CEOs are furious about employees texting in meetings

Jamie Dimon says it’s gone too far. Others are devising new measures, from hiding WiFi passwords to installing the corporate equivalent of the swear jar.

- Chip Cutter

A few weeks ago, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky asked his top lieutenants to identify the problems they saw quietly plaguing the company.

Chesky called it the “fester list.”

One executive threw out an issue: Too many Airbnb employees weren't present in meetings because they were checking their phones or laptops.

“It’s a huge problem,” Chesky said.

Then the chief had a realization. He was guilty of zoning out, too.

“Sometimes I'm like, ‘OK, I heard it. I know what you're about to say. I know the subject matter,” Chesky said. “I text, but then people see me text, they text. This is a major societal problem.”

For years, bosses have railed against distractions in meetings. But many say that despite phone bans and public shaming, the problem doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Some are exploring new tactics, from hiding WiFi passwords to levying fines.

“This has to stop. It’s disrespectful. It wastes time,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon wrote in his annual letter to investors in April.

Dimon renewed his complaints this month. “If you have an iPad in front of me and it looks like you're reading your email or getting notifications, I tell you to close the damn thing,” he said at Fortune's Most Powerful Women Summit.

Brad Jacobs, the billionaire CEO of building-products distributor QXO, devoted a chapter in his book to “electric meetings,” noting many gatherings are deathly dull and full of passive listeners. “Chairs might as well be filled with human-shaped cardboard cutouts,” he wrote.