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

Prevodilac: Valentina Tahiri Lektor: Mile Živković

Picture this:

Zamislite ovo:

It's Monday morning,

ponedeljak je ujutru,

you're at the office,

vi ste na poslu,

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,

a lik kojeg znate sa hodnika, iz viđenja

walks right into your cubicle

vam ulazi u kancelariju

and he steals your chair.

i krade stolicu.

Doesn't say a word —

Ne kaže ni reč -

just rolls away with it.

samo je odgura sa sobom.

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

Ne kaže vam zašto je odneo stolicu,

out of all the other chairs that are out there.

pored svih ostalih stolica.

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

Ne razmišlja o tome da vama treba stolica

to get some work done today.

da biste uradili nešto na poslu.

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

Ne biste to trpeli. Skrenuli biste pažnju.

You'd follow that guy back to his cubicle

Pratili biste ga do njegove kancelarije

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

i rekli biste: "Što baš moja stolica?"

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

Okej, sad je utorak ujutru, na poslu ste,

and a meeting invitation pops up in your calendar.

u kalendaru vam iskače termin za sastanak.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

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

Od žene, koju isto poznajete iz viđenja,

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

tema je o projektu koji vam zvuči poznato.

But there's no agenda.

Ali nema plana rada.

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

Nema informacije o tome zašto ste pozvani.

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

Ali ipak prihvatate, i idete.

And when this highly unproductive session is over,

Nakon ovog neproduktivnog zasedanja,

you go back to your desk,

vraćate se svom stolu,

and you stand at your desk and you say,

stanete nad njim i kažete sebi:

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

"Kada bi mi mogli vratiti ova dva sata,

like I wish I had my chair back."

zajedno sa mojom stolicom."

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

Every day, we allow our coworkers,

Svaki dan dopuštamo kolegama,

who are otherwise very, very nice people,

koji su inače mnogo dobri ljudi,

to steal from us.

da kradu od nas.

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

Mislim na stvari puno vrednije od stolica.

I'm talking about time. Your time.

Pričam o vremenu. Vašem vremenu.

In fact, I believe that

U stvari, i verujem

we are in the middle of a global epidemic

da smo u sred globalne epidemije

of a terrible new illness known as MAS:

nove strašne bolesti zvane SBP:

Mindless Accept Syndrome.

Sindrom Bezumnog Prihvatanja

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

The primary symptom of Mindless Accept Syndrome

Prvi simptom SBP-a

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

počinje prihvatanjem sastanka, čim iskoči u kalendaru.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

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

To je samo refleks, ding, klik, bing - već ti je u kalendaru.

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

"Žurim, već sam okasnio na sastanak." (Smeh)

Meetings are important, right?

Sastanci su važni, zar ne?

And collaboration is key to the success of any enterprise.

I saradnja je ključ za uspeh svakog preduzetništva.

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

Iz dobrog sastanka se mogu izvući pozitivni svrsishodni rezultati.

But between globalization

Ali sa globalizacijom

and pervasive information technology,

i preovladavajućom informacionom tehnologijom,

the way that we work

način na koji radimo

has really changed dramatically over the last few years.

se izuzetno, čak i dramatično promenio u poslednjih par godina.

And we're miserable. (Laughter)

I očajni smo. (Smeh)

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

Nismo očajni što onaj lik ne ume da vodi sastanak

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

nego zbog SBP-a, Sindroma bezumnog prihvatanja,

which is a self-inflicted wound.

povrede koju smo sami sebi naneli.

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

Inače, imam dokaze da je SPB epidemija svetskih razmera.

Let me tell you why.

Reći ću vam i zašto.

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

Pre nekoliko godina, postavio sam snimak na Jutjub u kojem

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

glumim scene svih groznih sastanaka ikada.

It goes on for about five minutes,

I to traje nekih pet minuta,

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

i sadrži sve stvari koje mrzimo na groznim sastancima.

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

Tu je predsedavajući, koji nema pojma kako da vodi sastanak.

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

Učesnici na sastanku, koji ne znaju zašto su tamo.

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

Cela stvar se nekako uruši u jednu zajedničku katastrofu.

And everybody leaves very angry.

Svi odlaze sa sastanka ljuti.

It's kind of funny.

Smešno je nekako.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

Let's take a quick look.

Hajde da bacimo pogled.

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

(Video) Cilj nam je da dođemo do dogovora o vrlo bitnoj ponudi.

As a group, we need to decide if —

Kao tim, moramo odlučiti da li -

bloop bloop —

blu blup -

Hi, who just joined?

Halo, ko nam se upravo javlja?

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

Halo, ovde Džo. Radim od kuće danas.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

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

Ćao Džo. Hvala što si se pridružio, sjajno.

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

Upravo govorim, imamo puno ljudi do kojih pokušavamo doći,

so let's skip the roll call

tako da ću preskočiti prozivanje poimence,

and I'm gonna dive right in.

samo ću početi.

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

Današnji cilj je da se dogovorimo o vrlo bitnoj ponudi.

As a group, we need to decide if —

Kao tim, moramo odlučiti da li -

bloop bloop —

blu, blup -

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

Hi, who just joined?

Halo, ko nam se javlja?

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

Ne? Mislio sam da sam čuo zvuk. (Smeh)

Sound familiar?

Zvuči poznato?

Yeah, it sounds familiar to me, too.

Da, i meni zvuči poznato.

A couple of weeks after I put that online,

Nekoliko nedelja nakon što sam to stavio na internet,

500,000 people in dozens of countries,

500 000 ljudi u desetinama zemalja,

I mean dozens of countries,

bukvalno desetinama,

watched this video.

je pogledalo ovaj video.

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

Tri godine kasnije, i dalje ima hiljade pregleda svaki mesec.

It's close to about a million right now.

Sada je već blizu milion.

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

Zapravo, neke od najvećih kompanija sveta,

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

za koje ste čuli, ali koje neću imenovati

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

su tražile moju dozvolu da koriste video za svoje zaposlene

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

da ih nauče kako da ne vode sastanak na poslu.

And if the numbers —

I ako svi ti brojevi -

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

a ima milion pregleda od svih tih kompanija -

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

nisu dovoljan dokaz da imamo globalni problem sa sastancima,

there are the many, many thousands

postoje mase i mase

of comments posted online

komentara na internetu

after the video went up.

nakon što je video postavljen.

Thousands of people wrote things like,

Hiljade ljudi je pisalo stvari poput:

"OMG, that was my day today!"

"Bože, takav je bio moj današnji dan!"

"That was my day every day!"

"Takav je moj svaki dan!"

"This is my life."

"Ovo je moj život."

One guy wrote,

Jedan je napisao:

"It's funny because it's true.

"Smešno je jer je istina.

Eerily, sadly, depressingly true.

Zastrašujuća, tužna, deprimirajuća istina

It made me laugh until I cried.

koja me nasmejala do suza.

And cried. And I cried some more."

I suza. I još malo suza.

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

This poor guy said,

Ovaj siroti lik je napisao:

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

"Ovo je moj život iz dana u dan, do penzije ili smrti, uzdah".

These are real quotes

Ovo su stvarni citati

and it's real sad.

i stvarno je tužno.

A common theme running through all of these comments online

Tema koja se prožima kroz sve ove komentare na internetu

is this fundamental belief that we are powerless

je zajedničko verovanje da smo nemoćni

to do anything other than go to meetings

da uradimo išta osim odlaska na sastanke

and suffer through these poorly run meetings

i da se patimo kroz te loše organizovane sastanke

and live to meet another day.

i preživimo do sledećeg.

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

Ali istina je da uopšte nismo nemoćni.

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

U stvari, lek za SBP je ovde u našim rukama.

It's right at our fingertips, literally.

U vrhovima prstiju nam je, bukvalno.

It's something that I call ¡No MAS!

I zove se - no mas!

(Laughter)

(Smeh)

Which, if I remember my high school Spanish,

Što znači, ako se dobro sećam španskog iz srednje,

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

nešto poput: "Dosta više, prekini!"

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

Evo kako No mas deluje. Veoma je jednostavno.

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

Prvo, kada sledeći put dobijete poziv na sastanak

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

koji nema puno informacija,

click the tentative button!

kliknite na dugme Možda!

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

Sve je u redu, smete to uraditi, zato i postoji.

It's right next to the accept button.

Pored je dugme Prihvati.

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

Ili je to dugme Kasnije, koje god dugme vas ne tera da prihvatite.

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

Onda, kontaktirajte osobu koja vas je pozvala na sastanak.

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

Recite im da ste jako uzbuđeni da podržite njihov rad,

ask them what the goal of the meeting is,

pitajte ih šta je cilj njihovog sastanka

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

i recite da vas interesuje da saznate kako da im pomognete da ostvare svoj cilj.

And if we do this often enough,

Ako radimo ovo dovoljno često,

and we do it respectfully,

i radimo to sa poštovanjem,

people might start to be a little bit more thoughtful

ljudi će imati više obzira

about the way they put together meeting invitations.

kada sazivaju te sastanke.

And you can make more thoughtful decisions about accepting it.

I vi ćete obzirnije odlučivati koje sastanke ćete prihvatati.

People might actually start sending out agendas. Imagine!

Možda ljudi počnu i da šalju planove rada. Zamislite!

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

Ili neće sazivati dvanaestoro ljudi da pričaju o statusu

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

kada mogu samo poslati mejl i završiti s time.

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

Možda ljudi promene svoje ponašanje, ako vi promenite vaše.

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

Možda vam čak i vrate stolicu jednom. (Smeh)

No MAS!

No MAS!

Thank you.

Hvala!

(Applause).

(Aplauz)