My issue (and I'm not one to take a laptop unless I'm presenting) is the flaw that he assumes all laptop users generally use them to take notes (which can be taken alternatively, but in a working meeting the chair can do rough minutes as you go, but the blue one is taking issue with other attendees) or to read messages.
I have found that some people take a laptop to a meeting in order to have a searchable pdf there when discussing contracts / scope for example or to reference other drawings. In fact, given the intent to save paper these days, this can be a good thing.
Having said all that, I couldn't agree more with the poor running of meetings, lack or courtesy / respect etc. being huge issues. Only recently I have twice been in meetings involving senior stakeholders with a standard format and pre-distributed agenda, when one of the attendees (the same in both instances) has asked if we could disregard the agenda and do their items first as they were busy and had other commitments. Won't be happening again!
Solution; well the person should have queried prior if we could re-jig the agenda or asked for a different meeting time if that was not possible. They could have delegated (and there is another huge topic, because delegate really does mean send a surrogate empowered to make certain decisions within levels of authority you give them, not send a spy to report back what was said, but not be able to contribute to the topic of the meeting if a commitment must be made). Everyone is busy and some things have to be done to enable a process to continue and not stall.
The assumption should be that everyone has important stuff to be done, but that the topic of the meeting is important enough to hold a meeting, so it should be worthwhile doing it properly to make the most of everyone's time...
P.S. in this day and age, I think it is better to accept meetings may include gadgets and have protocols to address this as otherwise how do you ensure full participation for web based meetings which are fast becoming the norm?
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Great article, totally agree on the Blackberry/PDA issue. Nothing worse than someone fiddling under the table typing emails!
ReplyDeleteGood point about having documents on hand though, better to have the searchable doc than a huge stack of paperwork!
Cheers for the reference, I guess our challenge going forward (beside improving meetings in general), is how to best work in the electronic "aides" to the benefit of the meeting.
Thanks Jamie,
ReplyDeleteYes, it will be a thorny issue.
I guess you have to consider the ratio of how much they help vs. how much they disrupt or hinder.
One top tip is if you're using electronic aides (projector, webmeeting etc.) then make sure you check they work prior to the meeting in the way they will be configured in the meeting.
Sounds basic, but how often have you been in a meeting where I.T. issues have delayed the start? I have, my own fault, things worked well the previous meeting and then you assumed would work the same way the next time and that was when the trouble started...