I’m Looking You Right in the Eye
Call me old- fashioned but I like to do business face-to-face, one-to-one, with a real live person – and when I say one-to-one that means a preference away from a computer screen.
Today’s technology has changed the way we do just about everything in business. I get that. I know also that that change includes how we interact with our fellow human beings – be they customers, clients or even rivals.
From emails to text, live chat to instant this and that, all of us have gotten used to the fact that we don’t necessarily have to be in the same room to get things done. We can even do business – sometimes lots of business – and yet never speak to the people we are dealing with.
Me, I still like a face-to-face meeting though. Why? Well for a start some meetings you don’t have via text on a screen. If you have any sense that is. I’m talking about the difficult meetings, the important ones, the expensive ones, and especially the personal ones – all better done face-to-face, one to one.
But it’s not just a preference. It seems it also makes good business sense. Some studies have shown that there is a success rate of outcome running at as much as 34% when meetings are conducted in person rather than simply via a screen. That figure alone should make us stop and think.
So why is this?
The Harvard Business Review conducted a study that found people tended to overestimate the number of positive responses they get via email. While at the same time, those people were also underestimating the positives they were getting from their face-to-face meetings.
Think about it: email is all about you! Repeat: all about you. Nearly always it is a one-way conversation. It’s really hard to empathize with a computer. You also miss out on the body language of the person you are communicating with if you can’t see them. Did you know that psychologists reckon that in the presence of another we communicate 7% verbally with the rest of our communication being non-verbal? So communicating via the screen we may well be missing out on a whole lot more information than we have already, and some of that information could be vital or critical to a successful business outcome.
Technology doesn’t always solve things. Sometimes it makes matters longer than they should be. Take meetings. How many trans-Atlantic calls have you been on were the connection drops, or someone has a computer problem, or they are distracted by an endless of data deluge while they are supposed to be talking to you? Meeting face-to-face eliminates a lot of this. It also takes care of that irritating “back and forth” you experience when communicating via email or other electronic means – to say nothing of the multiple misunderstandings possible in that form of communication. And sorry to break this to you, but that person on the other end of the exchange is as distracted as you can be sometimes. In fact, on occasion, they have tuned out completely – sorry!
All of this only adds to inevitable communication delays. So efficient it ain’t, not in my book…
None of this occurs when you meet face-to-face. Not if you are doing it right. Because you’re both present; and after the handshake it’s down to business. While looking each other in the eye you can address any problems that may occur, and then, resolve them, make decisions, agree terms, sign a deal if a pen is handy. It feels real because it is real!
Efficient? You betcha! It get the job done, or, alternately, it’s no deal, but that is dependent on you not only the power of a router. You power your own route to success – one by one!
But it’s not just about sealing that deal. Here at Mount Bonnell Advisors it is all about relationship – with our clients, with our partners, and with our wider community, especially here in Austin. And for good relationships you need good communication. There is just no substitute.
It’s easier to make a meaningful and emotional connection with another person if you’re speaking to them face-to-face. It just is. Whether that’s sharing a laugh over a convivial drink, or sitting chatting in some beautiful, awe inspiring spot, the meeting becomes part of a shared experience. Such things also make life more pleasant for everyone and, for me, that means they make doing business equally so, and that can mean only thing: more business all round.
Technology may be great, if the computer connections behave themselves, but it has led to a lot of folks frantically multi-tasking. Face-to-face with someone you both have only one task: to talk with one another. Both parties are there for talking and listening and then, hopefully, talking some more.
Go back to what I said earlier about relationships. Imagine if your spouse only ever communicated through your laptop screen. Not sure the marriage would last with that. Do you? Yet, we think business relationships can be run just as anonymously. Not at Mount Bonnell, no sir, we like to do business in a way that to some may seem old fashioned. Instead we like to think that is a timeless way. Technology keeps advancing but from where I’m sitting people stay the same. So too do business relationships then – that is if they involve other members of the human race. Doing business with someone you have never met is just not the same as doing business with someone whose hand you have shaken – and, believe me, it never will be.
You see it’s not just a hand you’re shaking. It’s an encounter with another human being. Things that last are built on solid foundations, and another member of the human species is a very solid thing. I know; I am one. We come with a lot of packaging: emotional as well as physical. And only when we feel like something is real we engage with it. Do too much of the virtual and that makes us all go a little strange, a little weird.
No, I’ll take the pleasure of meeting over the face on a computer screen anytime; the virtue in my dealings with others over the virtual: anytime and every time.
