On making video conferencing more palatable…
Nowadays, many of us spend a significant part of our work life communicating through the phone and using videoconference.
I recently had a conversation with a good friend, Ilias Benzeguir, who asked me the question: “What are we losing when we meet online compared to in person?” My answer was simple. We are losing a significant part of the nonverbal aspects of communication.
When we speak on the phone, we retain the nonverbal characteristics of voice like tone, warmth, speed. I can say the same 3 words for example “I love you” in so many different combinations of tone, warmth and speed that will create a mosaic of different meanings.
When we see each other via a videoconference service, our interactions gain a lot: facial expressions add a lot of support to words. When the words we say are in sync with the nonverbal signals we display, this coherence creates one basic emotion: trust.
When we meet in person, we get the full display of nonverbal cues: voice, facial expression, body position and even… odors. Even if we are unconscious about this, we are social animals and we can smell strong emotions like fear, anxiety, lust, etc.
We have all felt this sense of isolation that comes with working from home, on the cloud. I’ll repeat it because it’s important to understand. We are social animals and to be (psychologically) healthy, we need social contact.
Social distance creates a real stress on the human mind and we are starting to see it’s impact in the rising incidence of anxiety and depression in our society.
As one question usually leads to another, we investigated together a much more difficult question. How do we make phone calls and teleconference more satisfying? How do we add human warmth to our meetings so that, at the end of the day, we feel emotionally filled instead of drained? You’ve had that feeling, after a productive meeting in person, when you feel energized, motivated and driven? Why is it so hard to reproduce on Zoom?
Let’s think about this together. I don’t have all the answers, I’ll just share what I understand.
First, we must understand that communication is much more complex than the exchange of words. Have you ever been in a texting argument that would’ve never happened should you had talked instead? The problem with words is that they mostly talk to our rational brain, they represent the story, the stream of information that is shared, and this is the superficial aspect of communication.
Communication runs deeper than information and stories. In human communication, there is a strong undercurrent of hidden forces. Human emotions are the driver of human behavior. How you feel and how I feel when we meet each other and communicate influences everything. The emotional aspect of communication is more important and more powerful than the story and information transmitted. You’ve all heard the saying “People will barely remember what you told them but they’ll remember 100% of how you made them feel”. If I say something but my nonverbal cues transmit a different message, you will trust your gut feeling not my words. We have all been in this situation, felt this. What I say has no meaning unless you feel that how I say it and how I make you feel when I say it generates trust. Coherence between verbal and nonverbal messages is the key. This coherence is impossible to see in text communication, much harder to appreciate on the phone and videoconference.
Now that we understand this, the true question is: how do we inject emotional coherence in our daily interaction during times of obligatory social distance? My incomplete answer to this is small talk and empathy.
Small talk? What the fuck are you talking about? Let me tell you something you should remember: there is nothing small about small talk.
Small talk is the conversations we have before a meeting, during coffee break, walking out of the conference room. It’s the small question about your personal life: how are the kids? I saw your photos from your last trip to Hawaii, must have been an awesome family experience, tell me more!
What does small talk do? It creates an emotional resonance between individuals through shared life’s stories. It lets us be social animals. Small talk is about sharing our lives, it’s about being and feeling understood as a human being with passions, desires, fears, anxieties. To be heard, to be understood is to be accepted, this is one of the purposes of our existence. This is where we see the power of small talk and it is too often lost in videoconference. Typically, we have an online meeting scheduled with an agenda and we stick to it. When we take a break during an online meeting, we disconnect from each other. That’s part of the reason why we feel drained at the end of a day filled with online meetings, we don’t connect as much and small talk is almost non existent.
So one of the solutions to making online meetings warmer and adding emotional coherence to our day is to plan for small talk. There are multiple ways to do this and I’m still working through ideas. Here is one… Last week, I organized a zoom meeting between 6 people who never met each other and, as usual, I asked everyone to present themselves to the group but I asked for more than name and function. We are much more than a name and function (director, doctor, administrator, manager, etc.). So I suggested: please tell the group who is “your name”, what is your story, what are you passionate about? Almost immediately, I felt that I had turned a group of strangers to a team of close friends. It took more time but we connected at a deeper more personal level and this exercise generated a valuable emotion: trust. When we trust each other, we engage in collaborative work differently. When there is trust, there can be vulnerability and honesty. Trust is the foundation of teamwork.
There is nothing small about small talk.
Enough words for today… My next post will be about the power of empathy and why we should care about emotions in our daily interactions, especially when we work online.
Martin Pham Dinh 