It’s quite strange how reluctant people are to put away their phones and close their laptop screens in meetings. Having been frustrated a lot recently as both participant and running workshops, we decided to be very clear and deliberate in two sessions we ran this week. After limited response to the first request, we repeated, slowly, saying:
“no, we really do mean this”,
using hand movements to close laptop lids and pausing until the room had complied. Everyone can spare a full hour of concentration otherwise why be in the room? Haven’t quite got as far as a box to confiscate them. Any other advice for this? Oh and HONK! Our latest workshop tool based on trying to get 30 (yes, thirty) participants to pause and play back. It worked too and raised a smile.
Original post on Linked In which caused quite a few reactions.
