Source: eLearning Inforgrahics
In the post Conference Call Hygiene Seth Godin offers the following principles to help us avoid pointless and painful conference calls:
- When in doubt, don’t have one.
- Everyone now knows precisely what time it is. Show up ten seconds early; one minute late is too late.
- If you can’t live with rule 1, can we live with this one? 10 minutes is the maximum length of a conference call. In, out, over.
- If the meeting is only ten minutes long, good news, you have time to pull over, time to let the dog out, and time to give us your undivided attention.
- If you’re not planning on speaking, no need to attend. You can listen to the recording later if you need to, or we can send you 8 bullet points and save us all time.
- While we’re on the topic, audio is a truly powerful means of communication, and if you want to record your message and send it to all of us, I’m totally in favor of this. But don’t confuse the one-way broadcast power of audio with a pretend meeting where you’re talking and we’re supposed to quietly listen in real time. That’s not a meeting and all the trappings of a conference call detract from the thing you were trying to do.
- Before you waste a thousand dollars of company time on another conference call, listen to Read This Before Our Next Meeting
. Almost all conference calls that involve more than five people are either a lazy choice or a show of power, and should be eliminated. If you want to talk, for sure, please pick up the phone and call me.
This past weekend my older son Levi went away to Whistler for a training camp and coaching session with Todd Schumlick the PeformX Commencal Racing Team Coach. This was a big weekend, not only for Levi, but for my wife and me. Receiving coaching and direction from a highly acclaimed Canada and World Cup DownHill Racing coach was obviously the high point of the weekend for Levi, but for his mother and me the fact that Levi did this on his own — he drove up to Whistler, found the gym, met up with Todd, trained and learned all weekend and drove back – was also a big step in helping our son grow into a young man. The best part of the weekend for me was the talk I had with Levi when he returned. His answer to my question: What was the main thing that you took away from the weekend, confirm that he definitely is growing into an insightful and focused young man. The following highlights are copied directly from Levi’s PerformX Training Camp blog post:
I need to do it on my own.
Nobody can get stronger or faster but myself.
I need to put the time and effort into training.
In addition to recognizing that he is personally responsible for his success or failure he also recognizes that he has to do the work. Starting tomorrow, Levi begins a very focused nine week weight and cardio regime complete with monitoring his heart rate on the base building rides and also intense interval training. He will also be learning about and implementing a nutritional plan and rounding out his work by focusing on building his metal toughness by studying In Pursuit of Excellence. All this is on top of his final semester of grade twelve in which he has to complete English, Math and Biology 30.
Perhaps the most exciting part about this whole experience is that this is Levi’s choice, his commitment and his opportunity to move a few steps closer to his big dream. Witnessing your son start down the path of significant delayed gratification that leads to an extreme goal is exciting but it is also sobering. He recognizes that he needs to do the work on building his strength, skill and mental fortitude on his own and that he needs to put the time and effort into training, but I also hope he has learned that he is not alone. Todd is coaching him toward the World Cup podium but that doesn’t mean that our job as parents is diminished in any way. On the contrary, supporting Levi in this new journey will more than likely be even more challenging than what we have faced so far. Fortunately, we are not alone either. With our faith in God, the support of our family and friends and the fact that over the many years of changes and moves we have experienced Divine serendipity, I think that the next few years of Levi’s and the Harapnuik family’s journey will be interesting and exciting, to say the least.
