Permission to Hide

I love electronics. Ever since I was a kid I had the latest and greatest gadget on the market. Remember when Sharp came out with one of the first electronic organizer? I had to have it! Drove my mom nuts until I had that rectangular electronic mega system in my hands. Of course I needed it to input all necessary information such as the next party, dates, outings with friends, etc. You know, life necessities.

Today electronic communication has been elevated to a new art. Blogging, texting, video blogging, emailing, instant messaging…the list could go on and on and surely will over the next decade and beyond. I miss though the simple things. Getting into an elevator and saying a simple “hello” and smiling. Oftentimes the person standing next to you in the elevator is so busy on their BlackBerry you wonder how they don’t miss their floor. I am equally guilty of it. Although, my favorite electronic moment was watching two friends text each other as they are sitting right next to each other. Perhaps we need to introduce the concept of “live dialogue?”

Electronic communication has given us the gift of reconnecting with old friends, old flames and even allows us to peer into our past as a voyeur – “I wonder what Jonathan Lewin really does look like 25 years later?”

In the workplace electronics can help speed up the transmission of information and it can also cause a huge backlash of miscommunication. A recent Wall Street Journal article (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704259304575043491348109012.html?mod=dist_smartbrief) cited a top list of email misuses, ala email mistakes. Included were vague subject lines; burying the news; hiding behind the “BCC” field, failing to clean up the mess of earlier replies/forwards; ignoring grammar; avoiding necessarily long emails; mashing everything together into bulky, imposing, inaccessible paragraphs; neglecting human beings at the other end; thinking email works best; and forgetting that email last forever are egregious mistakes. Bottom line…electronic communication gives us permission to put our heads in the sand and not have real and meaningful dialogue.

Email, texting, instant messaging, etc. gives us the comfort of a computer screen and a keyboard, aka a buffer to being physically present with another person. Statistics show that over 93% of all communication is non-verbal so what are we giving each other? 7%. That’s right – 7%. With all of this communication we miss out on the subtleties of eye contact, shifting in chairs, folded arms, grimaces and grins, shifting body posture to either say, “yes, I’m excited” or “nope, I could care less”. Even telephone calls are better. Picking up a phone and hearing the tone in someone’s voice allows you to peer into what is really going on. If Sam is reluctant to take on a project you may not see it in an email, you may pick it up strongly in his voice.

One on one in-person or telephone conversations creates relationships, unity and enhances teamwork. Today, make another choice. Pick up the phone, walk down the hall, smile and speak to the person you were going to email. You never know how this small step will create huge dividends.