Business Etiquette: Mind Your Manners or Mind Your BlackBerry?

Businesspeople are increasingly caving in to the temptation to use their BlackBerrys and smartphones to check e-mail, Google, Facebook, and Twitter during meetings. Techies say that ignoring real-time text messages in today's hurry-up world risks danger. They are tuned in to what is happening and can respond immediately. Traditionalists say that checking messages and texting during meetings is tasteless and shows poor manners. But times are changing. A third of the workers recently polled by Yahoo HotJobs said they frequently checked e-mail during meetings.

They also admitted, however, being castigated for poor manners in using wireless devices.

Many professionals insist that they use their wireless devices for legitimate purposes, such as surfing the Web for urgent information, meeting deadlines, taking notes, and responding to customers. Yet the practice annoys many observers. One college student sank his chances to land an internship with a hedge fund when he whipped out his BlackBerry during an interview to support an answer with an online fact. Unfortunately, he lingered to check an e-mail message from a friend, and watchful recruiters found this dalliance unprofessional. Among high-level professionals, the appearance of a BlackBerry is almost a boast. One consultant reported that it is "customary now for professionals to lay [their] BlackBerrys or iPhones on a conference table before a meeting-like gunfighters placing their Colt revolvers on the card tables in a saloon." These professionals seem to be announcing that they are connected, busy, and important, but they will give full attention. The implication, too, is that this meeting had better be essential and efficient because they have more important things to do.

Your Task. Few organizations have established policies on smart-phone use in meetings. Assume that your team has been asked to develop such a policy. Your boss can't decide whether to ask your team to develop a short policy or a more rigorous one. Unable to make a decision, he asks for two statements:

(a) a short statement that treats employees as grownups who can exercise intelligent judgment, and

(b) a more complete set of guidelines that spell out exactly what should and should not be done.