Picture this: It's Monday morning, you're at the office, you're settling in for the day at work, and this guy that you sort of recognize from down the hall, walks right into your cubicle and he steals your chair. Doesn't say a word — just rolls away with it. Doesn't give you any information about why he took your chair out of all the other chairs that are out there. Doesn't acknowledge the fact that you might need your chair to get some work done today. You wouldn't stand for it. You'd make a stink. You'd follow that guy back to his cubicle and you'd say, "Why my chair?"
Zamislite ovo: Ponedjeljak je ujutro, nalazite se u uredu, spremate se za dan na poslu, a taj neki čovjek kojeg kao znate, niže iz hodnika, došeće ravno u vaš odjeljak i ukrade vam stolac. Ne kaže ni riječ — samo se otkotrlja s njim. Ne daje vam nikakvu informaciju zašto je uzeo vaš stolac od svih drugih stolaca koji su tamo. Ne uviđa činjenicu da možda trebate svoj stolac da bi obavili i nekakav posao danas. Ne biste to otrpjeli. Digli bi frku. Slijedili bi tog čovjeka nazad u njegov odjeljak i rekli bi: "Zašto moj stolac?"
Okay, so now it's Tuesday morning and you're at the office, and a meeting invitation pops up in your calendar. (Laughter) And it's from this woman who you kind of know from down the hall, and the subject line references some project that you heard a little bit about. But there's no agenda. There's no information about why you were invited to the meeting. And yet you accept the meeting invitation, and you go. And when this highly unproductive session is over, you go back to your desk, and you stand at your desk and you say, "Boy, I wish I had those two hours back, like I wish I had my chair back." (Laughter)
Ok, a sad je utorak ujutro i nalazite se u uredu i u vašem kalendaru iskoči poziv na sastanak. (Smijeh) I dolazi od te žene koju kao znate, niže iz hodnika, a u nazivu sastanka se spominje neki projekt o kojem ste nešto malo čuli. Ali nema dnevnog reda. Nema informacije zašto ste pozvani na sastanak. Prihvaćate pozivnicu za sastanak i odete. I kad je to vrlo neproduktivno zasjedanje gotovo, vraćate se do svog stola, i stojite tamo i kažete: "Čovječe, želio bih ta dva sata nazad, isto koliko bih želio svoj stolac nazad." (Smijeh)
Every day, we allow our coworkers, who are otherwise very, very nice people, to steal from us. And I'm talking about something far more valuable than office furniture. I'm talking about time. Your time. In fact, I believe that we are in the middle of a global epidemic of a terrible new illness known as MAS: Mindless Accept Syndrome. (Laughter) The primary symptom of Mindless Accept Syndrome is just accepting a meeting invitation the minute it pops up in your calendar. (Laughter) It's an involuntary reflex — ding, click, bing — it's in your calendar, "Gotta go, I'm already late for a meeting." (Laughter)
Svaki dan, dopuštamo svojim suradnicima, koji su u inače vrlo, vrlo dragi ljudi, da nam kradu. A pričam o nečemu puno vrednijem od uredskog namještaja. Pričam o vremenu. Vašem vremenu. Zapravo, vjerujem kako smo usred globalne epidemije strašne nove bolesti znane kao MAS: Mindless Accept Syndrome (sindrom bezumnog prihvaćanja). (Smijeh) Primarni simptom sindroma bezumnog prihvaćanja je samo prihvaćanje poziva na sastanak iste minute što je iskočio u vaš kalendar. (Smijeh) te je nesvjestan refleks — ding, klik, bing — u kalendaru vam je, "Moram ići, već kasnim na sastanak." (Smijeh)
Meetings are important, right? And collaboration is key to the success of any enterprise. And a well-run meeting can yield really positive, actionable results. But between globalization and pervasive information technology, the way that we work has really changed dramatically over the last few years. And we're miserable. (Laughter) And we're miserable not because the other guy can't run a good meeting, it's because of MAS, our Mindless Accept Syndrome, which is a self-inflicted wound.
Sastanci su bitni, je li tako? I suradnja je ključ uspjeha u svakom poduhvatu. I dobro vođen sastanak može uroditi zbilja pozitivnim, konkretnim rezultatima. Ali između globalizacije i prožetosti informatičkom tehnologijom, način na koji radimo se zbilja dramatično promijenio tijekom zadnjih nekoliko godina. I jadni smo. (Smijeh) I jadni smo ne zato što neki čovjek ne može dobro voditi sastanak, nego zbog MAS, našeg sindroma bezumnog prihvaćanja. koji je samouzrokovana rana.
Actually, I have evidence to prove that MAS is a global epidemic. Let me tell you why. A couple of years ago, I put a video on Youtube, and in the video, I acted out every terrible conference call you've ever been on. It goes on for about five minutes, and it has all the things that we hate about really bad meetings. There's the moderator who has no idea how to run the meeting. There are the participants who have no idea why they're there. The whole thing kind of collapses into this collaborative train wreck. And everybody leaves very angry. It's kind of funny. (Laughter) Let's take a quick look. (Video) Our goal today is to come to an agreement on a very important proposal. As a group, we need to decide if — bloop bloop — Hi, who just joined? Hi, it's Joe. I'm working from home today. (Laughter) Hi, Joe. Thanks for joining us today, great. I was just saying, we have a lot of people on the call we'd like to get through, so let's skip the roll call and I'm gonna dive right in. Our goal today is to come to an agreement on a very important proposal. As a group, we need to decide if — bloop bloop — (Laughter) Hi, who just joined? No? I thought I heard a beep. (Laughter)
Zapravo, imam dokaz koji ukazuje da je MAS globalna epidemija. Da vam kažem zašto. Prije par godina, stavio sam video na Youtube, a u videu sam odglumio svaki strašan konferencijski razgovor moguć. Traje otprilike pet minuta, i ima sve one stvari koje mrzimo u zbilja lošim sastancima. Imamo predsjedavajućeg koji nema pojma kako voditi sastanak. Imamo sudionike koji nemaju pojma zašto su tamo. Cijela stvar se nekako uruši u taj suradnički sudar vlakova. I svi odlaze vrlo ljuti. Nekako je zabavno. (Smijeh) Bacimo brzi pogled. (Video) Naš je cilj danas doći do sporazuma o vrlo važnom prijedlogu. Kao grupa, moramo odlučiti ako — blup blup — Bok, tko se upravo spojio? Bok, Joe je. Danas radim od doma. (Smijeh) Bok Joe. Hvala što si nam se pridružio danas, odlično. Baš sam bio govorio, imamo puno ljudi u pozivu kroz koji bi htjeli proći, pa ajmo preskočiti prozivku a ja ću prijeći ravno na stvar. Naš je cilj danas doći do sporazuma o vrlo važnom prijedlogu. Kao grupa, moramo odlučiti ako — blup blup — (Smijeh) Bok, tko se u pravo spojio? Ne? Mislio sam da sam čuo bip. (Smijeh)
Sound familiar? Yeah, it sounds familiar to me, too. A couple of weeks after I put that online, 500,000 people in dozens of countries, I mean dozens of countries, watched this video. And three years later, it's still getting thousands of views every month. It's close to about a million right now. And in fact, some of the biggest companies in the world, companies that you've heard of but I won't name, have asked for my permission to use this video in their new-hire training to teach their new employees how not to run a meeting at their company. And if the numbers — there are a million views and it's being used by all these companies — aren't enough proof that we have a global problem with meetings, there are the many, many thousands of comments posted online after the video went up. Thousands of people wrote things like, "OMG, that was my day today!" "That was my day every day!" "This is my life." One guy wrote, "It's funny because it's true. Eerily, sadly, depressingly true. It made me laugh until I cried. And cried. And I cried some more." (Laughter) This poor guy said, "My daily life until retirement or death, sigh." These are real quotes and it's real sad.
Zvuči poznato? Da, i meni također zvuči poznato. Nekoliko tjedana nakon što sam to stavio online, 500.000 ljudi iz desetaka zemalja, mislim desetaka zemalja, je pogledala ovaj video. I tri godine kasnije, i dalje dobija tisuće pregleda svaki mjesec. Blizu je milijunu trenutno. I zapravo, neke od najvećih kompanija na svijetu, kompanije za koje ste čuli ali ih neću imenovati, me pitalo za dopuštenje za korištenje ovog videa u njihovim treninzima za novake da nauče svoje nove djelatnike kako ne voditi sastanak u njihovoj kompaniji. A ako brojevi — milijun pregleda i što ga koriste sve te kompanije — nisu dovoljan dokaz da imamo globalni problem sa sastancima, ima puno, puno tisuća komentara objavljenih online nakon što se pojavio video. Tisuće je ljudi pisalo stvari poput: "OMG, to je bio moj dan danas!" "To je bio moj dan svaki dan!" "Ovo je moj život." Jedan je čovjek napisao, "Smješno je zato jer je točno. Jezivo, tužno, depresivno točno. Nasmijalo me da sam plakao. I plakao. I još malo plakao." (Smijeh) Ovaj je jadni čovjek napisao: "Moja svakodnevnica do mirovine ili smrti, šmrc." To su pravi citati. I zbilja je tužno.
A common theme running through all of these comments online is this fundamental belief that we are powerless to do anything other than go to meetings and suffer through these poorly run meetings and live to meet another day. But the truth is, we're not powerless at all. In fact, the cure for MAS is right here in our hands. It's right at our fingertips, literally. It's something that I call ¡No MAS! (Laughter) Which, if I remember my high school Spanish, means something like, "Enough already, make it stop!"
Zajednička tema koja se vrti kroz sve te komentare je to temeljno vjerovanje da smo nemoćni učiniti išta drugo nego ići na sastanke i trpjeti kroz te loše vođene sastanke i živjeti u čekanju novog dana. Ali istina jest, uopće nismo nemoćni. Zapravo, lijek za MAS je točno tu u našim glavama. Točno nam je pod prstima, doslovno. To je nešto što zovem ¡No MAS! (Smijeh) Što, ako se dobro sjećam svog srednjoškolskog Španjolskog, znači nešto kao: "Dosta više, prestani!"
Here's how No MAS works. It's very simple. First of all, the next time you get a meeting invitation that doesn't have a lot of information in it at all, click the tentative button! It's okay, you're allowed, that's why it's there. It's right next to the accept button. Or the maybe button, or whatever button is there for you not to accept immediately. Then, get in touch with the person who asked you to the meeting. Tell them you're very excited to support their work, ask them what the goal of the meeting is, and tell them you're interested in learning how you can help them achieve their goal. And if we do this often enough, and we do it respectfully, people might start to be a little bit more thoughtful about the way they put together meeting invitations. And you can make more thoughtful decisions about accepting it. People might actually start sending out agendas. Imagine! Or they might not have a conference call with 12 people to talk about a status when they could just do a quick email and get it done with. People just might start to change their behavior because you changed yours. And they just might bring your chair back, too. (Laughter) No MAS! Thank you. (Applause).
Evo kako No MAS radi. Zbilja je jednostavno. Prije svega, slijedeći put kad dobijete pozivnicu za sastanak koja ne sadrži puno informacija, kliknite tipku 'privremeno ne znam'! U redu je, dopušteno je, zato i postoji. Odmah je do tipke 'prihvaćam'. ili tipku 'možda', ili koja je god tipka raspoloživa da ne prihvatite odmah. Potom, čujte se s osobom koja vas je zvala na sastanak. Recite im da ste vrlo uzbuđeni da im podržite rad, pitajte ih koji je cilj sastanka, i recite im da ste zainteresirani naučiti kako im možete pomoći da ostvare cilj. A ako to radimo dovoljno često, i ako to radimo s uvažavanjem, ljudi mogu početi biti malo promišljeniji u načinu na koji sastavljaju pozivnice za sastanke. A vi možete donositi promišljenije odluke o njihovom prihvaćanju. Ljudi možda zbilja počnu slati i dnevni red. Zamislite! Ili bi mogli ne imati konferencijski razgovor sa 12 ljudi u kojem raspravljaju stanje kad bi mogli samo poslati brzi email i tako riješiti stvar. Ljudi bi baš mogli i promijeniti svoje ponašanje, jer ste vi to učinili. I možda bi vam i vratili vaš stolac, također (Smijeh) No MAS! Hvala vam! (Pljesak)