We waste so much time in meetings and conference calls, some of which are unnecessary and others that take way too long. We all know this. And yet how often do we leave a conference call or a meeting asking ourselves: “was all that really necessary?” If we just follow these simple rules when considering a meeting or a call imagine how much more productive our time could be.
Make sure you really need it in the first place. If this is really just an update, perhaps a memo would be better to save everyone the time.
On the other hand, be proactive about using a quick meeting or conference call to focus on and resolve/decide on an issue or question that otherwise would become the longest email string in the world that never really reaches consensus or action (you know exactly what I’m talking about).
Make sure everyone is required. Every attendee should be an active participant. Anybody who is just “listening in” should save themselves the time and read the memo/recap afterward. If you are playing Candy Crush while “attending” your next conference call, this probably means you.
Set up a dial-in line vs. “conferencing people in” across multiple phone numbers. Make it really easy for everyone required to join in independently of one another.
If you are the leader or moderator, join the call five minutes early. If another participant is late, that’s bad enough, but having everyone sit around waiting for the leader is far worse and a huge waste of everyone’s time.
Distribute an agenda in advance. You’re doing this for live, in-person meetings right? They’re just as important for phone-based meetings to keep them disciplined, focused and efficient.
If you’re a required participant (which means you’ll be participating) don’t multi-task. Focus with everyone else on the topic/question/decision at hand so it can get done as quickly as possible.
If you are the leader or moderator, actively manage the focus and length of the call. If you scheduled 30 minutes, ensure you can get your business done in that time or less. Also police the discussion so that you stay focused on what’s important for that call only (i.e. on the agenda).
End the call as soon as you’ve completed the agenda or made your decision. Don’t allow the “hey, one more thing since we’re all on here…” It’s not likely that everyone on the call needs to be around for that.
Think long and hard about whether a “recurring” conference call on everyone’s calendar is truly necessary either 1) at all, and 2) that often. Could one of you taking that time to write up a summary/recap memo get the same information disseminated and save others the time? Could you make the call far shorter by focusing that together time on decision-making or problem-solving, and preserving the status updates for the memo? Would you be bold enough to cancel a recurring meeting if there were no decisions to be made, only status updates?
