The Always Dangerous Conference Call

The worst part of being on a dispersed team these days is The Conference Call. I will bet we all have some wild stories about how badly these can go. The problem is that connecting people with audio over a number of time zones, with people of different cultures and language is awkward, difficult, expensive, and often punitive. Talk about losing membership, lots of poorly executed conference calls will do it.

However, conference calls are also necessary, even critical. Here is a source of great pain that needs relieving. Hey entrepreneurs out there, listen up. Create a better conference call and you can be the next big thing. In the mean time the rest of us need to look very hard integrating our work flows into our team dynamics. A bad call risks a lot.  We risk understanding.  We risk follow-up. We can create dependency because by not having the ability to discuss issues freely and openly. So what’s one to do. Here are some ideas to help with your next conference call.

Design the Call - Many calls are critical. Give them the same time and attention you would put into a critical meeting. Even better make this the norm. No call gets made without a meeting design. Put some forethought into what you actually want to accomplish. Is it a call to impart information only. What is the best way to do this? Think hard about what the team needs. A call may not be the answer. Eliminate every conference call that is not critical. Every time you host a non essential call you are setting a norm that it is OK to waste time.  

Shorten every call. (No need to explain)

Mix it up. Rotate the person in charge of the call. Make call design a competency. The regular Monday afternoon call should not be made by the same team member each week. Rotate the times as well. Give your Asian team mates a break. Let them have the 9 AM call instead of the 9PM call.

Go Deeper with your Call-Ware. If you have purchased a sophisticated conference calling solution, require team members to get trained in using it. Require them to use it and all of it’s bells and whistles. Make this part of the call design. Make experimenting and risk-taking part of the calls. Do polls, and use them for call feedback. How did we do today? What can we do to improve this call? Share screens. If you have video conferencing - use it. But use it wisely. Learning how to make use of call-ware is a competency like any other. Good team-building is about building strong competencies.

Have a Third Place to Go. Make the best use of “The Cloud” for critical documents, time lines, anytime / anyplace discussions. Give team members a place they can visit, track projects, modify their work. I happen to like BaseCamp for this work, but their are other apps that may fill your particular needs. Set time aside to agree on how you will make the best use of your cloud service.

Contract with a Call-Facilitator. It’s an new but upcoming job. Just like with face-to-face meetings, a facilitator will help you with design and also help you with running the meeting. However, many face-to-face facilitators haven't figured this out yet. If you are leading the call, a facilitator will allow you to actually listen to what everyone is saying. It’s very hard to lead and facilitate a call at the same time. Critical calls are not a place to experiment with how well you can multi-task.

Make use of Sub-Teams. Not everyone needs to be on every call. Have the team figure this out. Then create a way for what’s discussed to be shared.

As Steve Jobs would say, “One last thing.” If you are not on to talk, use your mute button. Nothing like hearing disagreements come across as disparaging comments from a de-motivated sub-team in the middle of a critical call . Failure to do this can be career limiting. :-) However, if this does happen, you know that you have some additional work to do.

Just for fun: Add a comment today in which you disclose the funniest thing (worst thing, or something you heard, but wish you didn’t hear) you have ever heard on a conference call. One caveat. Swear to tell the truth! Feel freee to tell a story. It's Friday here, and a little laughter would be greatly appreciated. :-D