By Liz Kentish.
It occurred to me this week that very often when I go into a meeting or I am preparing a meeting room for a days training, that there are always people who turn up early and plonk themselves down at the table and after a grunted greeting, immediately get onto their laptops, tablets or smart phones and build an imaginary wall around them that says, ‘don’t talk to me, I’m working’
Well excuse me, how rude! If you need to work before the meeting, do it away from the meeting room. And when you come into the room, you need to be there, both in body and mind. Interact with the others who are there, actually talk to them. All meetings get off to a much better start when this happens.
And with regards to a training session, when the trainer is setting up, the last thing they need is a bunch of people arriving early and treating the room like their personal office.
If I was going to a meeting in some-ones office, I would not dream walking into that office twenty minutes before it was due to start, and say, ‘don’t mind me’ and just sit down and get on with replying to emails or checking my social media.
What on earth would they think of me!
If you have been invited to a meeting or a training session, then prepare yourself to fully engage in it, right from the start. If your mind is elsewhere you are doing yourself a disservice whilst being disrespectful to the other attendees.
This article originally appeared in February’s edition of Tomorrow’s FM.