The Milllion Dollar Smartphone

Million Dollar Smartphone

How is a phone worth a million dollars?

The answer is captured in one word:

Presence.

Got your attention?

Good, you are present.

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.I’ve been working with a large manufacturing company recently, helping the senior management teams improve their performance by exploring better ways of working together.

During these sessions an interesting phenomenon emerged.  Some of the top management in the business have become heavy users of smartphones to the extent that they bring them in to meetings. Not a problem you may think.  Not unusual too.

In one particular meeting the lead executive was attending a briefing about managing the product portfolio.  A decision had been made to manage out one of the question mark products (see earlier post ) The lead exec spent the meeting tapping away on his smartphone during the briefing.  A dispiriting experience for the team presenting.

• Later this same executive led the negotiations to sell the technology to another company.
• He thought the negotiation had gone rather well
• It had.
• It had gone well for the buyer rather than the seller.

The product had been sold for less than its true value and the lead executive’s company had retained the liabilities for product failure after it had been sold.

The cost of this mistake?  you guessed it…..  about a million dollars.

Attending meetings is not just about being there.  It is about being Present.

The hundred million tea break

Valuable work gets done in the breaks when running workshops

I’ve been running a large event kicking off the collective working capability for several parts of a multinational company.

There were people representing 4 organisations each of which had annual turnovers of several hundred million pounds.

I thought I’d share what happened.  We had to think on our feet a lot….

Background

• Developed the workshop bringing 20 or so people together to develop collective working capability over two days.
• Spent weeks planning the event
• Planned down to the minute (we had expected highly structured, task oriented types present)
• On the day the plan got busted within the first 5 mins when the client asked for something different than I’d been told – ok we fitted that in.
• Then these tasky, structured types started to get more creative and overran our timings, so we ran with the energy in the room and made space for this.
• Did more prep in the break re-planning on the fly (this was possible because we’d put all that work in beforehand)
• The end of the event we got real success achieved everything we set out to.

 So why am I telling you all this?

In the feedback session we asked what had gone really well about the event, where the real value was

The answer – It was the tea breaks where we got the most value

My inner reaction for a microsecond – OH NO!

[for those of you that facilitate you'll know the mind works in the fast lane where you are stood up there]

Then it suddenly occurred:

• Yes they were right, the real value was in the unstructured dialogue when people were relaxed
• But if I’d just brought them together for a tea break :
  • They wouldn’t have come
  • Nothing would have happened
  • So the structure is needed to get things started
  • Then allow space for people to start to feel safe
  • Then allow time for all that relationship building stuff to kick in
  • Stand back and try not to interfere.

 So What?

Learning for me..

• Build in longer breaks, let people talk
• Allow space when people in the room get energised
• Your plans can change
• It’s the result for the people in the room that matters

The event was such a success we’ve been commissioned to take it to other parts of the organisation.

I’m now busy planning more overseas trips

Funny old world isn’t it.

Using Join.me for virtual facilitation

Join Me Logo

Tim recommended we take a look at Join.me as a facilitation tool.  So we did.

Having played with the free version for a while we have come to the conclusion it is pretty good for getting your message out there.

However, for the sort of physical / virtual meetings we have been playing with, we find it falls short.

What Join.me is good at:

• Share your desktop with selected others giving each person a unique code.
• a large number of others can view your desktop (100+)
• Open a voice over IP channel with those sharing the view of your screen
• Instant messaging facility for text chat.
• The capability to transfer the broadcast to others

Clever stuff

What Join.me would be ideal for:

• Broadcasting your thoughts to an attentive community.
• Delivering a training session
• Communicating a presentation or webinar

When we’ve tested Join.me in a group we have found its design tends to suppress two-way dialogue as whoever controls the visuals tends to dominate the group.

Therefore we would see Join.me as a useful tool for giving information rather than promoting true exchange of information between peers.  It is a broadcast tool rather than a dialogue tool.  Provided you understand this, it will work very well for you.

More Experiences With Mixed Virtual / Physical Groups

We are getting the hang of facilitating mixed virtual and physical groups.

We are innovating with small but significant incremental improvements.

Tick Box - created by Rawich

This group has people who attend physically, we also have people attending from all over the UK and also from Continental Europe.

Readers of this blog will know that we have tried video conferencing, and played with telepresence with mixed success.

We have come to the conclusion that the off the shelf technology (Skype)  is not quite up to the task at the moment.

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We still want to involve people and give them a meaningful two way communication between those present in the room

What worked this time

• We abandoned video conferencing and pre-prepared virtual attendees so they knew it would be voice only
• We used two facilitators:
  • one to manage the room(F1)
  • a second person managed the virtual attendees (F2)
• We used the Skype  instant messaging facility for virtual members to communicate with their facilitator (F2) in the room
• At appropriate times F2 helped draw attention to comments made by the virtual attendees, then we turned up the sound on the laptop and let them speak for themselves to the room.

The benefits of this approach:

• This made the people attending vitually feel included
• The main facilitator (F1) could manage the flow of content in the room
• The backup facilitator (F2) was the virtuals’ champion in the room and as respected by everyone.

We’ll continue making improvements and will tell you how it goes..

It Doesn’t Happen Without You….

Interesting comment, it was made by the members of one of the Chief Executive Groups I run.

Empty Meeting Room

Sometimes letting things happen can be quite revealing.

This answers one of the questions posed earlier in this blog (Why do we need facilitation anyway?)

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You’ll need some background:

• I have been facilitating this particular group for about 4 years.
• We meet once every 2 months or so.
• We started it because being a CEO is a particularly lonely position.
• Talking to peers in a confidential environment is really valuable.
• CEOs need others to bounce ideas around
• We have unlocked so many seemingly intractable situations.
• Problem solving at this level needs absolute confidentiality.
• This builds a lot of commitment between the members of the group.

Why change anything?

I’m constantly aware of being complacent, and try not to take situations for granted.

 They had all known one another for 4 years.  A lot of trust builds up in that time.  I got to wondering whether I was actually adding any value.

So I started to let go of this group.

So what happened?

• Interestingly, nothing happened.
• The group stopped meeting.
• Gradually they began to ask me when the next meeting was to be.
• We held a series of reality check conversations to find out whether what we were doing was still worthwhile or just habit.
• These conversations need to be 1:1
• They all needed the group to continue.
• “It just doesn’t happen with you” they told me when we got together again.

Facilitation does make a difference.  Really valuable group working doesn’t just happen.

I’ll still not be complacent though…

Tips for facilitating virtual meetings on Skype

Skype

I have been facilitating many meetings using Skype and have some observations to share:

Our experience so far is that Skype’s voice conferencing is more stable than video conferencing.

This is based on facilitating many conference calls between 5 – 15 people at any one time.

There are things you can do to make a Skype conference successful.

I thought it would be useful to condense some of our learning for you, so here goes..

Facilitation Tips for a Successful Skype Conference

• Make sure you have everyone’s Skype ID – set up a group list in Skype beforehand then you just need to make one call
• Let everyone know you will call them – If they call you – and you answer, you put the main group on hold and this can be frustrating from their point of view.
• Circulate a clear agenda beforehand.
• Set a clear start time – and don’t forget to include local times for people in other time zones
• If people arrive late, get them to text you rather than Skype you to let you know they are waiting to join – then you can add them to your conference call.
• Leaving a virtual meeting is easier than leaving a real one, so….
• Set a clear end time – If you don’t do this I’ve found that people make their own assumptions about when the meeting will end and you run the danger of people giving their apologies before the end of the meeting then you can lose control and it ends when you run out of a critical mass of people to contribute.

Tight or loose control – it’s your choice:

• If you want to control the meeting tightly then add more agenda points.
• If you want the meeting to flow more freely then just have 2 or 3 points at most

Managing Distractions:

• Microphones are sensitive things, we have had all of these and more in our meetings:
• Dogs barking
• Mobiles ringing
• Doors slamming
• Landline telephones ringing, then voicemail kicking in
• Birdsong (I can live with this one)
• Postmen, delivery people arriving
• Make sure people know how to mute their microphone (and recognise when it is muted)

Involving everyone:

• You get a visual cue for who is talking, their icon on-screen has a blue halo.
• Keep a mental (or written) note of who is contributing and encourage the quiet ones to have their say
• Dont be afraid of silence, give people space to talk
• A good tip to involve the quiet ones:
• Give them warning that you will invite them to have a say after the next person.
• Some people need that time to think.
• You can get really valuable contributions this way.
• Nearly every time I have run a Skype conference someone has had trouble with their microphone
• Encourage people to use the Instant Messaging feature
• This can seem like you are running two simultaneous meetings – it gets easier to do with practise

Should you put in a comfort break?

• If shorter than one hour, no
• If longer than an hour, schedule in a break halfway through and make this clear at the start.
• Tell everyone not to close Skype, keep it open while they take a break 5 -10 mins max

Tips for helping the meeting write-up afterwards:

Creating a Skype transcript is easier than you might think.

Skype has an instant messaging (IM) function built-in, encourage people to use it during the meeting and the notes write themselves.

• We find it is very helpful when people have problems with the technology.
• In one case two people could hear us but not speak
• So I encouraged them to type comments in and we had a parallel track of conversations
• This makes for a juggling act as a facilitator keeping track of the voice traffic and message traffic but you get used to it pretty quickly
• At the end of the session before I closed the Skype window I did 2 things
  • Took a screen capture to get everyone’s pictures (using the print screen key – then paste the image into the meeting notes document)
  • Clicked and dragged over the message traffic text in the IM window, copied and pasted it into the meeting notes.

Ending the meeting:

• Try to keep to the end time, having a clear ending is satisfying for everyone involved and shows you respect the value of their time and, by implication, yours.
• If you are not good at monitoring the time..
• Tell the people in the conference call at the start.
• Encourage people in the conference to alert you when the meeting is close to the end.
• If you are going to overrun call a quick halt agree a new end time and stick to it.

This all works, it is based on actual experience.

I’m a fan of learning by doing so give it a go and tell me what works for you.

A good use of time….? Experience of using Skype for telepresence meetings

As the meeting ended I asked the 15 or so consultants in the room ” A good use of time…?”

Waiting for Skype to work at the start of the meeting

Nods and grins, “Yes thank you”……..  “well, er…. No!…. it was awful at the start! …

“We were supposed to start at 9:30 but didn’t get going until 10:10 – 40 mins of precious time together wasted”

That got my attention.

Well, if you ask for feedback you have to be prepared to receive it.

So what happened?….

We were being innovative with our meetings – Using  Skype for telepresence, bring ing in people from Germany, Scotland and the South of England to join a room full of people.

 What went well

• The microphone and speakers are a definite improvement (see Pyramids and Starfish)
• We did get 3 people joining us remotely well,… for a while anyway

What did not go well

• Skype fell over again. Despite the fact that I had signed up for the premium version of Skype
• We switched laptops,… it worked for a while then fell over again
• I had to stop trying to fix it as I was interrupting the flow of the meeting.
• This is not low bandwidth, we had a 10 Mb line
• I’m coming to the conclusion that there is something inherently unstable about Skype for video conferencing

Continuous improvement for future meetings:

• Skype works well when we are all on Skype in a voice conference
• Mixed virtual/ physical meetings just don’t work with this technology.. so I’ll give up on that, for now.

I’ll be cancelling the subscription for Skype premium

One of the things about being innovative and pushing the technology is that things don’t always work!

Thankfully we have a group of people who are highly tolerant, so we must be doing something right.

It won’t stop me trying more new things, Life is far more fun when you introduce a bit of innovation.

of Pyramids and Starfish…

A cryptic title for this post. Hopefully all will become clearer..

We’ve been reviewing our successes and failures in our mixed physical and virtual meetings.

We are testing a form of telepresence in our meetings because standard video conferencing with Skype isn’t quite good enough when it comes to meetings and workshops..

The headlines:

• When we are all together physically or virtually everyone has a similar experience and the workshops generally run rather well.
• We continue to experiment with mixed virtual and physical meetings – and follow-up the feedback with 1:1 discussions afterwards.
• In the mixed meetings the people attending virtually feel they have a lesser experience than those in the room
• This is partly due to the richness of the communication (more on that in later posts)
• Also partly due to the limitations of the technology we are using.
• the laptop microphones are simply not up to the task of picking up sound evenly in a room of 10 – 12 people

So we have made an excursion into some new hardware (thanks to John Fisher)

We have tested a new pyramid microphone

Pyramid Microphone for virtual conferencing

I added the pack of biscuits for scale, shortly before eating them.

The next bit was to see if we could connect several laptops to one microphone and also to one speaker.

We did this with a 3.5mm starfish connector,

starfish connector for 35mm jacks for microphone and speakers

We used two starfish connectors:

• one connecting four laptops to one microphone
• one to connect four laptops to one speaker

We tested the set up with four Skype videoconference connections and it worked!

The pyramid microphone worked far better than we expected, picking up voices from a distance of 4m

There was no interference and feedback.

So, the next step is to try this all out for real at our next virtual / physical meeting in a few weeks.

I’ll let you know how we get on.

The bystander effect

Sometimes people can be less likely to be involved as a group than as individuals.

Have you ever been facilitating a meeting or workshop and getting people involved has felt like pulling teeth?

back to back meetings

I have come to realise that in certain situations the bystander effect can be responsible for people not engaging as quickly as you might expect.

But don’t worry, once you understand the collective psychology you can take steps to counter this:

• This effect only occurs in groups of people
• You notice it as an apparent reluctance to get involved in an activity
• For example – you may ask a question of the group and get silence.
• Or ask for volunteers and no-one comes forward
• What is actually going on is not true reluctance or anything to do with you as a facilitator
• There is a diffusion of responsibility in the room
• no one person is assigned or expected to do anything specific
• people may be waiting for others to have their say
• may not want to lose face in the group
• By recognising this effect you can deal with it more effectively
• make someone responsible by asking a group to select someone in advance
• you could pick someone to say something
• or you can fill the space by partially answering your own question
• reduce the size of the group by asking for a contribution from a particular table in the room

You as a facilitator may be in a position of some stress by being on your own in front of a group, however try to remember that asking someone to contribute in front of a group puts them in a similar position to you – with the exception that they havent prepared for this.

So prepare your audience in advance, tell them what they might expect, help them overcome their nerves and reduce their individual fear of contributing and you’ll be amazed at the response.

Facilitating mixed physical and virtual meetings

virtual meeting

Consultants Anon is one of the groups I’m facilitating and is going from strength to strength.

It is a non-profit making organisation and designed to keep a group of expert consultants in a wide range of fields at the cutting edge of thinking.

We have people involved from all over the UK and also in Europe.

Meeting physically is an option for some but we cannot get everyone to attend each meeting due to the distances involved.

We are playing with mixed physical and virtual meetings using skype video conferencing, this is what we have found so far:

• Mixed physical and virtual meetings work well and increase the participation in the group
• We have people present in a meeting room and virtual attendees using the Skype group video conferencing facility on a laptop.
• As a facilitator I found you need to make an extra effort to mention the vitual member’s names when inviting comments as they find it hard to judge when to make a comment.
• The cameras built into laptops are ok for 1:1 conferencing but not for group conferencing
• Using external ball webcams works much better – better image resolution and the built in microphones give better sound for virtual members.
• The speakers in laptops are surpisingly good and virtual members can make themselves heard.
• The group video conferencing kept crashing on us and this was the main drawback

Our next meeting will bring virtual members in on individual laptops as this seems more stable for video conferencing.
If you are reading this from Skype please feel free to comment.