Communicating as a Leader: Conference Call Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Communicating as a Leader: Conference Call Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

March 11th, 2010 | Author: Guest Blogger

Sadly, energizing, motivating, and inspiring are not words that are usually associated with conference calls. More often, words like boring, ineffective, and frustrating come to mind. Although there is a shift toward newer technologies like videoconferencing, webinars, and Skype, many business leaders still rely on conference calls to communicate with their colleagues, customers, and vendors.

To get a better idea of why some conference calls are boring, ineffective, and frustrating, I asked some business leaders to recall their worst conference call experiences. Connor Morganti, President of Johnson Morganti, recalls a time when all she could hear on a conference call was a crying baby and lots of other background noise. “It was really distracting,” she stated, “and it made me doubt the level of professionalism of the conference call host.” Mark Antonucci, CFO of Hydro Alternative Energy, Inc., cringes when he thinks about background comments that he’s accidentally overheard during conference calls that he knows he wasn’t supposed to hear. He strongly suggests that callers utilize the mute button to avoid potentially embarrassing situations.

Here are some other tips to help you avoid disappointing conference calls. Implement these ideas and you can boost productivity. Attendees will be grateful for your leadership because time on the call was well-spent and they can leave the call with the necessary direction and motivation to take action.

1. Send a brief agenda to attendees in advance so they can prepare for the call.
2. Give a heads-up to individuals if you want them to share information during the call. Many people don’t like to be put on the spot and will appreciate the warning that you want them to share some information during the call. Say something like, “Rosa, during our next conference call, I’d like you to share a status update about the software implementation. I can give you about five minutes at the beginning of our call. Does that work for you?”
3. Conduct a test call prior to the real one if you’re hosting the call using new technology. We’ve all fumbled with technology from time to time, but an important conference call is not the place to do it.
4. Allow a few minutes at the start of the call for all attendees to join the call before launching into the content. Once everyone arrives, briefly review the agenda and the purpose of your call, your expectations for participation, and whether or not you’ll have time for open discussion and questions at the end of the call (and/or if it’s ok for callers to comment throughout the call).
5. Confirm the expected duration of the call in the beginning by saying something like, “We scheduled forty-five minutes for this call because we have a lot to discuss, does that work for everyone?” If it doesn’t work for everyone, you might need to adjust your agenda.
6. Limit conference calls to an hour or less (if you have more topics to cover, schedule two calls instead).
7. Appoint a call host (this could be you or someone else) to manage the discussion flow and to keep comments on point.
8. Ask people to state their name before adding their comment if several people are on the call and/or if attendees might not recognize people’s voices. Say something like, “This is Holly. I agree with Gary on this one because…”
9. Respect the time of attendees by ending the call at the scheduled time or confirm with callers that it’s ok to go past the scheduled end time.
10. Find a quiet location when you host or attend a call or use the mute feature if background noise can’t be avoided.
11. Utilize a webinar or videoconferencing platform, if possible. So many people are visual learners and will understand concepts if they see them as well as hear them. Another way to add visuals is to send documents/images prior to the call. You have to realize that some callers might not have the documents/images in front of them for the call (unless you state their critical importance prior to the call).
12. Send a call summary to attendees after the call (include those who were invited but could not attend). State the outcomes, decisions, and action steps that were discussed during the call and include names and due dates. If this team holds recurring conference calls, appoint different people to send the call summary so the task is shared by the team.
13. Speak with inflection to avoid sounding monotone. You’re trying to keep listeners interested and engaged without visual support, so add some lively language to grab and keep the attention of your conference call attendees.

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About the Blogger:

Holly Landau is a leadership expert, former US Army Officer, and CEO of Landau Leadership – an innovative training & development firm providing customized curriculum, public leadership events, and online learning solutions to boost individual and team productivity. Holly is an active workshop facilitator and keynote speaker. She is passionate about topics like leadership, strategy, creativity, and communication. She is also a regular contributor to several business blogs including nolcha.com and her own leadership blog. She is one of the contributing experts for the upcoming American Express OPEN Book on Leadership. Contact Holly, follow her on Twitter or meet Holly at NY Entrepreneur Week on Friday, April 16^th.