The Fastest Way to Improve Your Conference Calls

Do you enjoy conference calls? Despite good intentions, conference calls often end up being train wrecks of epic proportions. People check out. People leave, multitask, or argue. Sometimes one voice will be easy to hear but others are inaudible.

Compounding this is a very common practice. Maybe you fall into this practice. I've seen it over and over and even been a participant myself. The flawed practice is mixing the group, with part of the call all together in one conference room and the rest of the group off site on separate phones. A variation of this, and even tougher to manage, is a chain of conference rooms with groups of people sharing one phone at each location.

What's wrong with this arrangement?

People are then communicating on different levels, in different channels, and on different status plane. In any room you have the issues of status to deal with. When you put some people together in one room, that is one status dynamic to manage. When you mix that with multiple locations, the status range becomes unmanageable. It also tends to favor wherever the "home" location is much to the detriment of anyone else. Frustration and ineffective behaviors results.

How to fix that? It's simple, but it takes some guts. Follow this rule:

"If anyone is calling in alone, everyone is calling in alone."

Rather than have groups in some locations and individuals in others, allow (and require) every participant in the call to call in, using a common conference call number. This puts everyone on the same level of participation, technology, and status. No more rolling of eyes at something someone on the line said so that some people know your reaction and some do not. No more secret coded body language disparaging or supporting someone on the phone. Set up everyone as equal, and your chances of achieving equality increase geometrically.

If anyone is on the phone, everyone is on the phone. And for better quality, make it one person one phone.

Try it. You'll enjoy much, much better conference calls.

-- doug smith

Comments

Measures Matter

Some people measure quantify first and quality later. Some people measure money first and impact to the team later (not even second!). How you measure productivity might determine your character and your reputation. Put people first. -- doug smith

Your Reputation

More authority means higher levels of responsibility. More power requires more service to others, not less. What you do with your power is who you will be known as. Also, how you use the power you have creates who people will remember you as. How do you want to be remembered? -- doug smith

What You Need

Use what you've learned to become what you need. -- doug smith

New Ideas

New ideas won't break you but they can make you bigger. -- doug smith

Personally

Improving performance does require us to take our work seriously. But it does not require us to take ourselves too seriously. Taking things personally is a waste of self-esteem. -- doug smith

For example

Get good at something that won't obsolete itself. For example: emotional intelligence creating great conversations encouraging people leadership What would you add to the list? Which ones are you developing? -- doug smith

Decide

What do you want? Are you getting what you want? Intention is direction. Decide. And, then go. -- doug smith

High Performance Leadership Combination

We can rationalize anything without making it justified. Leaders should always ask: who is this good for other than me? High performance leadership does NOT mean performance at any cost. It means performance that serves a noble cause while also benefiting people. High performance leadership is a combination. Results without relationships are shallow and temporary. Take care of both, and you'll be a high performance leader. -- doug smith

Start With Kindness

When you start with kindness you don't have to stay there, but you probably will. It works better for others. It works better for you. If you're human, you'll probably relapse. It does take practice to stay the course. The course starts by starting. When you start with kindness, it becomes more naturally the way. High performance leadership develops from the core leadership strengths of clarity, creativity, courage, and compassion. Build one of those strengths today thru some act of kindness and the others will get stronger as well. -- doug smith

The Problem With Compromises

Think about the last time you compromised on something. Whether it was a big compromise or a little compromise, how do you feel about it now? While we often call it "meet in the middle" it seldom does. Compromises are not automatically fair, no matter how implied that fairness is. Someone usually gets more out of a compromise than the person they are "compromising" with. If the low end is you, you don't like it -- and you remember that. If the top end of the compromise is you, you probably forget all about it even though the inequity simmers in the background. Compromises must be constantly revisited because they are inevitably unfair. If you get the chance to balance things out, your relationship will prosper. If you miss that chance, the relationship will suffer. What's your choice? -- doug smith

High Performance Leadership

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