Face-to-Face Communication – Previous Long-established? Not!

It’s unbelievable how dependent we’ve change into as a society on digital communication units! E-mail, textual content messaging, PDA’s, cell telephones, video conferencing, blackberries, blueberries, rasberries, and extra…have taken the place of excellent quaint, face-to-face communication resulting in many interpersonal difficulties and miscommunications in right this moment’s office.

It’s possible you’ll be considering…Why enhance my interpersonal expertise when most companies do 99% of communication by phone, teleconferencing, videoconferencing, e-mail, and on uncommon events, snail mail. A preferred mind-set right this moment…however, is it actually the proper manner? “Face-to-face communication stays essentially the most highly effective human interplay,” says Kathleen Begley, Ed.D., writer of Face-to-Face Communication, Making Human Connections in a Expertise-Pushed World. “As great as digital units are, they’ll by no means absolutely exchange the intimacy and immediacy of individuals conversing in the identical room and it has labored for thousands and thousands of years.”

In enterprise, we discuss “B2B” (enterprise to enterprise) and “B2C” (enterprise to client) strategies. I attempt to buck the pattern (in a optimistic manner!) to emphasize the significance of face-to-face communication. You’ll hear me speak rather a lot concerning the “P2P” (people-to-people) connections and the way vital it’s to get past expertise and speak face-to-face with buddies, household, colleagues, prospects, distributors, and the like. It’s possible you’ll assume that’s a bit old style, however in my view, there isn’t any substitution for the human, up-close and private contact. Don’t get me improper, there’s a place for the terrific expertise instruments we’ve got right this moment and I take advantage of it usually, but it surely’s not at all times my first or most suitable option.

A number of a long time in the past, John Naisbitt, in his mega 1960’s best-seller, Megatrends: Ten New Instructions Remodeling Our Lives, introduced a brand new idea to the forefront known as “excessive tech, excessive contact.” His thought was that “as human beings grew to become able to nameless digital communication, they’d concurrently want extra close-up private interplay.” Appears to me that he was proper on course!

We stay in a society when flocking to the native espresso store or diner for espresso chats with enterprise associates or buddies is a sworn statement to our want for human togetherness, particularly when most espresso lovers could make a latte or cappuccino proper of their properties. Take into consideration the fortunes espresso institutions are making on our want for face-to-face communication! The people-to-people connections…

We hear of the numerous kids (and adults) who spend numerous hours alone taking part in video video games. Nonetheless, The Sport Manufacturing Affiliation reported in 2003 that household board sport gross sales (like Monopoly and Scrabble) are booming and rising at 20% per 12 months. Skull has lately come out with a complete new line of board video games for our “little individuals” (ages 3+). The people-to-people connections begin at an early age – if you happen to haven’t heard it, ask me to let you know my “Papa Zitto” story!

Even when catastrophe strikes and the information media convey these occasions into our properties and workplaces by way of TV, radio and the Web, we hunt down alternatives to share grief. I personally waited in line for nearly three hours with lots of of others to go to Floor Zero in New York when it opened to the general public in December 2001. Many individuals additionally left makeshift shrines close by to honor the victims of that tragedy. The people-to-people connections…

We lead hectic, multi-tasking lives each at residence and within the office today and we discover the necessity for steadiness much more important than in days passed by. We perceive that expertise may be impersonal, but it surely’s fast! We all know we have to find time for extra people-to-people connections however, the truth of the hectic tempo doesn’t go away us a lot time for this extra intimate type of communication. It’s possible you’ll be considering, isn’t it a lot sooner to make a fast cellphone name, ship a short e-mail, or hook up by way of video-conferencing to have a gathering of the minds? Sure and no. It’s a communications paradox…sooner shouldn’t be at all times higher.

So the higher query could also be, how can we make the most effective of each worlds – expertise and face-to-face, people-to-people connections?

Simply as fashions are redesigned and are available again with a variation on a method from days-gone- by, I imagine it’s time for redesigning and revitalizing face-to-face (P2P) communication expertise.

We have to get the steadiness proper! Folks-to-people (P2P) communication expertise stay one of many main success elements in enterprise, even on this age of expertise. There are lots of conditions – typically these involving battle, damage emotions, excessive precedence, or a big sum of cash – that demand enterprise individuals take the time and bother to get in the identical room to share data. Video-conferencing has change into a very good simulation and cost-effective technique when people are in distant areas, however there may be nonetheless no substitute for good, old style, face-to-face communication.

Don’t take my phrase for it…Let’s check out what a few of the consultants are saying.

Tom Peters, internationally recognized enterprise guru, says with out reservation that you need to continually attend to your face-to-face communication. Not to take action, will result in profession catastrophe. “We imagine in excessive tech, excessive contact,” Peters writes. “No query, expertise is the Nice Enabler. However, paradoxically, now the human bit is extra, not much less, vital than ever earlier than.”

Sheila Hodge, writer of International Smarts: The Artwork of Speaking and Deal Making Anyplace within the World, says “The trendy workplace is filled with devices – computer systems and the Web, uplinks and downlinks, videoconferencing, and on-line databases. Many individuals assume they need to let the flamboyant expertise deal with the messy activity of interfacing with individuals.”

Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, in her e-book Studying Folks, talks about how younger, technically oriented staff have a tendency to speak principally in pc chat rooms. “If you wish to change into a greater communicator, you will need to make a aware effort to have interaction different individuals (in particular person),” she writes. “Even essentially the most entrenched Web junkie can be taught the true that means of ‘chat’ if the need is there, however you must get off the sofa and make it occur.”

Gary McClain and Deborah Romaine of their e-book, The All the pieces Managing Folks Guide, put it this manner…”Constant, day by day face-to-face communication promotes extra than simply good emotions; it additionally promotes efficient and collaborative teamwork.”

“One of the crucial important areas of communication to get proper in enterprise is the one-on-one conditions – particularly providing recommendation, constructive suggestions, and annual efficiency value determinations,” says Chris Roebuck in Efficient Communication.

Certainly one of my favourite quotes acknowledged very just by Margaret Wheatley, Turning to One One other: Easy Conversations to Restore Hope for the Future, says “I can imagine we are able to change the world if we begin speaking to at least one one other once more.”

Feels like we’re on to one thing right here…So, what are you able to do? Begin out by taking an sincere take a look at your communication strategies and your perspective about expertise vs. (P2P) face-to-face interplay. Are you e-mailing extra and assembly much less for monetary causes? Are you avoiding human contact principally due to an absence of interpersonal expertise? If the latter is true, you have to take motion earlier than it’s too late.

The following time you might be tempted to ship an e-mail, textual content message or make a cellphone name for apart from routine functions, cease! Get again to fundamentals. Exit of your consolation zone and, as a substitute, ship the e-mail, textual content message or make the decision to arrange a face-to-face, in particular person assembly with the particular person behind the expertise! Why? As a result of it really works!

Make the people-to-people connections… You and your corporation might be glad you probably did!

A Optimistic Office Means Enterprise! TM