As more workers return to the office, some CEOs are finding they need to relearn basic meeting etiquette, including one surprisingly divisive topic: checking devices. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was particularly blunt.
At Fortune At last month’s summit of the most powerful women, he said he expected all the attention from everyone in the room. “If you have an iPad in front of me and it looks like you’re reading your email or getting notifications, I’m telling you to close the damn thing,” he said. Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell. It’s disrespectful.”
But IBM CEO Arvind Krishna sees it a little differently. He said it would be “strange” for a tech company to tell its employees not to use their technology, especially in larger meetings where the devices can be a helpful tool rather than a distraction.
“I distinguish meetings between one and 10 people from very large meetings. I’m sorry if it’s a very large meeting. It’s not really a meeting. It’s a communication tool. You’re just informing people,” Krishna said. CNN last week.
At the same time, the 62-year-old woman said that smaller, more intimate meetings should be approached carefully.
“If it’s a small meeting, I would really cringe if someone was sitting across from my desk and they were lost on their phone, and I’d say to them, ‘Why don’t you come back when you have time?’
Fortune please contact IBM for further comments.
Dimon’s enduring frustration with meetings
Dimon has long regretted his behavior in the conference room. In fact, in his annual letter to shareholders last spring, he mentioned the word “meetings” six times, urging employees to schedule them only when necessary and make them count.
“I see people in meetings all the time getting notifications and private messages or reading emails,” he wrote. “It has to stop. It’s disrespectful. It’s a waste of time.”
Although Dimon didn’t draw clear limits on the size of meetings, as Krishna did, it seems that his frustration is not limited to small gatherings.
During a talk at Stanford University in March, Dimon recalled joining a Zoom meeting where the focus was clearly divided.
“There were 12 people in the room, four people on the screen, and all four people on the screen were talking on their phones,” he recalled. “And people say, and you think you’re concentrating and studying?”
Dimon disdains distracted meetings as he has led one of the most aggressive return-to-incumbency mandates on Wall Street. Most JPMorgan employees are now required to work in the office five days a week — at least in part to see the company’s real estate investments return.
Last month, JPMorgan officially opened its new $3 billion global headquarters in Manhattan, a 60-story skyscraper that includes 19 restaurants, a corporate store and a gym.
By placing devices, you can attract the attention of the boss
With the increasing reliance on technology in the workplace, multitasking during a meeting has become easier than ever, especially when an AI assistant can create a post-meeting summary and let you zone out.
But according to Gary Rich, founder of executive coaching firm Rich Leadership, multitasking in person is particularly disrespectful and a bad habit.
“Are Manners ‘Old Fashioned’?” Is it ‘old school’ to listen to what’s going on in a meeting?” Rich previously said Fortune. “When people multitask in a meeting, distractions create a ripple effect – the speaker feels disrespected, other participants lose motivation, and the meeting becomes less productive.”
Taking the high road and following proper meeting etiquette can ultimately be an effective way to gain recognition, show genuine commitment, and build credibility.
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com