More than one-quarter (27%) of C-level leaders surveyed said that "being distracted" is their number-one irritation during meetings.
That's right. The boss was trying to say something important when so-and-so just had to interrupt with an irrelevant question or questionable tangent that is completely off-topic.
Before we know it, we're talking about a co-worker's dog instead of spreadsheet details, and everyone will receive another summary email afterward.
That is, assuming the boss even has a detailed meeting agenda to begin with, and isn't calling a meeting simply to call a meeting to look busy. This topic is not on today's blogging agenda, however. Ahem. Moving on.
So more than one in four managers feel meetings are becoming an exercise in distraction, while employees don't seem to notice. They're too busy interrupting the boss to ask a question that was answered in detail ten minutes ago.
Speaking of asking, the Accountemps survey asked both CFOs and employees to comment on the general state of workplace manners and etiquette. Here's a slideshow that lays it all out:
The good news? 11% of CFOs said their staff members do not "commit etiquette breaches." At all.
Oh, come on. Every meeting has That One Employee who is surreptitiously checking her smartphone, jumping in with highly-distracting, incorrect guesses trying to finish our thoughts for us, daydreaming through today's PowerPoint presentation about the benefits of banning PowerPoint, or passing distracting gas on the down low.
If we're constantly in a conference call, then the dizzying distractions speak for themselves.
So how can we keep meetings on track?
First, let's know ahead of time what we're going to talk about today. Ask employees to put their smartphones down and pay attention. Encourage participants to wait until someone is finished talking before they speak (if the speaker is a chronic over-talker, however, this paradigm may be disrupted).
Also, figure out ahead of time what could be discussed via email vs. in a meeting. Ask employees to save their questions until the end, if necessary. Gently tell the employee who keeps going off-topic that "we'll circle back around to that in a few minutes, or ask me after the meeting." Don't ask who farted.
I think that's it. By the way, do you know that June 7-13 is National Business Etiquette Week? Yes, it exists and it's almost here, apparently. Let's get our good workplace manners on, and -- oh nevermind, nobody is listening to me.
This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.
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