going on, or too shy to speak up? As the
meeting leader, you need to ask questions.
Otherwise, good contributions might be lost because we
can't observe that person's face and body postures
that would have signaled, "I've got something to say."
If you have more than two or three remote participants, you might want to assign someone
else the responsibility of making sure quiet participants
are being included, while you focus on the main
objective of the meeting.
Technology
Not everybody knows how to properly use their telephone equipment. You may have to
mentor some people so a ringing phone in Tulsa doesn't
disrupt the conference room in New York (some
speakerphones don't silence their ringers when using
the speaker; avoid them when you can). For
starters, make sure everyone has an owner's manual for
the phone(s) they use for conference calls, and
make sure they understand the important features.
You have to decide which are the best technologies to couple with your telecalls to be most
productive. What you encourage—and discourage—will
affect the results you get. In extreme cases, you
may have to buy equipment and make sure it gets installed, so people with inadequate phones can
productively participate. Or, if it's a contractor,
consultant or vendor, you may have to give them
technology specifications they must meet to work
with the rest of your team.
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newsletter, June, 2002