Vol.6 How to deal with global projects? - Utilization of Video/Telephone Conrerence

There are increasing of cases to stop business trips and have a video conference and a telephone conference instead. This brings much cost-cut benefit, but it seems that efficiency of communication tends to be decreased. So this column concern on teh effective ways of organizing such meetings.

■Make preparations more than usual meetings

As time is limited and efficiency is required in vide/telephone meetings, agenda need to be clearly defined in adavace. Organizer of a meeting is usually required to clarify an aim of a meeing, to define the number of discussion topics, to prepare and deliver handouts after ranslating its contents, to cordinate participants in Japan side, to facilitate discussions and so on. But it is often the case even in the official conference that opinions are divided in Japan side resulting in discussion by only one side of the video/telphone conference. Therefore, to avoid such situation, organizer should make a thorough preparation in advance to clarify disucussion points and to cordinate opnions or at least anticipate expected opinions and discussions.

■Keep in mind to make a statement that clarifys your opinion and understanding

It is not so easy to "read" feelings of people sitting on the other side of the vide/telphone conference. This is a quite difficult situation for Japanese as we are trained under the discipline to "read" opinions and feelings each other.
In this case, it is necessary to state your opinion and understanding more clearly than usual meetings. Participants are required to clarify whether you are for or against it and whether your statement is just a information or problem presentation. Facilitator should propose a grand rule for a meeting at the beginning to facilitate to follow such habit for statement. Efficiency of the meeting will be increased by carrying out such a little care.

■Make the speed of a meeting slower by 30%

It is better for vide/telphone meetings to slow down meeting speed by approx. 30% as it is difficult to understand how much understanding are shared by a whole participants. Slow down by approx. 50% if translators join as you can not make so much expectation for translation quality. This is due to a participants' communication skill rather than translators' language skill - i.e. there are much loss of communication by tipical Japanese habit, equivocal opinion for example. So facilitator should talk to translators in advance as well to share about discussion points, participants' standpoint and logic, aim of a meeting (for approval or for making actions etc).

■Close a meeting with a clear result

You should pay much attention when closing a meeting. In face-to-face meetings, it's easy to check to-do and issues by using white borad etc, but it's not the case with video/telphone meetings.
Facilitator must check with all participants on outcomes, tasks, issues, owners, due date and criteria of completion. Especially in the regular meetings, it is highly recommended to always keep the meeting duration as planned and clarify the outcomes at the end. By doing it, you will be able to motivate participants and make them think to "utilize" meetings.
It works well to categorize meeting logs, tasks, decisions and information as it can give a summary of a meeting to absentees as well.

In addition, it is a good idea to include ice-break actions when starting or closing a meeing. Vide/Telephone meetings tend to be systematic and monotonous in comparison to business trips which includes such free time as lunch time, break time and team dinner where team communication can be built up. So it is important for mieeting facilitation as well as from a perspective of EQ (emotional intelligence quotient) to "break the ice" by frunckly talking about non-business things and making some jokes.

 (Kogure)