CAREER & MONEY
In his new book, “Big-Hearted Leadership,” Mercy St. Louis President Donn Sorensen shares his Five Keys to Create Success Through Compassion.
In this time of electronic communication, we selected a topic to preview from the book that we think will resonate with our aspirational readership.
The following comes from Chapter Two: Be “Here” and “With.” “Big-Hearted Leadership” is available at amazon.com or donnsorensen.com.
Opt For In-Person
Over Electronic Forms
Of Communication
B y D o n n S o r e n s e n w i t h Va u g h n K o h l e r
E
schew electronic communication and remember that everybody
needs your body. By now, you have probably read a lot of the
popular business literature that there are some serious drawbacks
to email and other forms of electronic communication like texting or
even phone calls.
As I see it, this is the problem: Emails are text-based, and texts have
limitations. When you send emails, the text can’t reflect the subtle nuances
in your tone of voice. It can’t communicate your facial expressions. Even if
you go to the routes of Skype or webinars, there’s still something missing.
The image of a person is not a person. The sound of a human voice is
different when it is transferred through a microphone and speaker.
Ultimately, the problem is that when we use electronic platforms,
people are getting their leader second-hand. They are communicating
with a facsimile of you - not you. If you don’t think this is a big deal, ask
yourself a couple of questions: Why do so many military marriages break
up when a soldier is deployed for a year or longer? Well, obviously there
must be multiple issues at play. But one extremely relevant factor is that
it’s hard to sustain a relationship when you aren’t physically present to
one another. Why don’t the delegates of the United Nations just log in
and conduct their business and diplomacy through the web? Because the
whole history of human relations has proven that when the stakes are
high, you have to show up in person. You have to be there.
Why do you suppose in-person communications are so necessary
to a relationship’s success? I’m sure philosophers and sociologists and
other academics have their well thought out theories. But as near as I
can tell you, the reason is this: Communication is about 90 percent body
language. There’s an almost magical transference that takes place when
people are in one another’s presence. Take away the body and you just
denied yourself that opportunity for transference and reduced your
communication efficiency to 10 percent.
SAVVY I SOPHISTICATED I SASSY 103