- I've already talked a little bit about the value
of being able to easily connect with people worldwide,
and how building strong connections makes
it easier to get work done.
And, how having connections exposes opportunities
that might have gone unrealized.
I love being able to stay in contact with people.
I think that you can't place too high a value
on developing strong personal connections.
It has been absolutely pivotal in my career.
And when I haven't had strong connections,
those have been some of the times where things
just didn't go the way I wanted.
Obviously, any chat-based collaborative tool
is gonna provide lots of opportunity to pass messages
back and forth and to add other people to
the conversation, as needed.
But, I'm a little old school in that I'd actually rather
talk to someone than type at them.
If a chat exchange goes past a few back and forth messages,
I'd rather just jump on the phone and have a conversation.
In addition to the fact that it's easier on my fingers,
you get more out of a conversation if you can hear
the tone of the other person's voice.
I think we've all misinterpreted messages or emails
because we didn't have that context, right?
I know that people will disagree with me here.
There are a lot of people who would rather text.
It enables them to do it while they're doing something else.
Hopefully not while they're driving, but...
Did you know that there's really
no such thing as multi-tasking?
You're only task-switching, not doing more than
one thing at a time.
Some people can do this really fast and effectively,
but honestly, most of the time, people are not as good
at this as they think.
It also lets them carry on multiple conversations at once,
but typically at my end, it just seems
like they're distracted.
So, give me calls instead of texts.
But, you know what I really like best?
Video calls!
Now, I can hear people cringing in the background.
A lot of people really, really hate video calling.
But I have to say, I think it's one of the best
and most effective communication tools we have.
If you can get deeper understanding through hearing
the tone of someone's voice, how much more nuance
can you gain from seeing their expression?
Tons!
I firmly believe that video conferencing should be
the default whenever possible,
rather than the rare exception that it is.
We have much better tools these days,
and video is available in so many more places.
I recently had a face-to-face with an old friend
who now lives in New Zealand, using Facebook of all things,
and it was terrific!
My suggestion, if you're having a conversation,
take time to have the conversation.
People are worth your attention.
And if you want to build strong relationships fast,
whenever practical, make those conversations video-enabled.