David Grady: How to save the world (or at least yourself) from bad meetings

Translator: Nedžad Neziri Reviewer: Adisa Ejubovic

Picture this:

Zamislite ovo:

It's Monday morning,

ponedjeljak je.

you're at the office,

Vi ste u uredu.

you're settling in for the day at work,

Pripremate se za radni dan

and this guy that you sort of recognize from down the hall,

i kolega kojeg poznajete

walks right into your cubicle

dolazi do vašeg stola

and he steals your chair.

i krade vam stolicu.

Doesn't say a word —

Ne kaže vam ni riječi -

just rolls away with it.

samo ode s njom.

Doesn't give you any information about why he took your chair

Ne kaže vam razlog zbog čega je uzeo baš vašu stolicu

out of all the other chairs that are out there.

od toliko drugih.

Doesn't acknowledge the fact that you might need your chair

Nije ga briga da li vi trebate stolicu

to get some work done today.

da obavite današnji posao.

You wouldn't stand for it. You'd make a stink.

Vi to ne bi trpjeli, nego bi napravili frku.

You'd follow that guy back to his cubicle

Pratili biste tog kolegu do njegovog stola

and you'd say, "Why my chair?"

i upitali ga "Zašto moja stolica?".

Okay, so now it's Tuesday morning and you're at the office,

Utorak je, nalazite se u svom uredu

and a meeting invitation pops up in your calendar.

i dobijate pozivnicu u vašem kalendaru.

(Laughter)

(Smijeh)

And it's from this woman who you kind of know from down the hall,

Pozivnica je od kolegice koju poznajete

and the subject line references some project that you heard a little bit about.

i radi se o projektu o kojem ste čuli.

But there's no agenda.

Ali ne sadrži nikakav dnevni red.

There's no information about why you were invited to the meeting.

Nema informacija o tome zašto ste baš vi pozvani na sastanak.

And yet you accept the meeting invitation, and you go.

Ali ipak prihvatite pozivnicu i odlazite.

And when this highly unproductive session is over,

Nakon sastanka,

you go back to your desk,

vraćate se na svoje mjesto

and you stand at your desk and you say,

i razmišljate o tome

"Boy, I wish I had those two hours back,

kako biste željeli da imate ta dva sata, koliko je trajao sastanak,

like I wish I had my chair back."

kao što biste željeli vašu stolicu nazad.

(Laughter)

(Smijeh)

Every day, we allow our coworkers,

Svaki dan, mi dopuštamo svojim kolegama,

who are otherwise very, very nice people,

koji su inače ljubazni,

to steal from us.

da kradu od nas.

And I'm talking about something far more valuable than office furniture.

I govorim o stvarima koje su veće vrijednosti nego kancelarijski namještaj.

I'm talking about time. Your time.

Govorim o vremenu. Vašem vremenu.

In fact, I believe that

Ustvari vjerujem,

we are in the middle of a global epidemic

da smo usred globalne epidemije

of a terrible new illness known as MAS:

poznate kao BPS:

Mindless Accept Syndrome.

Bezumni Prihvatajući Sindrom.

(Laughter)

(Smijeh)

The primary symptom of Mindless Accept Syndrome

Primarni simptom BPS

is just accepting a meeting invitation the minute it pops up in your calendar.

je prihvatanje pozivnice za sastanak čim se ona pojavi na vašem kalendaru.

(Laughter)

(Smijeh)

It's an involuntary reflex — ding, click, bing — it's in your calendar,

To je nenamjerni refleks kojim prihvatate da sudjelujete na sastanku,

"Gotta go, I'm already late for a meeting." (Laughter)

"Moram ići, zakasnio sam na sastanak." (Smijeh)

Meetings are important, right?

Sastanci su važni, zar ne?

And collaboration is key to the success of any enterprise.

Kolaboracija je ključ uspjeha bilo koje organizacije.

And a well-run meeting can yield really positive, actionable results.

A dobar sastanak može rezultirati pozitivnim rezultatima.

But between globalization

Globalizacija

and pervasive information technology,

i informacione tehnologije

the way that we work

promjenili su način na koji

has really changed dramatically over the last few years.

mi radimo.

And we're miserable. (Laughter)

Osjećamo se nesretno. (Smijeh)

And we're miserable not because the other guy can't run a good meeting,

Razlog našeg osjećanja nije kolega koji ne zna da vodi dobar sastanak.

it's because of MAS, our Mindless Accept Syndrome,

Razlog je sindrom BPS,

which is a self-inflicted wound.

rana koju smo sami sebi nanijeli.

Actually, I have evidence to prove that MAS is a global epidemic.

Imam dokaze da je BPS globalna epidemija.

Let me tell you why.

Reći ću vam zašto.

A couple of years ago, I put a video on Youtube, and in the video,

Prije par godina postavio sam video na Youtube-u, u kojem sam

I acted out every terrible conference call you've ever been on.

odglumio konferencijski poziv na najgori mogući način.

It goes on for about five minutes,

Poziv je trajao oko 5 minuta.

and it has all the things that we hate about really bad meetings.

To su one stvari koje mrzimo na sastancima.

There's the moderator who has no idea how to run the meeting.

Tu je moderator koji ne zna da vodi sastanak,

There are the participants who have no idea why they're there.

sudionici, koji ne znaju zbog čega su tu,

The whole thing kind of collapses into this collaborative train wreck.

sastanak, gdje sudionici nisu produktivni

And everybody leaves very angry.

i sa kog svi odlaze veoma ljuti.

It's kind of funny.

U neku ruku je i smiješno.

(Laughter)

(Smijeh)

Let's take a quick look.

Pogledajmo.

(Video) Our goal today is to come to an agreement on a very important proposal.

(Video) Naš cilj danas jeste da dođemo do važnog dogovora.

As a group, we need to decide if —

Kao grupa moramo odlučiti,

bloop bloop —

bloop, bloop.

Hi, who just joined?

Zdravo, upravo smo se uključili u raspravu.

Hi, it's Joe. I'm working from home today.

Zdravo, Joe je. Radim od kuće danas.

(Laughter)

(Smijeh)

Hi, Joe. Thanks for joining us today, great.

Zdravo, Joe. Hvala što si nam se pridružio danas.

I was just saying, we have a lot of people on the call we'd like to get through,

Imamo dosta ljudi na čekanju koji žele

so let's skip the roll call

da se uključe u raspravu.

and I'm gonna dive right in.

Preskočimo formularnosti, preći ću na stvar.

Our goal today is to come to an agreement on a very important proposal.

Naš cilj danas jeste da dođemo do važnog dogovora.

As a group, we need to decide if —

Kao grupa moramo odlučiti

bloop bloop —

bloop, bloop.

(Laughter)

(Smijeh)

Hi, who just joined?

Zdravo, ko se uključio?

No? I thought I heard a beep. (Laughter)

Ne, učinilo mi se da sam čuo zvuk. (Smijeh)

Sound familiar?

Zvuči vam poznato?

Yeah, it sounds familiar to me, too.

Kao i meni.

A couple of weeks after I put that online,

Nakon nekoliko sedmica, i postavljanja

500,000 people in dozens of countries,

videa online, preko 500.000 ljudi

I mean dozens of countries,

širom svijeta

watched this video.

je pogledalo ovaj video.

And three years later, it's still getting thousands of views every month.

Tri godine nakon toga, i dalje dobija par hiljada pregleda mjesečno.

It's close to about a million right now.

Približava se cifri od milion pregleda.

And in fact, some of the biggest companies in the world,

Ustvari, neke od najvećih kompanija,

companies that you've heard of but I won't name,

kompanije koje sigurno znate, koje neću spominjati,

have asked for my permission to use this video in their new-hire training

tražile su moju dozvolu da koriste video u svrhu trening- sesije

to teach their new employees how not to run a meeting at their company.

sa svojim zaposlenicima o temi "Kako ne voditi sastanak".

And if the numbers —

Ako vam te brojke od milion pregleda

there are a million views and it's being used by all these companies —

i upotreba video materijala od strane poznatih kompanija

aren't enough proof that we have a global problem with meetings,

nije dovoljan dokaz da imamo globalni problem,

there are the many, many thousands

postoji preko hiljadu komentara koji

of comments posted online

su objavljeni, nakon što je video

after the video went up.

postavljen.

Thousands of people wrote things like,

Hiljade ljudi je pisalo slično ovome,

"OMG, that was my day today!"

"OMG, takav je bio moj dan danas!"

"That was my day every day!"

"Takav je moj svaki dan!"

"This is my life."

"Ovo je moj život!"

One guy wrote,

Jedna osoba je napisala,

"It's funny because it's true.

"Ovo je smiješno, zbog toga

Eerily, sadly, depressingly true.

što je istinito!"

It made me laugh until I cried.

Natjeralo me na smijeh, dok nisam

And cried. And I cried some more."

zaplakao.

(Laughter)

(Smijeh)

This poor guy said,

Jedan gospodin je napisao,

"My daily life until retirement or death, sigh."

"Moj dnevni život do penzionisanja ili smrti".

These are real quotes

To su stvarne rečenice

and it's real sad.

koje su tužne.

A common theme running through all of these comments online

Zajedničko za sve komentare

is this fundamental belief that we are powerless

jeste vjerovanje da smo nemoćni

to do anything other than go to meetings

da radimo ništa drugo, nego da idemo na sastanke

and suffer through these poorly run meetings

loše sastanke,

and live to meet another day.

i tako iz dana u dan.

But the truth is, we're not powerless at all.

Ali istina je da nismo nemoćni.

In fact, the cure for MAS is right here in our hands.

Rješenje za sindorom BPS je u našim rukama.

It's right at our fingertips, literally.

Bukvalno se nalazi nadomak naših prstiju.

It's something that I call ¡No MAS!

Zove se "NE BPS! sindrom,

(Laughter)

(Smijeh)

Which, if I remember my high school Spanish,

što na španskom, ukoliko se sjećam svojih

means something like, "Enough already, make it stop!"

srednjoškolskih dana znači: "Prestani!".

Here's how No MAS works. It's very simple.

"NE BPS " sistem funcioniše na sljedeći način.

First of all, the next time you get a meeting invitation

Sljedeći put kada vas pozovu na sastanak

that doesn't have a lot of information in it at all,

o kojem nemate mnogo infomacija,

click the tentative button!

pritisnite "čekanje na odgovor".

It's okay, you're allowed, that's why it's there.

Slobodno! Zbog toga i postoji.

It's right next to the accept button.

Odmah je pored "prihvatam".

Or the maybe button, or whatever button is there for you not to accept immediately.

Ili bilo koje drugo dugme, samo ne prihvatajte odmah.

Then, get in touch with the person who asked you to the meeting.

Potražite osobu koja vam je poslala pozivnicu.

Tell them you're very excited to support their work,

Recite im da podržavate njihov rad,

ask them what the goal of the meeting is,

pitajte ih koji je povod vašeg sastanka,

and tell them you're interested in learning how you can help them achieve their goal.

i recite da ste spremni da im pomognete da postignu svoj cilj.

And if we do this often enough,

Ukoliko to budemo radili svakodnevnije

and we do it respectfully,

i sa dozom respekta.

people might start to be a little bit more thoughtful

Možda će kolege razmisliti

about the way they put together meeting invitations.

o tome koga će zvati i šta će biti predmet sastanaka.

And you can make more thoughtful decisions about accepting it.

A vi ćete razmisliti o tome da li ćete prihvatiti pozivnicu.

People might actually start sending out agendas. Imagine!

Možda će vam početi slati i dnevni red sastanaka. Zamislite!

Or they might not have a conference call with 12 people to talk about a status

Možda neće imati konferencijske pozive sa 12 osoba,

when they could just do a quick email and get it done with.

nego će takve stvari rješavati putem e-maila.

People just might start to change their behavior because you changed yours.

Možda će pokušati promijeniti svoje ponašanje, zbog vašeg.

And they just might bring your chair back, too. (Laughter)

I možda dobijete svoju stolicu nazad. (Smijeh)

No MAS!

Recite, "NE BPS" sindromu.

Thank you.

Hvala vam.

(Applause).

(Aplauz)