The next time you go to a restaurant for lunch or dinner take a look at the tables around you. Alongside the patrons you will most likely see a table full of smart phones, little black boxes sidled up to the silverware. Well, I must confess that at a recent lunch meeting I too was tethered to my phone. In my defense I needed to be reachable; I had a candidate who was interviewing and in the off chance that she got lost I was only a phone call away. I explained this to my lunch partner as I quickly slid my phone onto the table, thankfully she understood. In the end my candidate never called and the interview went well, but I kept thinking about my phone tether and how I am a repeat offender. For example: I have been known to keep my phone handy during a Pilates class, I even answer it when I am running on the treadmill. When I discussed the phone tether with my sister she told me this was normal she said, “Britt, this is not news, everybody does it.” In fact, in the high-powered famous exercise studio she attends where the hourly charge is a small fortune; the ladies actually check emails and text between sets! It seems we can’t even disconnect for one hour to fully engage in the task at hand. In the age of instantaneous communication are we even communicating effectively? Not so much say the experts who cite the fact that too much communication can actually be annoying. Check out the article on Fortune.com, “The 4 cardinal sins of work communication” http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/19/4-cardinal-sins-of-work-communication/
How many are you guilty of?
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