Welcome to Manager Tools. Today we talk about why and how to run your meetings without laptops. Here we go. I don't know about you but I've been completely surprised by the number of

laptops I see in meetings. Now when we recorded...

Oh my God, yeah.

Our original shows on effective meetings,

must have been a couple years ago at least.

We talked about it a little bit, but

oh my God, I've been to meetings with clients where there were almost as many laptops in the

room as there were participants.

Yeah, I'm still not used to it.

Of course, you know, you and I joke that we don't want to be surprised but every once when I do a

double take walking into a meeting. Yeah so as we believe then we believe now that

laptops are not effective in meetings they don't make meetings more effective and therefore we ought to do something about it. So let's get right to it.

What are we going to share with folks about laptops in meetings?

Right. And let's be clear that there are plenty of places where, particularly tech companies, where

laptops are deregur.

It's that, you know, everyone comes with their laptop.

And this cast is not for everybody but you it includes you and

we respect the fact that there are many of you out there who listening are saying

you know boy that's important to me I take my laptop to meetings and and we

understand that and we're going to talk about why we disagree we just want to put a

thought in the back of your head now that the reason is because the meeting is not

about you it's about the group and laptops make individuals efficient but not the group.

...