After months and months of virtual meetings, Zoom, webinars, vlogs, Team meetings and electronic images, I am ready for a good, old fashioned handshake or even a hug in my professional life. Pictures on a screen are fine on occasion but nothing will ever replace face-to-face interaction to build relationships, whether business or personal.
As a kid I watched ‘The Jetsons’ on television. At the time I thought their ‘picture phone’ was so cool, because it would be great to see someone when you spoke on the phone. I fully expected someone to invent a new communication device for talking face-to-face. However, now that we have them and they are ubiquitous, I realize just how artificial the medium is for truly communicating with another human being. There is just no alternative for real human contact.
So if technology works for talking and getting our points across, why does it matter whether we are onscreen or together in a room? According to social scientist Susan Pinker, “There is no substitute for social interaction. They are proven to bolster our immune system, sending positive hormones surging through our bloodstream and brain, and help us live longer.”
A scientist says we will live longer if we interact together. I think that’s a pretty good reason for being face-to-face.
Seeking Psychological Safety
What else validates human interaction unencumbered with electronic means? Bringing teams together to meet and discuss work topics is valuable, but they also facilitate relationship building especially during breaks, meals and off-duty time. Being together, relaxing and having fun together builds rapport and trust, strengthening relationships in a way that cannot happen online to the same degree.
Google published a study about how teams interact and perform. They discovered what they called “psychological safety.” Team members, clients, and colleagues will more likely express themselves more honestly and openly in a face-to-face setting. Reading body language, energy cues, eye contact and verbal tone are important factors in communicating. Online meetings are just not conducive to those factors.
Online solutions meet the needs of day-to-day operational necessities, but they will never replace the ability to create long term trust and confidence in teams. Living, breathing human beings need the interaction of being together in a room to get the creative juices flowing and to collaborate as a team to build strategies and make long-term plans. Real communication requires togetherness.
Let me point out that we are travel industry professionals. We have a bias to travel and be with our colleagues and clients. But, beyond that, it is in the nature of human beings to come together to truly accomplish significant progress. It has only been in the last hundred or so years that electronic intermediaries became part of our everyday conversations. The last twenty years has totally overturned our way of working together into a soulless pattern of bits and bytes. Before that, humanity had to travel to share ideas, build businesses and grow economies.
As a corporate travel manager, I see the evaluation of the return on investment for travel seeping into the job responsibilities of our profession. Ultimately it is the traveler and his or her management who must determine the value of a trip, but travel management has a hand in facilitating the decision process with data and information relevant to the travel. How far is the trip? What will the cost be? What challenges will the travel present logistically that might diminish its value? What safety and security requirements are important? Is there chance of being quarantined in today’s COVID environment? These are some of the things that a travel program can offer to business travelers to inform their decision making.
Many factors play a role in determining the value of travel and meeting face-to-face for business. Just being together in a room with clients, colleagues and teams makes a difference. However, we must consider the goal of the travel and ask questions about the real need to travel before committing the resources. My personal preference will always be for face-to-face human contact. As far as I am concerned, travel is essential to life.
