Another thread from the Fast Company Now blog:
When Conferences Call
If you regularly schedule conference calls with remote colleagues, distributed teams, and other partners, you might want to rethink your teamwork tactics. According to a recent RoperASW/Tandberg poll, less than half of respondents pay attention during conference calls. And what they do instead is quite interesting -- and occasionally alarming.
Are conference calls productive? Do you have any conference call tips or tactics? Add a comment and share your ideas.
Posted by Heath Row at November 21, 2003 12:39 PM | 2 Comments
MY COMMENTS:
Posted by: Steve at November 21, 2003 03:49 PM
My company has offices around the world -- from the U.S. to the U.K, and throughout Asia. This often means that our Asia staff are on the call in the afternoon, our U.K. staff at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning, and we on the U.S. West Coast at 11:00 at night. Our staff on the East Coast then have to set their alarm clocks for 2:00 a.m.! Needless to say, many people on the call are not going to be at their peak, let alone fully attentive. That said, the calls are still fairly productive.
One possible solution is for people speaking to pause frequently and solicit questions and feedback. People who are hesitant to break in will often jump in when specifically asked. If someone is silent for too long, call them by name and ask for their feedback. This should be handled carefully so as to not make it feel like the teacher making sure the student is paying attention, but it is an effective way to keep everyone alert and involved.
It also helps to send as detailed as possible an agenda out ahead of time so people have time to familiarize themselves with the topics to be discussed and formulate questions and comments ahead of time. This is especially important for global calls where not all participants speak English as their first language. Inability to understand what is being discussed, either because of language difficulty or poor sound quality, will lose people faster than almost anything else.
The larger the group, the higher the likelihood that people will feel disconnected lose focus. Consider a communication tree where you hold one call with group or regional leaders and then those leaders hold "local" calls with their groups. This helps alleviate the time difference hassles, as well. The leaders can then hold a follow up call to report back results and feedback.
It is also important to make sure the call is necessary in the first place. Conference calls are not cheap, and neither is the value of people's time. Can the same thing be accomplished "offline" via e-mail or some other means of asynchronous communication?
When Conferences Call | Fast Company Now
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