The Internet and all the wonders of the digital age have made staying in constant communication a no-brainer. You stay in touch with your friends, clients, employees, vendors, etc. with just a few thumb strokes. So often though, creative business owners use technology as their primary tool for management. They use their PDAs to solve every problem, answer any question and generally be incredibly responsive to the issues that arise in their business.
The problem for me is that managing this way without firmly establishing good old face-to-face communication techniques and protocols paves the way for fragmentation and disfunction. If you have set up your structure properly, you will have natural tension existing between departments. This is a good thing as it will breed the best result. For instance, sales wants to close the deal, production wants to make sure it can produce what is sold. Technology can depersonalize the process as to actually prevent problem-solving. Just too easy to hit the send button without being present to the response.
I loathe organizational meetings for meetings sake as they tend to go nowhere. But, given a specific agenda, parameter (every manager has an equal voice) and time limit (no more than 30 minutes), they can set the stage for a well-oiled machine. From there, technology can help implement all that was set in motion at the organizational meeting.
Apart from having to look each other in the eye and respond to each other, organizational meetings also force managers to think. Think about what is happening in their world — what can be done better and what is working well. Reflection creates action as opposed to reaction and, if not action, then at least a reasoned response.
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Great points. Also, setting the expectation that you’re always available it too easy to do. Gawd forbid you don’t response to a lunch date for next friday within 5 minutes.
I LOVE technology and I love my blackberry, but I had a lesson a few years back about the appreciation of being able to have face to face conversation and I believe illustrates your point here.
I planned a wedding (one of my favorites) for a deaf couple a few years ago. Most of my communication (they were in business of TTP & Relay Chat technology) was done with instant messaging and email and text messaging on computer & blackberries (vibrations & led made this a great tool for them).
While I really enjoyed the opportunity to utilize all the technology to communicate with them, I found there were so many time where certain ideas, thoughts and important data just take too long to explain in email or can’t be conveyed in writing (even with emoticons).
I quickly came to appreciate the simple act of being a hearing person able to pick up the phone and call a client or colleague or friend to express myself in actually talking to them.
My blackberry became a highly valuable communications tool for me with these clients. The amount of time I spent was significantly increased though because it often took double the email & text messages to get more detailed explanations communicated and understood completely.
I loved when I was able to see them face to face (for a planning trip) because they read lips well and were not mute. Being able to see them and their faces made all the difference to bond our relationship and we got things done a great deal faster too!!
p.s. The highlight video of this wedding is on my website.
Another great post Sean, thank you!
That is such a great story!
I love my iphone and I’m stuck to it all hours of the day except when I’m sleeping. I’m constantly emailing and texting, but realized that the craziness of constant messaging was keeping me more disorganized and the plethora of emails were read and forgotten about. So we now do organizational meetings once a month to go over everything in person to make sure we’re all on the same page.]
Great post!
I miss the art of a good telephone conversation. *sigh*