Concalls… from Operatings mechanisms to rituals or timefillers?!

Most of us are familiar, and in all probability be party to Monday con calls – on rather anyday con calls, just that as much as we know, most of them are done on Mondays; most organizations think that this is the most potent tool they have to enhance the performance of the team, and as a consequence the organization. Fact is the opposite of it is a whole lot of cases…..

A brief looking back on how con calls came to be – new CEO’s of large corporations used it as a potent tool to connect with the line managers, understand the business – for which he/she is new, give his own incisive insights about what is likely to evolve in the coming future, take genuine feedback and opinions on what is happening on the ground, provide directions, give a strategic insight and outside world view and so on….

Carried on with a decisive objective over a period of time, con-calls  were one of the most potent tool to create and foster operating mechanisms, bring in appropriate directions to the line managers, and in turn the respective teams, and thus percolated across the entire length and breadth of the organizations.

Smart, efficient and look-into-the future leaders and CEO’s used the deceptively simple looking con-calls to gain insights and make inroads and move in the strategic direction, galvanizing all the stakeholders towards the market-share and revenue-share goals of the company.

Anyone who cares to glean through business history of how and why social/business operating mechanisms came in, will appreciate the immense value proffered by con-calls.

Cut to the present; at the cost of generalizing, I would opine that con-calls are just time wasters in most companies now; Instead of serving sensitive and strategic goals, they just pander to the ego’s of whomever chairs these calls, which are void of an agenda, and used to just override subordinate views, and in many cases just involve in verbal bravado.

In most organizations, the ritual is carried out just to verify collated data, and speak about unrealistic things, with no cognition of what is happening on the ground, and what issues and challenges the foot soldiers of the organization go through on the way to business goals.

Rather than serving to set direction and advise on what could help moving towards better market share and better revenues..  such calls just waste valuable organization resources, and even worse, just de-motivate an entire lot by their tone and tenor.

It would make eminent sense for the senior management or the HR of present day organizations to ponder if an SOP for con-calls will help.

Just by measuring the RoI on such con-calls, let’s all hope that they either turn to be more goal driven and productive or just don’t happen at all….

I would request views on this. Please comment…