Using your smartphone while a meeting is in progress shows you consider the information on your phone to be more important than the conversation at hand. Photo: File.
Travis Bradberry says any use of smartphones during meetings has long been considered inappropriate by bosses and colleagues, yet the habit persists.
Research from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business is quite explicit: You are annoying your boss and colleagues any time you take your phone out during meetings.
If you work with women and people over 40, they’re even more perturbed by it than everyone else.
The researchers surveyed 554 full-time working professionals earning above $45,000 and working in organisations with at least 50 employees.
They asked a variety of questions about smartphone use during meetings. This is what they found:
- It is inappropriate to answer phone calls during meetings (86 per cent of respondents).
- It’s inappropriate to write texts or emails during meetings (84 per cent).
- It’s inappropriate to write texts or emails even during lunches offsite (66 per cent).
- The more money people make, the less they approve of smartphone use.
The study also found that younger people are three times more likely to think that smartphone use during meetings is OK.
Why do so many people – especially successful people – find smartphone use in meetings to be inappropriate?
I have been writing about this practice from almost as soon as smartphones came into regular use and believe it demonstrates the following.
Lack of respect: You consider the information on your phone to be more important than the conversation at hand, and you view people outside of the meeting to be more important than those sitting right in front of you.
Lack of attention: You are unable to stay focused on one thing at a time.
Lack of listening: You aren’t practising active listening, so no-one around you feels heard.
Lack of power: You are like a modern-day Pavlovian dog who responds to the whims of others through the buzz of your phone.
Lack of self-awareness: You don’t understand how ridiculous your behaviour looks to other people.
Lack of social awareness: You don’t understand how your behaviour affects those around you.
I can’t say I’m surprised by the Marshall School’s findings. I’ve designed many assessments that compare leaders’ self-perception with how everyone else sees them.
Smartphone use in meetings is one of the most common co-worker complaints, so before the meeting begins it’s important to be clear on what you expect of other attendees.
If sharing this article with your team doesn’t end smartphone use in meetings, take a page out of the Old West and put a basket by the conference room door with an image of a smartphone and the message: “Leave your guns at the door.”
Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the bestselling book Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the co-founder of TalentSmart. His books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. He can be contacted at TalentSmart.com.
This article first appeared on the TalentSmart website.
