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

Translator: Klavdija Cernilogar Reviewer: Nika Kotnik

Picture this:

Predstavljajte si tole:

It's Monday morning,

ponedeljek zjutraj je,

you're at the office,

v službi ste,

you're settling in for the day at work,

vstopate v delovni dan

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

in potem sodelavec, ki ga bežno poznate,

walks right into your cubicle

stopi k vaši pisalni mizi

and he steals your chair.

in vam ukrade stol.

Doesn't say a word —

Nič ne reče,

just rolls away with it.

samo odpelje ga.

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

Ne pove vam, zakaj je vzel vaš stol

out of all the other chairs that are out there.

namesto katerega drugega.

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

Ne vzame v zakup, da vi stol morda potrebujete,

to get some work done today.

da bi lahko opravili svoje delo.

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

Tega si ne dovolite. Ukrepali boste.

You'd follow that guy back to his cubicle

Sledili boste temu tipu

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

in vprašali: "Zakaj moj stol?"

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

Recimo, da je torek in ste v pisarni,

and a meeting invitation pops up in your calendar.

na koledarju se pojavi vabilo na sestanek.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

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

Od sodelavke je, ki jo bežno poznate,

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

tema sestanka pa je projekt, o katerem ste nekaj malega slišali.

But there's no agenda.

Ni pa dnevnega reda.

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

Ni informacije, zakaj ste vabljeni na sestanek.

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

A vseeno sprejmete in greste.

And when this highly unproductive session is over,

In ko je te povsem neproduktivne muke konec,

you go back to your desk,

greste nazaj za pisalno mizo,

and you stand at your desk and you say,

obstojite in si rečete:

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

"Ko bi vsaj dobil nazaj tisti dve uri

like I wish I had my chair back."

in svoj stol."

(Laughter)

(smeh)

Every day, we allow our coworkers,

Vsak dan sodelavcem,

who are otherwise very, very nice people,

ki so sicer zelo zelo prijetni ljudje,

to steal from us.

dovoljujemo, da kradejo.

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

In to dosti vrednejše stvari od pisarniške opreme.

I'm talking about time. Your time.

Govorim o času. Vašem času.

In fact, I believe that

Pravzaprav verjamem, da smo

we are in the middle of a global epidemic

sredi globalne epidemije

of a terrible new illness known as MAS:

grozne nove bolezni, znane kot MAS:

Mindless Accept Syndrome.

sindrom množičnega avtomatskega sprejema.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

The primary symptom of Mindless Accept Syndrome

Prvi simptom tega sindroma

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

je sprejetje vabila na sestanek, takoj ko se pojavi na koledarju.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

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

Gre za avtomatski refleks - ding, klik, bing - in je sprejeto.

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

"Iti moram, že zamujam na sestanek." (smeh)

Meetings are important, right?

Sestanki so pomembni, ne?

And collaboration is key to the success of any enterprise.

In sodelovanje je temelj uspeha vsakega podjetja.

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

Dobro voden sestanek lahko prinese res pozitivne, uresničljive rezultate.

But between globalization

A zaradi globalizacije

and pervasive information technology,

in vseprisotne informacijske tehnologije

the way that we work

se je način dela

has really changed dramatically over the last few years.

v zadnjih letih dramatično spremenil.

And we're miserable. (Laughter)

In nas onesrečil. (smeh)

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

Nesrečni nismo zato, ker nekdo ne zna voditi sestanka,

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

ampak zaradi sindroma MAS,

which is a self-inflicted wound.

ki si ga sami zadajamo.

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

Lahko dokažem, da je MAS globalna epidemija.

Let me tell you why.

Povedal vam bom, zakaj.

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

Pred nekaj leti sem na Youtubu objavil video,

v katerem sem zaigral vse grozne konference, na katerih sem bil.

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

It goes on for about five minutes,

Dolg je okoli pet minut,

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

in vsebuje vse, kar sovražimo pri sestankih.

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

Moderatorja, ki nima pojma, kako voditi.

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

Udeležence, ki ne vedo, zakaj so tam.

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

Vse skupaj razpade v razbitino sodelovanja.

And everybody leaves very angry.

In vsi odidejo zelo jezni.

It's kind of funny.

Na nek način je smešno.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

Let's take a quick look.

Poglejmo na hitro.

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

Naš cilj je uskladiti se o pomembnem predlogu.

As a group, we need to decide if —

Kot skupina se moramo odločiti, ali ...

bloop bloop —

bip bip ...

Hi, who just joined?

Zdravo, kdo se je pridružil?

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

Joe. Danes delam od doma.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

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

Pozdravljen Joe. Hvala, da si tu.

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

Ravno sem razlagal, da imamo veliko ljudi na zvezi,

so let's skip the roll call

zato se ne bomo predstavljali,

and I'm gonna dive right in.

ampak šli kar k bistvu.

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

Danes se moramo uskladiti o pomembnem predlogu.

As a group, we need to decide if —

Kot skupina moramo odločiti, ali ...

bloop bloop —

bip bip...

(Laughter)

(smeh)

Hi, who just joined?

Kdo je prišel?

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

Nihče? Mislil sem, da je zapiskalo. (smeh)

Sound familiar?

Se vam zdi znano?

Yeah, it sounds familiar to me, too.

Ja, meni tudi.

A couple of weeks after I put that online,

Nekaj tednov po objavi

500,000 people in dozens of countries,

je 500,000 ljudi iz na ducate držav,

I mean dozens of countries,

res na ducate držav,

watched this video.

videlo ta video.

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

Tri leta kasneje ima še vedno na tisoče ogledov mesečno.

It's close to about a million right now.

Zdaj je blizu milijona.

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

In nekatera največja svetovna podjetja,

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

ki jih poznate in jih ne bom imenoval,

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

so me prosila, če lahko video pokažejo na treningih za novince,

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

da bi jim pokazali, kako ne voditi sestanka.

And if the numbers —

In če številke -

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

milijon ogledov, vsa ta podjetja...

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

niso zadosten dokaz, da imamo globalni problem s sestanki,

there are the many, many thousands

je na spletu na tisoče komentarjev,

of comments posted online

after the video went up.

ki so sledili objavi videa.

Thousands of people wrote things like,

Na tisoče ljudi je napisalo:

"OMG, that was my day today!"

"Moj bog, tak je bil danes moj dan!"

"That was my day every day!"

"Tak je moj vsakdan!"

"This is my life."

"To je moje življenje."

One guy wrote,

Nekdo je napisal:

"It's funny because it's true.

"Smešno je, ker je resnično.

Eerily, sadly, depressingly true.

Grozljivo, žalostno, depresivno resnično.

It made me laugh until I cried.

Smejal sem se do solz.

And cried. And I cried some more."

In jokal. In še bolj jokal."

(Laughter)

(smeh)

This poor guy said,

Neki ubožec je dejal:

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

"Moj vsakdan do penzije ali smrti, ah."

These are real quotes

To so pravi citati

and it's real sad.

in to je res žalostno.

A common theme running through all of these comments online

Skupna tema teh spletnih komentarjev

is this fundamental belief that we are powerless

je temeljno prepričanje, da nimamo moči,

to do anything other than go to meetings

da bi storili kaj drugega, kot šli na sestanke,

and suffer through these poorly run meetings

pretrpeli slabo vodene sestanke

and live to meet another day.

in preživeli do naslednjega dne.

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

A v resnici sploh nismo nemočni.

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

Zdravilo za MAS je v naših rokah.

It's right at our fingertips, literally.

Naših prstih, pravzaprav.

It's something that I call ¡No MAS!

Temu rečem: No MAS!

(Laughter)

(smeh)

Which, if I remember my high school Spanish,

Kar, če se prav spomnim srednješolske španščine,

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

pomeni približno: "Nehajte že, ustavite to!"

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

Tako deluje "No MAS". Enostavno je.

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

Na naslednje vabilo na sestanek,

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

ki nima dovolj informacij,

click the tentative button!

odgovorite z "mogoče".

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

To smete, saj zato ta možnost obstaja.

It's right next to the accept button.

Takoj poleg ikone "sprejmem" je.

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

Gotovo obstaja kak tak gumb, s katerim vam ni treba tako sprejeti.

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

Potem stopite v stik s tistim, ki vas je povabil.

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

Povejte, da boste z veseljem pomagali,

ask them what the goal of the meeting is,

vprašajte za namen sestanka

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

in dodajte, da bi radi vedeli, kako lahko pomagate.

And if we do this often enough,

Če bomo to storili dovoljkrat

and we do it respectfully,

in s spoštovanjem,

people might start to be a little bit more thoughtful

bodo ljudje morda razmislili

o tem, kako pošiljajo vabila na sestanke.

about the way they put together meeting invitations.

And you can make more thoughtful decisions about accepting it.

In vi boste bolj premišljeno odločali o tem, ali boste sprejeli.

People might actually start sending out agendas. Imagine!

Morda bodo ljudje celo začeli pošiljati dnevne rede. Zamislite si!

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

Ali pa ne bo preko konferenčnih klicev 12 ljudi govorilo o statusu,

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

če se to lažje uredi z elektronsko pošto.

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

Morda bodo ljudje spremenili vedenje, ker ste vi spremenili svoje.

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

In morda vam bodo celo vrnili stol. (smeh)

No MAS!

No MAS!

Thank you.

Hvala.

(Applause).

(aplavz)