At 10.30am one
day last week I got a reminder on my phone saying that at 11am I had to join a
conference call. I spent the next 30 minutes mildly dreading it, and then at
10.59 dialed the number, put in the six-digit pin, and gave my name, as
instructed.
“You are the
first person joining the call,” said an electronic voice. I then listened to
the William Tell Overture until I heard a robotic “Simon X — has joined
the call.” Two seconds later someone called Katie joined. I had no idea who
either of them were, but said hello.
“What’s the weather like where you are?” Simon
ventured. We proceeded to make the world’s most disconnected small talk,
interrupted by every new arrival, each one starting a fresh discussion about
who was on and who wasn’t.
Fifteen minutes
after the call was meant to start it finally got going. Various people spoke
about a management symposium we are all due to be talking at next month. When
it was my turn, I waffled for a bit, pretending I had already worked out what
my talk was going to be about. Someone gave a laugh, though I could work out
neither who it was nor whether the laugh suggested approval or disdain. Then
the organizer talked for some time about special dietary requirements,
microphones and lecterns.
At 11.54 it was
over. Eight people in three time zones had wasted the best part of an hour on
an exchange that could have been done in three minutes by email.
It is not hard to
see why conference calls sound such a great idea. Business is global. People
are not in the same place. Anything that allows them to have meetings without
travelling has to be a good thing.
It is not hard to
see why they never work. To hold a meeting where you can never be sure who is
talking — and often can’t hear them anyway — and where no one has done any
preparation is to guarantee a
discussion of the lowest possible order. Add to that sounds of dogs barking in
the background and children being got off to school, because no conference call
is ever complete without someone who is a stranger to the mute button, and it
can only end badly.
Far from making
the world seem smaller, the conference call makes it feel bigger. It is no
surprise that everyone hates them.
What is
surprising is that these virtual meetings go on happening. I seldom give a
speech without having to endure a conference call in advance. A friend who
works for a large global company tells me that every day two to three hours are
given over to them but in 10 years she cannot remember a single useful one.
Email is often said
to be the main bane of modern office life. But conference calls are surely
worse. Emails can be deleted and ignored while a conference call puts one at
the mercy of people talking endlessly at what is often an unsociable
hour.
Many companies
are introducing video conferences instead so that up to 100 individuals in
far-flung places can now all watch each other while they pontificate. In a way
this is an improvement, as at least you know who is talking, but it has the
drawback that you can no longer attend from the gym or naked in bed. Worse
still, you can’t do the only sensible thing when on a conference call: get on
with your emails or unload the dishwasher.
There is only one
sort of conference call that should be allowed. It involves three or, at a
stretch, four people who already know each other and who need to agree on
something specific. Otherwise there
should be a rule. If something is so important it needs to be chewed over at
length by more than four people, then a table must be found and people must
travel to sit at it. If it is not so important, then the meeting should not take place at all.
adapted from the Financial Times
