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Making Conference Calls Actually Work

Sick of wasting hours on inconclusive, ear numbing conference calls? Here are seven simple tips to make them more effective, faster, cheaper and less stressful.

One of the curses of modern business life is the conference call. Very often, in fact, when people talk about a meeting they actually mean a conference call because in these days of global business, pressure to reduce travel and cheaper communications it is an attractive option. Attractive, that is, to management and not necessarily to the people on the call. The reality is that these calls can last hours and are often ineffective.

But there is no need for it to be that way. Here are seven tried and tested tips that will bring an immediate improvement to the performance of your conference calls. It's worth the effort to master conference call techniques because they can easily cost you hundreds of minutes per week, and this is time you have lost for ever. No matter how important you are or how much you can spend you still have only 1440 minutes each day, so there is no point in wasting them.

1. MEET FACE-TO-FACE FIRST. Conference calls are good for established teams that need to make regular reviews but they are not good for relationship building. If at all possible try to meet physically at the beginning of a project, or organize some phyical networking opportunities within the organization. If this is not possible consider some alternatives such as distributing photos of all the people who are going to be on a call. Believe me this really helps. If you are using a tool like Skype where participants can post photos encourage people to do so. The simple fact of being able to attach a face to a voice makes the call easier.

2. HAVE AN EFFECTIVE CHAIR. To avoid conclusionless chatting you must have a meeting chair who is competent and efficient, and this is not necessarily the boss. The chair starts the meeting on time, introduces everyone, follow the agenda, leads the discussion and summarizes the decisions or conclusions. They must also make sure everyone has a chance to contribute and keep people on topic. They are like the conductors of the orchestra in that most people think they are doing nothing but in reality they are creating the results of the meeting. Don't forget to thank effective chairs after the meeting and where the boss can hear.

3. MANAGE THE DISCUSSION. The chair should not let people talk randomly. They should direct a structured discussion, makings sure nobody drifts away from the subject at hand, polls everyone to get their views and then attempt to propose a consensus. So the chair first listens to everyone and then says something like "It appears that we are all agreed on X, is there anyone who thinks this is not a fair summary of our discussion?". After listening to the feedback the chair can refine the proposed conclusion of the discussion until everyone is satisfied. And I mean everyone, not just the majority, because a consensus works best.

4. REACH A CONSENSUS. In theory you can often reach a kind of agreement where the majority impose their will and the others reluctantly accept it. This approach can lead to faster decision making but poor implementation. The people whose views were ignored will not be enthusiastic in putting into practice the decisions and perhaps even obstruct it in some way. For this reason an efficient chair will try to reach a consensus that is acceptable to everyone. This may take longer and it may be slightly less optimal, but everyone will be pulling in the same direction and you will be thankful for this later.

5. MAKE NOTES. Have someone make notes about the discussion and the decisions and circulate them to the participants as quickly as you can. If there is nobody else to do it then it is your responsability. If the conference call is supported by a tool with document sharing capability -- like NetMeeting -- it can be effective to share what you are writing. This helps build a stronger consensus and avoids later "That's not what I said" comments. Your goal is to get off the call with the minutes already written and acceptable to everyone. Make the notes short because they are easier to write, easier to read, require less argument and are more likely to be used later.

6. HAVE COMFORT BREAKS. The will may be strong but the flesh is weak and needs breaks after a while. Don't schedule three hour calls without at least one short comfort break and don't schedule your call just after another conference call. Some people have a two long calls back to back and either make their own break and turn up late or they lose their concentration as they get more and more distressed. (There is, in fact, an unethical influencing technique where you keep the controversial stuff until everyone is cross eyed with agony then they will have no enthusiasm for a long debate.)

7. CONSIDER CULTURE FACTORS. Unless all the participants are from the same area you should also consider the effects of culture. People in different cultures have vastly different ideas about the purpose of a meeting, how direct you can speak, the different levels of hierarchy that can be mixed and so on. If you have any doubts about this make sure that you get some training or coaching in culture issues. Just to give one example, in the USA it is acceptable to brainstorm new ideas in meetings, but in many countries it would be considered at best impolite to raise new ideas that were not circulated in advance.

Apply these seven secrets and your conference calls with be effective and probably shorter, too. Master these techniques and make sure that everyone in your organization is competent to participate in an effective conference call. It will have a noticable effect on productivity and will also mean less people demanding to fly to Hawaii for a face-to-face meeting "because the conf calls are a waste of time".

Copyright Andrew Hennigan, 2006..

© Copyright 2007 Andrew Hennigan Conseil SARL.

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Home \| Biography \| Articles \| Podcasts \| Contact \| Blog (external)

Making Conference Calls Actually Work Sick of wasting hours on inconclusive, ear numbing conference calls? Here are seven simple tips to make them more effective, faster, cheaper and less stressful. One of the curses of modern business life is the conference call. Very often, in fact, when people talk about a meeting they actually mean a conference call because in these days of global business, pressure to reduce travel and cheaper communications it is an attractive option. Attractive, that is, to management and not necessarily to the people on the call. The reality is that these calls can last hours and are often ineffective. But there is no need for it to be that way. Here are seven tried and tested tips that will bring an immediate improvement to the performance of your conference calls. It's worth the effort to master conference call techniques because they can easily cost you hundreds of minutes per week, and this is time you have lost for ever. No matter how important you are or how much you can spend you still have only 1440 minutes each day, so there is no point in wasting them. 1. MEET FACE-TO-FACE FIRST. Conference calls are good for established teams that need to make regular reviews but they are not good for relationship building. If at all possible try to meet physically at the beginning of a project, or organize some phyical networking opportunities within the organization. If this is not possible consider some alternatives such as distributing photos of all the people who are going to be on a call. Believe me this really helps. If you are using a tool like Skype where participants can post photos encourage people to do so. The simple fact of being able to attach a face to a voice makes the call easier. 2. HAVE AN EFFECTIVE CHAIR. To avoid conclusionless chatting you must have a meeting chair who is competent and efficient, and this is not necessarily the boss. The chair starts the meeting on time, introduces everyone, follow the agenda, leads the discussion and summarizes the decisions or conclusions. They must also make sure everyone has a chance to contribute and keep people on topic. They are like the conductors of the orchestra in that most people think they are doing nothing but in reality they are creating the results of the meeting. Don't forget to thank effective chairs after the meeting and where the boss can hear. 3. MANAGE THE DISCUSSION. The chair should not let people talk randomly. They should direct a structured discussion, makings sure nobody drifts away from the subject at hand, polls everyone to get their views and then attempt to propose a consensus. So the chair first listens to everyone and then says something like "It appears that we are all agreed on X, is there anyone who thinks this is not a fair summary of our discussion?". After listening to the feedback the chair can refine the proposed conclusion of the discussion until everyone is satisfied. And I mean everyone, not just the majority, because a consensus works best. 4. REACH A CONSENSUS. In theory you can often reach a kind of agreement where the majority impose their will and the others reluctantly accept it. This approach can lead to faster decision making but poor implementation. The people whose views were ignored will not be enthusiastic in putting into practice the decisions and perhaps even obstruct it in some way. For this reason an efficient chair will try to reach a consensus that is acceptable to everyone. This may take longer and it may be slightly less optimal, but everyone will be pulling in the same direction and you will be thankful for this later. 5. MAKE NOTES. Have someone make notes about the discussion and the decisions and circulate them to the participants as quickly as you can. If there is nobody else to do it then it is your responsability. If the conference call is supported by a tool with document sharing capability -- like NetMeeting -- it can be effective to share what you are writing. This helps build a stronger consensus and avoids later "That's not what I said" comments. Your goal is to get off the call with the minutes already written and acceptable to everyone. Make the notes short because they are easier to write, easier to read, require less argument and are more likely to be used later. 6. HAVE COMFORT BREAKS. The will may be strong but the flesh is weak and needs breaks after a while. Don't schedule three hour calls without at least one short comfort break and don't schedule your call just after another conference call. Some people have a two long calls back to back and either make their own break and turn up late or they lose their concentration as they get more and more distressed. (There is, in fact, an unethical influencing technique where you keep the controversial stuff until everyone is cross eyed with agony then they will have no enthusiasm for a long debate.) 7. CONSIDER CULTURE FACTORS. Unless all the participants are from the same area you should also consider the effects of culture. People in different cultures have vastly different ideas about the purpose of a meeting, how direct you can speak, the different levels of hierarchy that can be mixed and so on. If you have any doubts about this make sure that you get some training or coaching in culture issues. Just to give one example, in the USA it is acceptable to brainstorm new ideas in meetings, but in many countries it would be considered at best impolite to raise new ideas that were not circulated in advance. Apply these seven secrets and your conference calls with be effective and probably shorter, too. Master these techniques and make sure that everyone in your organization is competent to participate in an effective conference call. It will have a noticable effect on productivity and will also mean less people demanding to fly to Hawaii for a face-to-face meeting "because the conf calls are a waste of time".
Copyright Andrew Hennigan, 2006..
© Copyright 2007 Andrew Hennigan Conseil SARL.