Tips for Productive Teleconferencing

Teleconferencing is rising in popularity, and no wonder. Why spend hours travelling when you can be doubly productive working from your desk whilst engaging with your colleagues or clients? However, getting teleconferencing meetings to be as productive as good face to face meetings requires a little more thought.  If you want people to do and share their finest thinking you have to create an environment where that can happen gracefully.

Here are a few things that I find helpful on phone meetings – I don’t always use all of them all the time, but when I do, they help! Some of them are from Nancy Kline's inspiring ideas around “Transforming Meetings“.  I hope you find them useful. 

• I prepare agenda items in the form of questions, because questions open up thinking (whereas lists close them down) and I ask people to read the agenda and come with a couple of thoughts to begin to answer the questions – that helps to get things flowing early – eg rather then  “Budgets”  it would say, “What do we need to consider in relation to the budget?" or similar.
  
  
• Once I know who is coming, I send round a list of “order” as if people were in a circle around a room. They then know who they are “sitting” next to.  It seems to help with flow.
  
  
• Others need to know who is on the call and who is not so as people arrive in, if I am Chair I say very clearly –“Everyone – can I just let you know that Fred Blogs has arrived" - and I say, "Welcome Fred” – I do this for each person joining for about the first 3-5 mins. In my pre-meeting email I ask that if people arrive more than 5 minutes into the meeting they stay silent and then I will introduce them at the end of the first “round”.
  
  
• As Nancy Kline would say, “people haven’t arrived till they have spoken”, and sometimes people don’t say much more than hello so they haven't really engaged. So once we feel that the meeting should start (after waiting, as above, for 3-5 minutes) I do a quick “round” with an open question like, “ Can you say your name and then tell us something that’s currently going well for you in your life or work?” or “something that’s going well on this project?” or “something that has made you smile recently?” This gets the pleasant hormones, brain waves and thoughts flowing nicely.  I ask them to go round as per the order I have sent them  (e.g. please go to the right) or go next down the list if I’ve sent a numbered list.
  
  
• Everyone is reminded to say their name before they speak.  And that if they don’t contribute to the conversation they will rob us of their gifts! I ask them to “be abundant” or "generous with their thoughts" and it often works beautifully.
  
  
• One of the hardest things is to get people to pay the same attention as they would in a face to face meeting. If it’s a new group and I think the meetings might need some good boundaries to kick us off the first time, I will ask at the start – “can we think for a minute about the things that drive us mad in other telemeetings we’ve been to? “  Typically they will say things about people not listening, multi-tasking, typing or reading emails, leaving the meeting and not coming back, interruptions, background noises, etc . I then ask – "So how can we make this meeting different?" The ideas will flow and flow. And from that we can agree some ground rules / "a contract" that will make the meeting quicker and more effective. (I personally have to turn off my computer screen otherwise I am tempted to read mails!) These "ground rules" can become the norm for subsequent meetings.
  
  
• When we come to an agenda item, we do a round and each person says something about it. If they want to miss their turn they can, so it goes to the next one but they have to say “I’ll skip for now”. If everyone has said what they want to say I will ask anyone who skipped if they’d now like to say anything. If not we move onto next agenda item.
  
  
• Interruptions are seriously avoided and we make that clear in our contract, but in exchange for not being interrupted, people are asked to be succinct. When they have finished talking on a subject they are asked to say “I’m done” so we know they have finished and someone else can speak.
  
  
• If thinking stalls completely I suggest a break of 10 minutes and ask people to come back on the EXACT agreed time (otherwise we have to start the whole thing again with latecomers!)
  
  
• I personally don’t explicitly tell people they can use the mute button on their phone because if they do, they might then think it’s OK to multi-task because they cannot be heard typing or doing something else. If they do multi-task, the meeting will definitely take longer. And people will not feel as if they have been listened to, which is key to creating an environment where everyone contributes their finest thinking.
  

Just a few ideas, and I hope one or two might be useful for you!

Time for a Rethink - New Pathways in Executive Development

In the ongoing search for ways to help leaders and managers to initiate and manage change, some may feel that there is little that is new out there. But just once in a while, something comes along that has the potential to reshape the way we think and how we work as development professionals. 

How can executives create followership? Or be decisive when swimming in a sea of uncertainty. As development professionals we need to help them to create synchronicity in themselves and with others. The emerging science of neuroleadership offers a new and very exciting perspective ... click here to go to my article in Developing Leaders magazine, October 2011

Solution Focused Management

We’ve all said it – “If only people came to me with solutions not problems!” Yet when something goes wrong, sometimes it’s just human nature to focus on the negative.

So how can you do better thinking about problems, and encourage others to do the same? The Solution Focused Approach may be just the answer you need.

Think for a moment about when you last had a really tricky problem that just wouldn’t go away. What did you do? Did you talk it over with someone, or do a list of it pros and cons about it, or mull it over alone, or something else? Did you get anywhere? If you did, I’m guessing that you adopted a particular mindset - either deliberately or unconsciously – and you thought ahead to your goal or desired outcome. And if you didn’t get anywhere, I’m guessing that you just thought about the problem, over and over. And maybe came back to square one again.

Phlosophers and psychologists have long said that when we look at only the problem, we see only the problem. It sounds obvious, yet a shift in thinking is often all it takes to see something other than the problem.

This is how the Solution Focused approach (SF) came about. Originally pioneered in the 80s by family therapists Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, they found that helping clients to shift from thinking about the problem to what the client’s life could be like without it, clients made better progress. They didn’t need to go into the problem in detail, they just helped clients to focus on what the “preferred outcome” looked like. They didn’t ignore problems entirely or rush to solutions, but with skilful questioning, they avoided getting bogged down in the negative.

In short, SF brings attention to:

• the positive rather than the negative
• the present and future rather than the past
• the solution rather than the problem.

SF has since been adapted for use across many fields of industry and education. It can be used in executive and team coaching, group facilitation, organisation development, stakeholder management, change management, project management .. the list is endless. 

Whether you want to make conversations with a usually negative person more productive, re-energise your team meetings, generate better appraisal discussions, or conduct great negotiations, you’ll find it useful. It’s fundamentally a questioning and conversational tool although you may find it equally helpful in your private thinking time. SF is built on a series of core principles: 

• Be respectfully curious – ask meaningful questions but don’t interrogate
• Look to the “preferred” future not the past
• Look for resources rather than deficits – what are the person’s (or organisation's) strengths?
• Build on successes – once you know what works, do more of it 
• Stop doing something if it’s not working. Do something different instead!
• There will nearly always be times when the problem is not happening – what’s different then?
• Find out what is already contributing to the preferred future that can be built upon
• Accept that people are the experts in all aspects of their own lives
• Believe that small steps can genuinely make a big difference
• Have genuine expectations of good outcomes

Like most coaching models, SF has numerous “tools” you can use; their effectiveness depends on the timing, tone and context, and all can be mastered with practise. Here are some of the most effective ones:

Best Hopes / Outcome

This establishes a goal, ensures that people set their own agenda, and generates a sense of optimism.

“What are your best hopes for our meeting today?”

The Preferred Future

Where people can envision a future that’s real for them, they are much more likely to take action, and the more detailed the picture, the more powerful it is. A series of questions can be used to help (as long as each answer is fully listened to before the next one is asked!)

“We’re agreed that going forward we’d all like this team to be working more effectively. “How would we know that was happening?” “What would we be seeing and doing?” “Who else would notice?” “What would they see?” “What else?”

Scaling

One of the most powerful tools in SF, scaling enables the person to articulate how close they are to the preferred future as well as stating the size of the problem as they see it. Often it’s easier to give a number than put our feelings into words. A low number e.g. 4 offers the opportunity to explore what’s happening that’s making it a 4 and not zero, and a high number offers the opportunity to spotlight strengths and resources being utilised.

“So if 10 represents us hitting budget and 0 the opposite, where would you score us currently?”

Resources

Everyone has resources – they just might not know it. It’s a powerful way of acknowledging that people are not helpless and that they are coping. Resources might be skills, past experience, people, or tools – anything that aids.

"You’ve said in the past that you find talking to Simon the CEO a bit daunting. Yet how did you manage to have that tough conversation with him yesterday?”

“What did we do to win this client in the first place, and how might our learning from that contribute in getting this new piece of work?”

The Miracle Question

This helps the person to articulate the preferred future – i.e. what life will be like when the problem has gone.

“Imagine for a moment that the problem disappeared overnight – what would you see / feel / how would you know / that would tell you the problem had gone? “

Exceptions

SF believes that there will always be exceptions when a problem is not occurring, but people often fail to notice because they’re looking for the problem. Once identified, exceptions can be used to do more of whatever it is that makes the difference.

"You said that Jake and Karen always argue when you put them to work together. Can you recall a time when they didn’t argue? ….. What was different?"

Small Steps
If goals are set too high or action plans too big, they have the potential to cause the human brain to go into fight or flight mode. If the brain chooses fight, that might be a temporary state, and the initial enthusiasm and motivation for the task can fade. If the brain chooses flight then the idea of a large goal can seem terrifying. By breaking down goals and improvements into small steps, they seem more attainable, and thus are more likely to be followed through.

"If 10 represents your goal of being on time all the time, and you've already got it from a 3 to a 5, what would be the first small steps you might take towards a 6?"

Asking “What else? “

The richer the detail, the more powerful the picture and the more resourceful the person will feel.

“You've said that if you were better prepared, you’d be feeling a lot more confident about giving the presentation. What else would you be noticing?”

Compliments

Compliments are a key part of SF. Validating what the person is already doing well and acknowledging their efforts encourages them to continue.

“You’ve clearly made considerable efforts to improve the relationship with this demanding customer, yet they’re still complaining. I think that’s required a lot of resilience from you; it can’t have been easy”.

Conclusion

Once people articulate things in positive future focused language, they start to make improvements almost immediately. Whilst learning from mistakes is useful, often knowing what to do next is more helpful than knowing what you did wrong before.

Like athletes visualising themselves first at the finishing post, taking a Solution Focused approach energises, motivates and makes the vision seem attainable. And as Henry Ford is credited with saying, “If you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re probably right!”.

If this approach is new to you and you decide to try it out, I would love to get your feedback. For further reading, visit http://www.sfwork.com/jsp/index.jsp?mnk=800 where you'll find an extensive book list.

Linda Aspey, March 2010.

http://www.aspey.com/
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