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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to make your conference calls

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Speaker 1: more efficient and effective if you work with people located

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Speaker 1: in different places. Conference calls are just part of the

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Speaker 1: game these days. They definitely serve a purpose, but they

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Speaker 1: can also be frustrating for all involved. Here's a short

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Speaker 1: list of the frustrations. People have lousy reception or maybe worse.

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Speaker 1: Their reception is good and you pick up on the

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Speaker 1: background noise, people don't pay attention, the conversation meanders because

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Speaker 1: it's hard to read cues, and with too many people

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Speaker 1: on the call, tangential topics get introduced. And then there's

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Speaker 1: the matter of punctuality. I once got a note from

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Speaker 1: a young consultant who tracked her time and reported that

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Speaker 1: she wasted forty five minutes daily waiting for senior people

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Speaker 1: to join conference calls. It wasn't really a nefarious power

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Speaker 1: player or anything like that. It was really more of

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Speaker 1: a volume problem. People squeezed calls around flights, but then

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Speaker 1: if the flight landed fifteen minutes late, they'd be fifteen

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Speaker 1: minutes late to or a previous call would run over,

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Speaker 1: and because people were scheduled into so many calls, the

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Speaker 1: rest of the schedule would fall like dominoes. It's understandable,

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Speaker 1: but forty five minutes a day is a lot of

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Speaker 1: wasted time. So how can you keep conference calls from

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Speaker 1: being terrible? First, and probably the biggest breakthrough is committing

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Speaker 1: to quitting multitasking. Do not check email while you're on

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Speaker 1: a call. Do not serve the web, do not check

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Speaker 1: social media. Frankly, i'd say don't drive either, because it

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Speaker 1: isn't safe and distracted driving is a huge cause of accidents. Now,

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Speaker 1: I know this single tasking is incre credibly hard. We

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Speaker 1: all have so much to do. But the primary reason

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Speaker 1: single tasking is hard is that most conference calls are

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Speaker 1: so boring. I don't multitask if I'm being interviewed for

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Speaker 1: a podcast and the host and I are having an

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Speaker 1: incredible conversation, and that's because I'm engaged the whole time

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Speaker 1: I have to be. I really do believe that all

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Speaker 1: calls should rise to that level. If you bother to

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Speaker 1: take a call, you should be so engaged for the

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Speaker 1: entire time that you just can't multitask. If you can multitask, well,

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Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't have that call, or at least you

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Speaker 1: should have far fewer people on it. This is another

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Speaker 1: big breakthrough. Conference calls are incredibly easy to schedule, and

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Speaker 1: so we tend to have more of them and with

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Speaker 1: more people than are really necessary. So instead, pretend you're

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Speaker 1: doing something difficult. Pretend that you've got to fly everyone

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Speaker 1: on the call in for a meeting. You wouldn't want

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Speaker 1: to cover travel costs for any one who didn't absolutely

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Speaker 1: need to be there, and you'd also think about why

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Speaker 1: you were convening all these people and asking them to

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Speaker 1: fly in and what you hope to get out of

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Speaker 1: the meeting. Likewise, for any call, you need an agenda.

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Speaker 1: Just as if you were meeting in person, you also

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Speaker 1: need someone to definitively be in charge. Indeed, this is

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Speaker 1: even more important on the phone than it is for

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Speaker 1: an in person meeting, since you won't be able to

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Speaker 1: read each other's faces to see who would like to

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Speaker 1: speak or who has an objection. If you've got a

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Speaker 1: call coming up that doesn't have a clear leader, offer

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Speaker 1: to be this person. That way you can keep things

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Speaker 1: moving along. If you keep a focused agenda, you'll find

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Speaker 1: that the material won't naturally conform itself to thirty or

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Speaker 1: sixty minutes, and that's fine. Schedule the call for the

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Speaker 1: amount of time you actually need. Don't make it sixty

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Speaker 1: minutes just because that's an easy thing to block into

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Speaker 1: your calendar. Finally, as the person in charge, facilitate the

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Speaker 1: discussion by using people's names, Nancy, can you talk about

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Speaker 1: the problem the team is having with the deadline? Joe,

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Speaker 1: can you please report on what additional resources might be

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Speaker 1: available from other teams. There are several upsides to this. First,

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Speaker 1: it reminds everyone who's on the call, which is something

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Speaker 1: that's remarkably easy to forget when you can't see everyone. Second,

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Speaker 1: it keeps people from zoning out if they know they

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Speaker 1: are going to be called upon by name, and that

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Speaker 1: cuts down on the multitasking. And finally, when you call

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Speaker 1: people's names, you make sure that everyone does speak and

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Speaker 1: weighs in, and has done so with about the same frequency.

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Speaker 1: If your call is small and focused, it won't be

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Speaker 1: hard to keep track of who needs to weigh in

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Speaker 1: on what. You might even get done with your call early.

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Speaker 1: Just don't use that save time to schedule even more

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Speaker 1: conference calls in the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: listening and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,

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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me

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Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with

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Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod.

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Speaker 1: That's B the number four, then Breakfast p o D.

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Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart media dot com that Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,

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Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is

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Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from

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Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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