Chapter 16
Face to Face in a Facebook World
As part of an $80 million condo conversion, a colleague of mine once managed three units: sales, leasing, and construction. Leasing was in the main clubhouse, sales in a converted unit, and construction in another converted unit. Between them all was a pool.
The project was complex, and deadlines were tight. As a result, digital communication led to huge conflicts, spawning epic e-mail chains, even though everyone was no more than 30 to 100 feet apart. So, the company instituted a policy called “walk across the pond” (the pool). If communication required more than three e-mails, employees would walk across the pond and talk.
Relationships and productivity dramatically improved.
Face Time (Not the iPhone Kind)
People don't want to talk face to face. This isn't a generational issue. It's a human issue.
Digital communication is easier because we're hardwired to avoid conflict and we like control. At work, we can rationalize the convenience of reaching people quickly or that much of our team is never in the office anyway. Our brains, however, are also cocooning us from unpleasantness. That terse, one-word (with a period, no less!) answer to an e-mail seems so innocent in digital form, but imagine giving the same answer in person at a meeting. You'd probably be able to cut through the tension with a knife.
Constant connection creates digital distance. And that is bad for your team. Why? For one thing, we risk isolation. This seems counterintuitive, right? Constant connection should make us feel more, well, connected. If you can communicate digitally on your own terms at your own time, you should get the community without the inconvenience. Except not.
In the 1980s, 20 percent of adults surveyed described themselves as lonely; today, that number is 40 percent.1 Research also suggests isolation disrupts sleep, alters the immune system, causes more inflammation and stress, and increases the risk of premature death by 14 percent.2
As David Brooks talks about in one of my favorite books of all time, The Social Animal, humans are made to be truly connected—to be social:
Digital interactions inoculate us from complete isolation through shallow connection and dopamine rewards, making us think we can avoid the messiness that comes from authentic communication and connection—until we look up and realize we are in fact experiencing a hollowed-out version.
Worse, perhaps, is that we struggle to empathize in the digital wilderness. As comments posted on social media show, cruelty is much easier from a distance (a problem that bleeds into the office).
We are engineered for empathy, a process that begins with mirror neurons. They're the cornerstone of what causes us to reflect and experience the emotions we see in others.4
When I smile, your brain lights up as if you're smiling. When I yawn, you yawn. When I'm sad, you understand that sadness because your brain feels it.
We don't like negative feelings. When we offend someone, we automatically feel their emotions through our mirror neurons. (Less risk of that, our brains tell us, with digital communication.) In other words, we're hardwired when a friend asks, “Do I look fat?” to say, “Of course not!” Empathy, in short, helps us play well with others. On the other hand, we have no problem using Twitter—where the consequences of mirror neurons are removed—to call an actress we don't know ugly (just Google “mean tweets” if you don't believe me).
As leaders, we must sometimes lift communication beyond the digital. That means fighting what feels easiest and helping your teams to do the same. But when should in-person communication be utilized? When efficiency and emotional connection demand it.
Efficiency
We'll often prolong an argument electronically rather than walk across the pond for an in-person chat.
Sometimes we choose digital inefficiency because it offers less pain, more control, and dopamine without discomfort. In the meantime, problems are buried in a blizzard of reply all.
That's why it's often more efficient to get up and talk with a person than to prolong an IM conversation that keeps both of you from doing real work.
In-person communication can also be more effective for group conversations—yes, meetings. True, they're about as popular as spam, and as we discussed earlier, they often do waste time and money. (I worked with a COO who added up the wages of people attending a two-hour meeting. It totaled more than $20,000.)
Meetings Gone Awesome
Still, meetings are a necessary part of work, providing space for collaboration, coordination, relationship building, and celebration. They usually go awry because someone in charge didn't consider one of these tips.
Have a Clear Purpose. Is the meeting still fulfilling its original purpose? (Often, we keep meetings on the calendar even when they're no longer useful.) Is this the best way to communicate the information in question?
Be Realistic But Constrictive about Time. Meetings will fill the time allotted. Is it being used efficiently? A lot can be covered in a short duration; my colleagues and I often meet for 20 minutes.
Meet in the Afternoon. In general, groups create focus when individual focus is waning, such as in the afternoon. Try to schedule meetings when people would otherwise struggle to focus on their own.
Make Sure Everyone Shows Up. Is everyone who needs to be involved present? If not, you're wasting time. Rethink “attendance is mandatory.”
Case in point: I was just on a scheduled conference call where we found out the key person couldn't make it. Rather than reschedule, someone suggested we start the conversation and then have another when the person was available. That's translation for, “We can have a dress rehearsal without the leading role in attendance.” No, we can't. Cancel. Reschedule. Save time and money.
Prepare an Agenda. Without one, your meetings will flounder. No agenda, no attenda! This is particularly important for the growing necessity of catchall/catchup meetings.
Don't Expect Preparation. I heard anecdotally that Jeff Bezos takes 5 minutes at the start so his team can read up on whatever the meeting is about. He acknowledges what we all know: No one comes prepared.
Clear the Clutter. For one-on-one and small-group meetings, start by letting people quickly share what's on their mind. That way, your agenda can get full attention. Even if it means spending a little more time on what someone else is thinking about, you end up, as a group, being more efficient because you gave your team the chance to clear the clutter in their minds and focus on the tasks at hand.
Establish Rules for Tech. Does technology help or hinder the meeting? Are there clear rules for usage? Should phones and laptops be allowed? It's amazing how much secondary conflict I hear about other people's tech behavior during meetings. This is a primary way the Communication Compact can help.
Going tech-free may be neither realistic nor desirable (I type way faster than I write). But you can still set parameters for phones (off when full focus is required) and laptops (closed unless their use contributes to the meeting).
An extra word on phones: If they're not allowed, make sure team members know in advance. You can also schedule breaks for phone use (sometimes a client can't wait).
Who Types the Fastest? Assign someone to take notes. This means fewer people need to use their laptops.
Emotional Connection
A colleague of mine once filled in for a supervisor on maternity leave. His peers became jealous of him, particularly because he had little managerial experience. He felt like he had to manage with a heavy hand. Eventually, the tension between him and the team boiled to a point that he finally addressed it with his team, and he started crying. It wasn't planned, and it wasn't comfortable.
But you know what? The dam of resentment broke, my colleague eased up, and the team ran like a Swiss watch afterward.
“There's no crying in baseball!” Tom Hanks's character famously tells a weeping player in A League of Their Own. Maybe for good reason. Maybe not.
We have mixed emotions about emotions. Especially in the workplace, and even without e-mail and texting. My colleague addressed his team at the dawn of digital communication. Imagine if he had tried to do so on an e-mail string.
The only way to experience emotional empathy like the kind my colleague experienced is through in-person interaction—that's what sparks the mirror neuron magic.
Otherwise, we're forced to use a process called cognitive empathy, which comes from the prefrontal cortex, our “thinking” brain. In lieu of an auto-response from seeing and hearing emotions in person, we can access cognitive empathy by intentionally asking, “How will people feel when they read this e-mail?”
But cognitive empathy is a complicated, time-consuming, and exhausting mental process (using more glucose, the brain energy discussed in Chapter 6). It's the path of most resistance. Add stress and a lack of sleep, and we're less likely to restrain our frustration in the digital realm.
Our response to a rude e-mail early in the day might be diplomatic. Later on, there's a better chance it will be snarky. “Sleep on it” is not just wisdom; it's straight-up biology. (Type that e-mail response now, but review it in the morning before hitting send.)
Digital communication requires us to use cognitive empathy—something even the most emotionally intelligent among us don't have the ability to do well when our energy reserves are low. That's why we should seek opportunities to connect face to face so we can employ emotional empathy, particularly for the following kinds of interactions.
Critical Conversations
Refrain from having deep conversations via e-mail, text, or even the phone. There are simply too many avenues for misunderstanding.
Taking the time to meet with employees frames your respect for them and the importance of what you're discussing. It's never been easier to avoid face-to-face conversations. It's never been more critical not to.
Conflict
Your worth as a leader is often defined by how you handle conflict. Digital communication avoids honest and empathetic discussion, increasing conflict before banishing it to an endless e-mail string. The result is some of your team's best work is squashed. Conflict can actually be quite healthy, if processed correctly, for innovation. Resolving conflict must begin with the leader. Author Edwin Friedman writes of the dangers of leaders shirking their responsibility to face conflict in A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, which was privately published in 1999, three years after his death:
Leadership means engagement, not avoidance. It means doing the right thing, not just being “nice.” Set a cultural expectation that conflicts will be handled in person. Your team—and your company—will thank you for it.
Syncs
Early on in my business, I aimed for efficiency by having every member of the team focus only on their particular area (with me being the only person who knew all that was taking place). Unfortunately, I also dealt with several employees frustrated by other team members and by their own compensation (because when you know only about your work, you think you are doing all the work!).
I shared my cultural struggles with a dear friend, Patrick Riley, the CEO of Global Accelerator Network, in hopes that he could offer some solution for the constant battle of everyone thinking they should own the company. He explained that the fastest route to making people stop overvaluing their own role was to let them see what everyone else is doing. So, we started meeting as a group for quick syncs. I learned that this seeming “inefficiency” was essential to the health of a small, growing team.
The important lesson I learned is that team members can become so siloed that they fail to grasp the importance of other roles. Syncs (relax, they're not meetings) allow them to see the big picture and share what they do while hearing what others do. This increases understanding and reduces entitlement.
At Microsoft, employees have shared their work in “5-minute downloads.” These short presentations enlighten the team about individual roles, removing mystery and emphasizing value.
Team-Building
I'm often asked to speak at team-building events. In one example, a company that sells high-tech research equipment knew its employees felt disconnected. So the leadership flew the entire sales team from all over the world to Florida.
The four-day event cost $1 million but more than recouped its cost in improved morale, collaboration, and productivity. There's no substitute for in-person, off-site gatherings to refresh and refocus your team.
Motivational Talks
Not long ago, conferences seemed headed for oblivion. It was the primary subject of virtually every meeting's industry dialogue. Alas, conference doomsdayers couldn't have been more wrong. They failed to understand that the rise of digital communication actually increased the demand for intentional face-to-face contact.
That's why conferences, and speaker fees, are on the rise. A great speaker can engage employees in a way that no digital medium can. This is, in part, because mirror neurons are in effect. But there is a caveat here: The speaker has to be really great. Live audiences don't have patience for the equivalent of Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Nothing can beat the value of a dynamic speaker, which is why spending $15,000 on a speech that doesn't waste your team's time and helps them get motivated feels like a no-brainer. Am I biased on this point? Probably. Am I wrong? Not at all.
Motivation, however, starts with us as leaders. An in-person presentation allows us to do what no e-mail can: establish (or reestablish) our persona and credibility and connect emotionally with our team. Hone your communication skills, and subsequently train your people to be great communicators.
Communication Compact Discussion
Finally, the discussion we talked about in Chapter 14 is absolutely critical for any of the rest of this to have a shot. You must meet in person once a year to discuss how you can improve internal communication, set ground rules and accountability, and remind each other you are all on the same page seeking the same goal.
Miscommunication is part of life. But it can destroy a company as quickly as it can destroy a marriage. Setting time aside to spotlight these and rectify them is an essential and unique need in the age of constant connectivity and increased isolation.
So go ahead and get that meeting on the books now, before you read on.
Now That I Have Your Attention…
For Section 5 reflection questions, summary video, and next step resources, please visit focuswise.com/book