Pick Up The Phone
Texting, emailing, facebooking, tweeting, skyping, linkedining – couple of new words there! Whatever happened to picking up the phone and actually talking to someone, live?! I hear these smart phones actually have listening and speaking devices – in fact, they might have even started that way!
My kids are constantly waiting on someone to get back to their text – whether it’s a few minutes, a few hours or sometimes days, and occasionally - never. Drives me crazy – if I’m waiting on someone else before I can decide my next steps, they’re delay is my loss of productivity, opportunity and energy. And I don’t like losing any of those things, especially if it’s someone else’s discretion. Heck, these kids live in this space all the time.
It occurred to me several weeks ago as I was typing up a “quick” email to someone, in an effort to save time over a phone call, that I wasn’t saving any time at all. I was, in fact, wasting a lot of time and likely missing a huge opportunity to improve the relationship.
I don’t suspect many books have been written, nor will they be, about how email and text builds depth in our relationships. What builds depth is good old fashioned connecting, and that’s done best in person, second over the phone. Skype is a distant third, maybe.
Some will argue that email is a better form of communication, and it is at times. And some ask us to communicate that way. More detail, a written record of communication and sometimes even easier to reply to – yes to all of that. But, can it miss at times? Can communication be entirely misinterpreted? Yes and Yes. It has its place, as does texting, Skyping and other forms of communication, but nothing will ever replace good ole down to earth, voice to voice, and if possible, face to face communication.
If you’re in sales, pick up the phone. If you get a voice mail, follow it up with an email if you feel the need for detail or like me, if you feel it does sometimes provide an easier pathway for response.
And if you’re one of my kids’ friends, please pick up the phone – maybe they’ll even catch on!