Not to offend anyone in particular, but I’ve noticed a trend among companies I visit:
Organizations where (under the table) blackberry use during meetings runs rampant tend to have really bad governance models. Conversely, organizations where people are engaged and participate in meetings they attend tend to have good governance models.
This is not to say that organizations that happen to have the one or two rogue or occasional checkers of messages have bad governance, but it’s really those organizations where everyone seems to be doing it. Most often it’s a condition that seems to be instigated by the habits of the senior managers and executives.
Here is how I diagnose the problem. Rampant Blackberry use is a sign or poor controls. I mean really – in any meeting, you have invited participants because they should have some value to the process. If they are checking their Blackberries all meeting long, they either don’t add value, or the process is suffering for it. It’s also a sign that when organizations are full of people with poor control over their own behavior, the organization as a whole reflects this as part of their culture. In turn, the organization’s control over process and governance is also quite poor. I’m not saying this is true in all cases, but I’ve noticed that there certainly seems to be a correlation.
On the other hand, I’ve noticed that organizations where people are thoughtful and respectful about other people’s time invested during a meeting, the organization tends to have a culture where good controls and well developed and utilized governance models tend to exist. An organization is a reflection of the habits of its collective people after all.
The lesson is this: please turn off your Blackberries and phones, and participate in the task at hand.
One response to “On Blackberry Use and Bad Governance”
Great topic! But you are seeing it from one side. How many times during conference calls or web meetings do you think this is going on? Unfortunately, the culture has a multi-tasking mentality that it is the way most businesses are run (good or bad) by direct examples of upper management. It does change when you get to the non techie C level individuals who don’t have to answer to only a few people. To your point in a meeting it should be addressed at the beginning that all invited individuals participating in the meeting are here to add value and if you have other urgent matters (emails, phone calls etc then take care of them). There was a time that was not needed but times have changed due to technology and other influences. It is a tough one to solve it is like how many people use their turn signal anymore? Last I checked it is still in the motor vehicle codes in most states. How much loss or misdirected productivity is done by workers not being full engaged in meetings where their input is critical to move a process or change forward.
One option is to shorten meetings to focus on a few topics instead of mind numbing long ones with way to many topics that drive people to want to check there BB’s.
We can change it one meeting at a time!