The only thing most managers understand: “Uh, let’s schedule a call.”

I’ve never been a big fan of the “schedule a call” culture of most businesses (some call this “hop on a call”), although I do understand the rationale.

Even though a lot of executives tend to focus on 1–2 markets (i.e. the United States and maybe somewhere else), it’s true that business is global. Oftentimes, the only two ways to get a hold of someone — i.e. a potential partner — in another place would be:

• EMail
• Let’s schedule a call!

Well, email sucks and I hope we all understand that by now. People also waaaaaaay overuse the sending of it. We’ve all been on 471 email-deep threads that could have easily been a five-minute conversation. It’s because of laziness, although many are reluctant to admit that reality.

So, because email sucks donkey, we turn to “let’s schedule a call.” But here’s the thing: calls take time. There’s always that period of small talk at the beginning, and then a couple of people beat around the bush on the real issue, and then maybe we get into the issue. If it’s a conference call, you’ve got a host of other problems. Someone forgot to mute and their dog is going nuts. 55 percent of the attendees are slobbering on Chipotle. Repeatedly someone keeps saying, “Hey, is Dan on the call? Dan? Danny?” It’s a…