When Jesse Torrence went to work as an Ohio field organizer for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, his job was to find and train the volunteers who would eventually help his candidate reach the White House.
Time was short, as it is during political campaigns. Still, Torrence and other field organizers were required to cement relationships through one-on-one meetings with every volunteer—meetings that lasted up to 45 minutes each.
“I remember hearing that and thinking we wouldn’t have time for anything else,” said Torrence, now a consultant in Washington, D.C.
But those meetings paid off in the end for a simple reason: They capitalized on good, old-fashioned, in-person communication to form human bonds.
“A big part of those meetings was saying, in a very honest, sometimes emotional way, what drew you to the campaign,” Torrence said. “You’d share what you were sacrificing so they could see that you’d given up some things to be there. That created a passionate, sincere connection.”
The aim of communications technology has always been to create and maintain connections despite distance and geography. But even with videoconferencing, Internet telephony and all of the wondrous gadgets that make communication almost like you’re there, the research has always been clear about this point: You’re not there. And not being there can lead to flawed, weakened or misinterpreted communications at the expense of the human connections you’re trying to achieve.
Nonverbal Cues Speak Volumes
The result of positive, face-to-face experiences is greater affinity between communicators, as evidenced by Torrence and his volunteers. That’s because humans express and receive a multitude of information when face to face, without saying a single word. It enables us to relate to one another more deeply.
Eye contact, gestures, expressions, body language and nonverbal sounds all spin an elaborate web that conveys a spectrum of feelings that help humans relate to one another. Add tone of voice and humor to the mix—two communication tools that might fare well on the phone but not much in writing or electronic communication—and an in-person exchange is hard to beat.
Vicki Ritts, professor of psychology at St. Louis Community College, says all nonverbal communication that accompanies speech can dramatically alter the way a message is received and understood.
Without the nonverbal cues, there’s a greater danger of misinterpretation. Humans fill in gaps with their own baggage.
“You can’t read tone on a discussion board,” Ritts said. “If you’re feeling paranoid about what you wrote, then you can read that tone into someone’s response. You interpret through your own filter.”
Science Argues for In-person Communication
It’s clear that humans are affected by face-to-face communication. But why?
We’re hard-wired with some pretty strong biological ties to human faces. Countless studies have shown that babies recognize and are drawn to faces. A 2008 study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences suggests that babies as young as four months of age can recognize certain emotions in the form of nonverbal cues displayed in adult facial expressions.
T.J. Larkin, a business communications consultant, advises companies to embrace this aspect of human nature or ignore it at their own peril. As a change communications specialist, much of Larkin’s work revolves around helping companies communicate bad news to employees. He reminds clients that humans have spent hundreds of thousands of years communicating face to face, which adds up to a lot of evolution coded into our genetic makeup.
“When you throw that all away and say, ‘I’m going to write you an e-mail to tell you that you’re fired,’ you’re throwing away 100,000 years of evolution,” Larkin said. “That’s a dangerous move to make with humans.”
That’s why Larkin’s work with clients often begins with a valuable piece of advice: Always deliver bad news in person.
His advice is backed by years of research, experience and even some corroborating anecdotal evidence.
Larkin recently interviewed an expert on Lou Gehrig’s disease, a degenerative disease for which there is no cure.
“He communicates the diagnosis the same way: one-on-one, face to face, and he said most people receive it really well,” Larkin said. “People take bad news surprisingly well in that format. I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and I’m amazed at the amount of bad news you can give people one-on-one in a conversation.”
Of course, delivering the message in a cold, robotic manner doesn’t help. Positive reception of bad news relies on the speaker’s ability to show humanity.
“I’d be filled with anxiety, regret and dread if what I’m communicating to you is that yes, you’re being laid off and yes, the benefits are half of what they were,” Larkin said. “I’d be really shaken up about it, and that has an effect on you. You need to see that I’m upset.”
Psychiatrist Dr. Edward Hallowell detailed his research that positive, face-to-face communication reduces stress hormone levels in the Harvard Business Review. He also found that these experiences boost the hormones and neurotransmitters that enhance good feelings and reduce negative, such as worry and fear.
Sometimes a positive interaction can be as simple as feeling understood.
When Torrence attempted to register voters in East Toledo, an area with historically low voter turnout, he found an electric current of populist anger from people who had given up on the political process. They were resistant to messages from television and the Web. But when Torrence set aside party lines and simply related to voters on a human level, everything changed—sometimes dramatically.
“People would literally be walking away with their finger in the air, but when I’d say the right thing, they’d turn around and come back,” Torrence said. “If you start with the political message, you’re doomed. You have to start with something about their lives.”
In-Person is More Persuasive
When trying to deliver a persuasive message, chances are you’ll fare better in person.
Whitney Smith is CEO of Girls For A Change, a nonprofit organization that aims to help teen girls create and deliver social change projects in their communities. As at any nonprofit, a big part of Smith’s job is raising money to achieve the organization’s mission.
Smith says fundraising is only possible when the organization builds authentic, one-on-one relationships with donors, and that the only way to do that is face to face.
“In our world of technology, you’d think you could just e-mail or call or even have a videoconference and create the same experience, but it doesn’t work that way,” Smith said. “People need to physically see someone and tangibly interact with a human being. That’s how people get comfortable writing you a check.”
Smith says the power of group events is evident at annual Girls For A Change fundraising functions. The events are always engineered to build human connections on a personal—even individual—level. Smith’s team uses the power of speakers and first-person accounts to create emotional hooks that help people relate and makes them personally feel integral to the cause.
“It’s an amped-up, face-to-face, personal interaction,” Smith said. “The goal of the fundraisers is to move people to tears and make them feel connected to the work and the girls.”
Events result in a sustained sense of community between organizer and attendees.
Ritts cites a symposium she recently attended. It was played host to by a publisher and gave Ritts the chance to meet with other instructors. That peer camaraderie was a clear benefit to Ritts, but the biggest benefit was to the sponsoring company, whose representatives used the conference to build tighter relationships with attendees.
"It made me look even closer at them,” Ritts said. “In some ways, it changes your opinion of the company. I probably have more loyalty to them, not because I feel like I owe them anything, but because I feel more comfortable with them now.”
Group events were a critical part of the Obama campaign’s outreach, from large-scale rallies to smaller town hall sessions to the tiny neighborhood house meetings where volunteers recruited other volunteers, often using the personal stories they learned to tell as part of their volunteer training.
“House meetings were a major component of the whole process of building volunteer teams,” Torrence said. “It was communal face to face.”
Next Best Thing Still Isn’t Close
Videoconferencing is often hailed as a boon for geographically dispersed businesses, long-distance loved ones and educational institutions. The promise of videoconferencing has always been that it can nearly replicate an in-person experience by delivering all of the communication cues that humans receive visually and audibly.
Still, videoconferencing doesn’t do a good job of replicating the face-to-face bond. While you’re talking, you’re looking at the camera, not the recipient. (Or worse, you’re watching yourself talk on your own screen.) There’s value in this technology for education and sharing information, but it still has a long way to go to be used effectively for in-depth, human-to-human networking.
Some professionals, including Smith, are eschewing the use of teleconferencing and videoconferencing and opting to strategically hop on a plane when time and budget allow. During a recent trip to New York, Smith met with several partners, including prospective supporters. She’s quick to admit that she could have said every single thing on the phone just as well as she said it in person. But that, she says, would be missing the point.
“I’m amazed at what happens to the quality of a relationship when you sit in a room with someone, even an ongoing partner,” Smith said. “Technology has gone a long way but it will never replace that experience, ever. I think that’s one thing we need to remember in business as we move to a more tech-based world. Nothing replaces face to face.”
Positivity Comes Full Circle
An occasionally overlooked effect of face-to-face communication is that both the deliverer and recipient benefit. The process starts with a message, and the receiver gives cues that he is listening—even if it’s initially out of social pressure.
“You make eye contact, periodically nod your head, smile and laugh at jokes,” Ritts said. “You’re creating an image that you’re engaged, and you end up actually being more engaged when you do that, even if you didn’t want to get sucked in.”
As soon as you’re engaged, you’re feeding affirming energy back to the speaker.
Meeting in person about Girls For A Change and hearing how and why people care about the work is even more impactful for Smith.
“That experience is transformative for me as a human being,” she said.
Get Ready to Work Harder
All communication is an exchange that relies on the receiver just as much as the speaker. And that’s why the skill set of meeting and event professionals will need to continually evolve. The next generation—raised on cell phones and computers—may be relying more on virtual communication than did generations before them.
“The big question is what will the future bring in terms of communication skills if we take all online courses and only sit in our rooms and blog?” Ritts said. “There’s already some research that shows interview skills are going to suffer. You can see it in students already. I can see a really big difference between now and 1990.”
Nevertheless, face-to-face communication is still king. And despite generational changes, Ritts says it doesn’t appear that in-person connections will be dethroned for a very, very long time. One+
TARA SWORDS is a multifaceted writer based in Mozambique.