Mind Your Conference Room Manners

Author: Ashu Agarwa

In a business organization there are lot of tasks and challenges that you have to face and overcome. Very often the tasks and challenges are discussed among team members to make sure that they are tackled with ease and efficiency. In most cases the use of a conference room is extremely common when important matters need to be discussed. While having conference meetings is a regular thing, even an everyday task in some offices, there are people that need to learn how to behave in a conference room. Here is a list of things that you should keep in mind when you want to come across as a well behaved person in a conference room:

  • Use of phone: The first and the most important factor in behaving well in a conference room is to make sure that you are not engrossed in your phone when a colleague is presenting an idea. It is a matter or basic respect to make sure that you pay attention to someone that is talking in the room rather than concentrating on something on the phone. It is highly important to make sure that you keep your phone on silent mode to keep it from ringing when something is being discussed in the room.

  • The body language: While you may not be really interested in what is going on in a conference room, you should make sure that it does not show by way of your body language. When you are in a conference room environment, the way you face the speaker or the way in which you sit in your chair talk a great deal about how interested you are in the discussion.

  • Tidiness: While it may not directly matter how you keep your belongings on a table, you should be careful about maintaining tidiness in a conference room. When you are sharing the table with other people, it is important to show respect to the fellow users. If you take up the space of two people, you could be getting conference room etiquette completely wrong.

  • Talking: Unless you are in a group discussion environment and need your point to be heard simultaneously with someone else’s point, it is important to wait for your turn to talk. Basic manner dictate the fact that you should not talk out of turn when a person is presenting their part of the speech. If you have questions or arguments, it helps to note them down and talk about them at a later stage.

  • Conversations: Just as it is insulting to use the phone when a person is talking, it is also insulting to have personal conversations with other colleagues. Not only do you cause disturbance in the room by having a conversation, you also run the risk of missing out on important discussions when you are busy with other issues.

When you choose to be careful about the 5 most important things when you are in a conference room, you can be sure about having a fruitful and positive conference experience.