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How do you communicate best?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Corporate communication — from a frequency point of view — is at an all time high. In fact, most of us remain in a constant state of contact to the point that it’s obscene.
Eager, just-out-of-college professionals have to type with lightening speed to fire off IMs in the middle of almost anything they attempt to do. Most parents can’t make it through their kids’ soccer games without responding to at least one, if not more, emails.
Singles out to dinner have to take a fake break to the restroom to return their micro-managing boss’s fifth phone call of the night. DINKS (couples with double income and no kids) mostly just see the tops of each other’s heads as they stare at their respective SMART Phones, even while they’re on a romantic get-away vacation.
Maybe we have all just taken ET’s “phone home” concept a little overboard. We’re so communicative that we’ve actually forgotten the higher purpose of communicating—sharing, building relationships, and reinforcing a common purpose.
Ironically, the frenetic pace at which we use technology to stay connected is creating a large disconnect on a professional and personal level.
Recently I read an interesting book, entitled The Four-Hour Work Week. Although I would proceed with immense caution (if you like being employed) before taking some of the professional suggestions in this book, one thing that rang true with me is that email and other electronic forms of communication may be hindering, not helping—in either our productivity or the quality of our communication.
If the point of contacting someone is to communicate, maybe we should focus more on quality and less on frequency. More is not necessarily better. This incredible volume of corporate emails may actually serve as a way for people to evade one another, shroud the truth, and avoid the difficult conversations.
IM can be a way of establishing rapport, but it will never create the same degree of connectedness as a voice-to-voice conversation. Even though the phone humanizes communication more than electronics, facial expressions and body language can speak volumes more, especially when addressing high-stake issues.
I think there is a contagious phenomenon going on in the work world. People are becoming slaves to communication; however, they are saying less of what they really mean and more of what they think the corporate culture demands to hear.
Companies that endure the test of time often are the ones where genuine, less filtered communication is allowed to take place—ones where truth is encouraged, even when it is hard to tell and hard to accept.
Over time, regular communication should foster a sense of community among those who interface frequently. Possibly it is time to go back to basics when it comes to communicating and instead of relying on the least personal ways of expressing ourselves, we should consider having fewer, but more meaningful face-to-face interactions.
Who knows, maybe we could restore and even inspire good old-fashioned loyalty, trust, and team mentality across the all too familiar “money first, people-last” corporate landscape.
What your favorite method of communicating at work? Do you shot of hundreds of emails or prefer to call coworkers and clients to work issues out?
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