I’m writing a tip for the book on when to communicate in person, versus electronically. What are some situations where you would shy away from electronic communication and want to go face-to-face or by-phone? I’m doing this as a list of bullet points, so brevity is appreciated.
For example:
- Propose or break up in person.
- Give negative performance appraisals in person.
… etc …
When there’s a possibility that the person you need to communicate with may lie to you. Seeing that person’s reactions may help you determine if he or she is telling the truth.
To send a special thank you or note of encouragement
Email should be used to convey information, person to person to convey meaning.
Generally: In-person when synchronous communication required, electronically when not. Even synchronous electronic communication imposes a great enough sense of distance as to be best viewed as asynchronous.
Whenever emotion or personal relationship is at risk – negotiations, favors
Anything that has to do with giving bad news
When you don’t want something to go around the world in 37.4 seconds
If it is not information, and requires a certain amount of dialogue, do it in person.
L
brainstorming, building on other ideas
any subtle humor (way too easy to misunderstand)
verifying the other person’s emotional state – since non-verbal is 80% of the message, the further from fact, the more in person
Personal communication should be used pretty much always when there is more involved that dates and facts. That is what email is good at: Quickly spread facts about a certain issue to many people. These facts could for example be the time, location and date of a meeting (I know you love them). Whenever there is an opinion involved, which there normally is, email should be avoided. There was a study once, showing that about 70 percent of the message is delivered through body language, tone of voice and facial expression. That all goes out the window when using email.
Hope I could help.
Best,
Luis
I was fired once over the phone. That kind of thing should ALWAYS be done in person.
We should communicate face-to-face to:
Deliver significant news, not just bad: promotion, demotion, sidemotion, transfer, firing. HR should have educated managers on how to handle ‘administrative actions’ of these sorts, but you can’t always count on your HR people to have any snap and stay on top of this.
Open a sensitive dialogue: If something in your environment seems wrong and it revolves around a person, it may be best to get them behind closed doors and ask what’s going on. This may be peer-to-peer, employee-to-manager, or manager-to-employee. Maybe someone is going through a rough time personally that’s affecting their work, or someone can’t understand why they’re passed over for promotion, or your boss seems extra stressed. You should keep the conversation off the record if possible – your goal is to get information only to help resolve the situation, not spread gossip, or rat people out. You may also be in a position to clear up problems by providing missing information. Keeping confidences makes you appear more trustworthy and possibly someone people turn to for advice or just a friendly ear.
Resolve issues that would otherwise languish in the back-and-forth of email and phone tag: I once worked at nuclear plant and we had to figure out how to safely move material over spent fuel with a crane. There were groups involved – the guy who knew about the fuel, the guy who knew about safety (me), and the guys who ran the crane. The guy who knew about the fuel identified the problem, but to him, it wasn’t his job to find a solution. The crane guys only knew there was a problem and that they needed someone to tell them how to lift things safely. Me, I knew a little about fuel, and nothing about cranes, and that I was the guy tagged with solving the problem.
I badgered the fuel guy until I got the technical information I needed, but there was still a piece missing: what was the crane guy’s job like?
There’s only so much you can learn by looking at specs and blueprints and such. I wanted to make sure I was giving the crane guys something they could use. I imagined myself in their shoes: I’m on a tight schedule, it’s 4am and I’m working third shift as a crane operator, what information do I have and what additional information do I need to do my job the best I can?
The best way I could think to resolve this was to call up the guy who supervised the crane operators and set up a face-to-face meeting. I sat down with the guy and I think he was sort of shocked that any of the engineers would actually come down and talk to the plant operators (we were in separate buildings and it was a pain in the ass to get past plant security to talk to the operators.)
Anyway, once the initial shock was over, he described how they did their jobs, what was important to them, and what problems they faced. I took that back to my desk, did my number-crunching – and this is important – formatted the results into something the crane guys could use without having to think too much.
I didn’t treat the crane operators as stupid; on the contrary, I figured they were really good at running cranes and that my job was to make it as easy on them as possible so they could focus on their work.
The point is that I could have spent weeks trying to get the information I thought I needed but instead I got everything I wanted and more from an hour of conversation. The epilogue to the story is that I started getting calls from other operators to help solve problems because word got around that I cared enough to visit them in person, listen and learn from them, and then work to solve their problems. Managing the increased workload is another story for another day – I actually felt a lot more connected and useful in my job as a problem solver, not just a pencil-pusher. It took a lot for an introvert like me to take an active role in asking questions and solving problems.
When establishing relationships (business or personal). Electronic first-contact is fine but if you will be entering into a business relationship with someone it should start in person.
For personal matters:
* When the EMOTION of the message is as or more important than the WORDS of the message
* When the goal of the communication is to persuade, and the emotion is the best bet for successful persuasion
* When the issues are complex
* When rapid interaction with depth is preferable
* Etc.
For business matters:
* All of the above
* When instantaneous feedback is desirable
* When trying to solve a problem collaboratively, where part of the problem involves emotional content, opinions, prejudices, etc.
* When the desire is to be able to successfully promote a product or service to lots of people at a low cost (via teleseminars, as part of virtual tours campaigns)
P.S. If the last bullet intrigues you, and you want to learn more about what I mean, email me … or better, call me at 617-731-3132 … for an in-person communication
Do not use e-mail when you don’t want a paper trail on your discussion! This can be anything from a tongue-in-cheek comment that’s completely within HR guidelines or it can be a too-honest confession of a mistake you’ve made with a client. When you’ll need forgiveness for something, don’t rely on e-mail.