Profile
Photos
Comments
We're forgetting how to talk face-to-face
Marcia Heroux Pounds
Scott
Garvis and Robert Kelly are in the business of effective communication.
They work well together, but disagree over the use of a BlackBerry.
As president of Dale Carnegie Training of South Florida, Garvis
can't do without his BlackBerry to communicate with his 25 team
members, including Kelly.
"It keeps you attached to people you're working with,'' Garvis says.
Kelly, who runs the Miami region, prefers face-to-face communication.
"People need to see you, know you, understand you,'' he says.
Author Susan RoAne says we've become so attached to our gizmos that
we've forgotten how to have conversations that lead to personal
relationships.
In her new book Face to Face, RoAne says it's time to reclaim the personal touch in this digital world.
"We've forgotten how to behave,'' she says. RoAne observed a woman
who walked into a funeral wearing her Bluetooth, for example.
In her book, she relays the story of a man hoping for a big promotion
who sneaked a peek at his buzzing cell phone during the interview. He
didn't get the job.
When a worker meets with another to discuss a project or meets
with a client, "it's not my space or your space, it's about our
space,'' she says.
So when Garvis is scrolling his BlackBerry while in conversation with
Kelly, "I stop talking,'' Kelly says. "He says, 'Go ahead,' but I say,
'No, I'm going to wait until you're done.' "
"I could work on that a little bit,'' Garvis admits.
When sitting down for a meeting with someone, RoAne suggests laying
down some rules, such as "let's make this a BlackBerry-free 15
minutes.''
"People are appreciating how important interpersonal relations
are. They've never been not important,'' RoAne says. "If we lose the
face-to-face, we lose the bottom line foundation for what we call
relationships.''
Fostering interpersonal collaboration is behind the design of Office
Depot new global headquarters in Boca Raton. The office has 56
"huddle'' areas and meeting rooms to encourage workers to sit down and
chat.
"We all carry around communications devices - BlackBerries, cell phones
and Wi-Fi, but in fact in the course of development of these
innovations we've lost something, and that's person-to-person
interaction,'' says David Fannin, project manager for Office Depot's
new headquarters.
RoAne says some workers use e-mail to avoid conversation. One worker
told her she chose to e-mail because she "didn't like to talk to
people.''
But relying solely on e-mail can delay communication: When this
people-shy worker sent an important e-mail, she didn't find out until a
month later that the person had never gotten her message.
Even technology gurus take time to meet face-to-face with peers, RoAne
says. Lunch 2.0, a meetup for lunch and chat, has become the place to
show up in Silicon Valley and at similar groups around the world.
Garvis of Dale Carnegie is clinging to his BlackBerry for efficiency, but says that building relationships has to come first.
"I still call people every day and spend time on a personal level. The trust is built,'' he says.
Marcia Heroux Pounds can be reached at mpounds@sunsentinel.com or 561-243-6650.
