We’re never going back to everyone in the office every day. We’re all doing a blend of in-person meetings, videos, phone calls, emails, texts, and the like. Know the trade-offs between different ways of showing up so you can make better informed and more deliberate choices about what you communicate in different situations.
The main point is that fully showing up, ideally in-person, makes others feel respected, appreciated, cared for, and special. If your relationship with them matters, show up as the best you. If your relationship with them doesn’t matter, send someone else, or spend your time with people that do matter to you.
In-person versus video, voice, etc.
When you’re in-person and face-to-face you connect physically, intellectually, and emotionally. The data from a variety of sources compiled by NowSourcing makes a compelling case for the advantages of showing up in-person. These include more effective communication and better creative thinking and collaboration, all adding up to relationship-building, loyalty, and trust.
- Relationship-building, loyalty and trust. 85% of professionals believe in-person interactions result in stronger business relationships, and 95% consider them critical for maintaining long-term partnerships. And an MIT Dynamics Lab study found that 35% of the variation in a team’s performance was attributed to the number of face-to-face meetings they had. Relationships, loyalty, and trust are built in-person, face-to-face.
- Better creative thinking and collaboration (and less technical difficulties.) The data shows that 30% more ideas are generated in face-to-face meetings than in virtual meetings with higher idea quality/originality and more different types of ideas.
- More effective communication. Effective communication is 7% words, 38% inflection, and 55% facial expression. Add to that the need to be in-person to catch the side conversations just before and after meetings, during breaks, and in meetings themselves to fully understand the advantages of in-person communication versus remote.
Connecting via video is second prize as you get sight and sound.
Voice calls are third prize with words and tone.
These are followed by things like sending proxies, hand-written notes (which have far more impact than emails because they are now rare), typed letters, pre-recorded messages, emails, and texts.
When, where, why to show up
It’s especially important to show up in-person to initiate relationships as an executive onboarding into a new organization, kicking off a new team or new partnership, or delivering news that emotionally impact others.
The same holds true when you need to strengthen or re-build relationships – particularly leading into, during, and following organizational points of inflection. Tactically, if you’re disconnecting with someone via email, pick up the phone. If the phone doesn’t work, do a video. If the video doesn’t work, meet with them in-person.
Sometimes all that matters is showing up to witness and support just by being there. Sometimes you’re learning and checking-in, sometimes encouraging and recognizing, sometimes more actively helping, and sometimes leading – making it easier for others to trust and follow you.
How to show up
There are, of course, different levels of showing up ranging from meeting the minimum acceptable standard for attendance, multi-tasking the whole way, to showing up full engaged. While you’ll certainly want to invest different levels of your physical, intellectual, and emotional presence in different situations, it’s helpful to be intentional about some of the different dimensions.
Show up:
- On time. Showing up on time for others is a sign of respect. Some show up late because of weather, traffic, or technical delays. Some plan to be early and build in buffers so the inevitable weather, traffic, or technical delays just make them less early.
- Prepared. Some do the pre-work before meetings as part of making the best use of others’ time in those meetings. Others do it at the start of meetings, making everyone else wait until they are up to speed.
- Fully present. Some show up physically, intellectually, and emotionally, giving those they are with their full attention. Some show up physically, but their minds are elsewhere. And some just don’t care and don’t care who knows it.
- Engaged. People know if you’re less than fully engaged, especially if you’re multi-tasking with other things while you’re meeting with them or in motion during the call, wrestling with elevators, security check points, tunnels, cell-phone blind spots, or the like.
- Committed. If you’re going to show up, commit to being the best witness, learner, contributor, or leader you can be.
