Help! I’m a CEO & I’ve a Zoom thing!
What to do when the future joins your company.
It’s 9:05am, the prep for the board meeting at XEN2.5 Inc. is late in getting underway. Three people, Jerome Kahntwright, Leslie Foxmaiden and April Teasdale are in the virtual lobby and several other execs are having problems getting on the call. Bob Smithers, the CEO of XEN2.5 is staring at his iMac screen like a cat looking at a moth out a window. He’s already spilled his coffee and mopped up the wet with a printout of the deck he’s reviewing.
Things are not going well.
Bob zeroes in on some red text on screen, clicks ‘start meeting’ and it looks like he is underway. A few awkward moments of ‘hi’ and ‘wait a sec’ and ‘can you hear me!?’ signal a sketchy start …yet no one is using live video. This doesn’t work for Bob. He tells the team ‘folks, turn on video …please’ and a minute later the faces fill the screen. Suddenly loud, distorted vocal noises constipate the meeting, it’s Jason Chassuer, the new operations guy who can’t help but speak-yell at anything or anyone he works with. Now the audio is a garbled barrage of noise, video stutters and images of degrading faces. It looks like there is a connection problem.
This zoomy-video thing might have been bad idea, thinks Bob.
9:15, Bob texts the CIO’s right hand, Jeff Wilikers. Bob, in a slightly irritated voice, calls Joe and tells him of his predicament.
Jeff: “Are you using your WIFI or Ethernet connection?”
Bob: “No. I mean …I don’t know?!”
Jeff: “Ok, what kinds of cables are plugged into your computer?”
Bob: “Um…power, and a little black plug with no cable …and that’s it.”
Jeff: “Ok, you’re using WIFI”
Bob: (semi-calmly) “Ok…? Does that matter?”
Jeff: “That’s not important now, a few more things…”
Jeff proceeds to take Bob through a series of system screens to run analysis of his baud rate and connectivity. It’s 9:22 and Bob has delayed a very important meeting.
It’s time think about plan B.
Meanwhile, Kahntwright, craning his neck to check out CNBC in the next room, is allowing the gnawing sounds of market commentators to be heard through his laptop mic.
Foxmaiden, notices her hair in the reflection of her art print by her desk. It’s a fallback mirror in her home office and its clear her hair ‘isn’t working’ today. Little does she know, while she preens, everyone is watching…her video is the only one that’s working.
Teasdale is typing away, ‘clackity-clack-click-clack-clack-clack…’ on her laptop, as a stream of buzzes from texts are heard while rushing to get the last few pages of her document posted for this call.
Chassuer, is now breathing into his mic heavily. Soft rushes, like a moist wind on beachgrass, flood in at 5 second intervals. It’s always a comfort to have a serial killer in attendance.
Bob: “Everyone get off video …we’ll do this as a call.”
By all accounts this is a modern company. What we’re observing is a series of learned behaviors that do not compliment the technology that’s being used. How did this happen? Is this progress?
The worst software in the world is not contained in what tools they are using, it’s not their connectivity that’s the problem, it’s not whether everybody can be on video or not.
It’s the people. People are the worst software on the planet.
With all the engineering work that is done, all the rigor to make sure something works, people will screw it up somehow.
Bob wasn’t wrong to turn the video chat into a call, it was a wise move. From that point on he proceeded to verbally instruct everyone on what is expected of them and what message he was expecting their contributions to convey and when he wants it posted, date and time. They got it. Even Roger, Bob’s EA was able to quickly type it all up as a reference for everyone by the end of the call.
9:38 am. Meeting over.
Wasting time, like the people at XEN2.5 Inc. do so well, is a demonstration of bad habits that have formed around technology. It’s akin to a slow walk backward into the last century. In this instance innovation and transformation are not always about always using technology, it’s knowing when not to use it.
Features, updates, expansions of service, private cloud accounts, collaborations spaces …all of these are the new reality for people who are still working and they are doing the best they can.
Here are a few that would be a good start.
Calling it. — Like Bob, you have to know when something isn’t working and ‘get off the tech’ and get to work like humans. Also, don’t stretch 15 minutes of talking to 30 minutes as compensation for your lack of contribution. If the meeting is done, call it!
Preparing. — We don’t create time, we manage it. Many people still act like we live in the age of fax machines and mobile phones the size of a floor speaker. Wherever this idea of being a ‘last minute charlie’ came from …we should lose it. More video conferencing brings exponential delays and BS stories about why something isn’t done.
Edicate. — Whether it’s loud, crass, bullying behavior or mumbling jargonesque diatribes, everyone has to view at least 5 recorded sessions of calls that they’ve been on and really listen to them. It’s easy to see how sucky people can be and it’s a great way to modify bad behavior in short order.
It’s not that hard to understand that during this pandemic a little voice is crying out, telling us wisdoms about our bad behavior, it’s time to heed them.
