The current business rhythm and its combination with the new digital devices connected to the internet have made us multifunctional and almost omnipresent, we are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
This permanent availability to attend to personal and business issues has made us techno-dependent on our smartphones, tablets and laptops, but more than on them on the programs that drag us to be attentive to their slightest signal and if it does not sound in a short period of time we begin to suspect that something is wrong with the device.
Welcome to the 21st century, as the Gurus who anticipated these realities would say, the challenge now is to recognize not only the symptoms but to build alternatives and strategies to make our meetings more productive spaces without falling into the temptation of "GOING BACK TO THE PAST" by confiscating devices, leaving them out or asking them to turn them off.
Leading meetings can become a challenge that requires high levels of creativity to achieve the objectives for which we have invited a group of executives with tight schedules and multiple situations to resolve and therefore it is our responsibility to attend the meeting show where everyone we are eager to pay attention but at the same time we are in virtual conversations, answering emails and in the worst case visiting our social networks because the topic of the meeting has no relevance.
The communications revolution invites us to re-discover the objective for which meetings were created in organizations and generate alternatives that integrate the face-to-face with the virtual, in such a way that we can make the most of new technologies with the contributions required from who participate in the meetings.
Gone are the times when executives spent more hours in an airport than in their office, where hotels were the second home that allowed us to miss the family and where we enjoyed gastronomic gatherings that made us feel like citizens of the universe. Those times where travel was an imperative to ensure business management success is being re-evaluated and is now a joyous reminiscence that financial managers no longer want to remember.
The reality is that today we can attend meetings via video conference and we don't even need to be in a fixed place, we can do it from a public place or while in full motion. The alternatives offered by the Smartphone allow connecting entire groups to a virtual conversation and / or that can be coordinated from a corporate conference room, represent an added value to efficiency and productivity.
There is still a long way to go in this responsibility of making meetings spaces where effectiveness is improved; from recognizing if the meeting was really necessary, defining the number and quality of the guests to ensuring that the meeting has a beginning and an end (in many cases we know what time it starts but not what time it ends).
Another aspect, which represents a challenge to those who lead a meeting, has to do with the ability to ensure levels of attention that are productive during the meeting.
What to do when attendees carry laptops and are writing permanently? We assume that you are taking notes of the speaker's interesting dissertation? Will you be answering emails? Perhaps preparing your own intervention? What to do with those who are writing on their Smartphone? Could it be that they are bringing their memories? Responding to chats? In short, it is a challenge to the imagination that puts creativity to the test.
Let's not forget that some of the characteristics of effective meetings have to do with the following aspects:
- They have a clear and specific topic to discuss They attend those who have to do with the topic and can make decisions They have a defined duration The attendees know their contribution and arrive prepared The interventions are aimed at achieving the objective of the meeting Spaces of unnecessary casuistry are avoided allows and values that there is a difference of opinions
This brief reflection is aimed at motivating all of us who have to convene and lead meetings so that sooner rather than later we incorporate the use of new technologies, in such a way that we can favor the participation of those who are in other latitudes but whose contribution is valuable. in the management we carry out. It is an invitation for us to share the strategies we are using and perhaps in this way we can help each other.
