In any organization, there comes a time when a new idea or procedure must be introduced. Cue the theme music from “Jaws”.
For most people, the status quo offers a warm, fuzzy sense of security; so new ideas can trigger irrational fears and generate unreasonable “push back”.
The best way to develop “buy-in” of innovation is to invite group participation in development, but this is sometimes sacrificed due to concerns over the perceived “expense” of staff time.
Because conference calls respect everyone’s time, create focus, and enable two-way communication, they have become an indispensable tool for introducing operational change into a group.
Little known features like call recording can add value too, and group calls transform the “expense” of staff time into a valuable investment to help you get your idea accepted faster.
Right off the bat, conference calls start preparing for success because they are so much more effective than emails at getting everyone who is involved to drop all the little mundane daily tasks from their mind and focus on the new idea.
It is critically important that everyone involved do this one time.
Two heads are only better than one when they work together. When trying to achieve a “tipping point” where an idea becomes the new status quo, collective consciousness adds a quantum level of effectiveness.
You might be the boss, but dropping new ideas like bombs out of an airplane rarely wins over the civilian population.
Organizational growth is a “war of hearts and minds”, and the two-way communication capabilities of teleconferencing are extremely effective at generating “buy-in”.
Conference calls short-circuit information hoarding and improve office politics by delivering the information simultaneously, and allowing it to percolate freely.
Everyone can have some input, and everyone can hear and understand the rationale behind decisions that get made. Always be prepared to accept a suggestion even if you aren’t totally convinced it will pan out.
You can always make adjustments later, but the idea might be brilliant, and asking the group to give it a fair shot to succeed will build team spirit.
Something you might not know, is how easy it is to hit the “Call Record” button when you are setting up a conference call.
The entire call will now be securely recorded and turned into a handy MP3 file, and automatically uploaded to the Cloud. You’ll get an email in two hours with your access code to distribute. You can download the MP3 file for emailing, archiving, or mounting on your website as a Podcast, etc.
You can even arrange with FreeConference to get the meeting automatically transcribed into “minutes” as a legal record, or for subsequent use in an operational manual.
Staff that missed the meeting can get all the benefit of attending, and you can easily convert the event into procedural material to help the organization implement the new ideas discussed, and streamline training.
“Call record” turns a one-time event into a permanent asset.
Babies know all about getting accepted. They jump right into our hearts by being completely open, refreshingly immediate, and emotionally present.
Leaders can steal a page from their book by using the extreme focus, real-time two-way communication, and direct feedback features of conference calls to launch their newborn ideas into an organization and get them to the tipping point faster.
You can even use the call record feature to keep a “scrapbook”, so you can keep the ideas fresh in everyone’s mind, and help future historians.
Isn’t he a cute little idea? I think he’ll grow up to be famous someday.
Create your FreeConference.com account and get access to everything you need for your business or organization to hit the ground running, like video and Screen Sharing, Call Scheduling, Automated Email Invitations, Reminders, and more.
