Conference calls have forever changed our business world.
Long distance communication has become key to the success of many organizations.
Remote workers and virtual teams are quickly becoming the norm these days.
Yet, meeting over the phone is not always the answer.
When you meet face-to-face is when work tends to get done.
You Don’t Have to Be “In Person” But You Need to “Be There”
I am a big believer in face-to-face meetings.
Phone calls are great and convenient, however without discipline they can be wildly ineffective.
The problem with phone conferences is that most people “aren’t there.”
By this, I mean they are probably doing something else.
People end up phoning it in. Attendees (I won’t call them participants) are doing everything but listening to what is happening on the call.
Instead, you get background noise. You call on people and it takes them 30 seconds to “get off of mute.”
On a recent company-wide conference call, it sounded like someone was doing maintenance on their car…
complete with clanging of tools and shouting to their assistant.
Do you think these people were paying attention to anything related to the call?
The Power of Face-to-Face Meetings
Face-to-face meetings are how the hard work usually gets done.
And sometimes it makes sense to meet face-to-face even if there is more time, cost, or inconvenience involved.
Don’t let distance be an excuse for not meeting face-to-face. Video chat is much better than a phone call for discussing tough issues.
Skype, FaceTime, and others apps make it easier than ever to meet face-to-face, even when you are remote.
So, whenever possible, make sure you meet face-to-face.
Here Are 5 Reasons Why Meeting Face-to-Face is Best:
- Body Langauge is Communication – We tend to forget that body langauge plays a major part in our communication. It is not just how you said something, but also your facial expressions and body posture. This is lost in a phone conversation.
- Ensures Engagement – Who knows what people are doing while on conference calls. (You might not want to know.) However, face-to-face leads to engagement. It ensure that people are “in the conversation.” I was on a video call with an executive one day, when I suddenly stopped the call. The VP had leaned over and was having a separate conversation with his assistant. When he turned around, he apologized, “Oh, I guess you could see that.”
- Clarifies Meaning – Conference calls can lead to misunderstandings either due to lack of communication (See #1) or simply because the medium is not conducive to individuals asking for better meaning. It’s much harder to raise your hand on a call than it is in person.
- Drives Participation – When you are all in the same room, it encourages people to participate. You can’t just go sit in the corner and turn your back to the meeting. Yet, this is exactly what many people do on conference calls.
- More Efficient – Face-to-face meetings tend to be shorter than conference calls. On the phone, everyone sits around on mute waiting for the discussion to end. Yes, this can happen in a meeting room. However, in face-to-face situations there is a greater pressure to get to the point.
Face-to-Face Gets It Done
When possible, make sure you meet face-to-face.
You meetings will be shorter, engagement will be higher, and communication will be better understood.
And of course, with technology, you can meet face-to-face even when you aren’t in the same place.
Question: Do you meet face-to-face in your business? What technologies do you leverage?
I would agree that face-to-face is/can be more efficient than a conference call, but I’ve found that meetings in general tend to perpetuate a broken model. Most people don’t know how to run an efficient meetings, invite too many people and don’t reach an action plan by the end.
I prefer face-to-face meetings, but only if there is an agenda, people come prepared and stuff gets done.
You probably know from my previous posts that I am not a big fan of meetings in general. 🙂
See my earlier post, “10 Ways to Spot Unnecessary Meetings.”
Thanks for article.
In today’s virtual workplace world, face-to-face is becoming more difficult to do on a daily basis. Though nothing beats in-person, video meetings via Skype, Gotomeeting or other platforms work almost as well.
I agree totally. And most meeting are a waste of time. But it’s “normal” to have meeting so nobody challenges them. And anyway even if useful the attendance list is usually to large.
Exactly! Yesterday, I had a Gotomeeting with 4 people who were all in different physical locations.
Seeing everyone… made all the difference. 🙂
Cisco Telepresence (very expensive) is a market leader…Polycom is also well known. I agree with you regarding face to face.
We use Google+ Hangouts on work-from-home day and whenever someone can’t make it to the office. Seeing everyone sure makes the difference! We also use MobileDay to connect with less fuss
I agree with you Tim. Hence, most of the businesses today conduct Virtual meetings using tools like webex, gotomeeting, R-HUB web conferencing servers etc.
In my company, all our meetings are via Skype, screenshare, and/or phone. There have never been any problems with it, though there have been a couple people who resisted not being able to meet in person. Oovoo, by the way, is coming out as a strong competitor to Skype.
Hi, I believe the article is a fantastic comparison of conferences calls Vs Face to Face meeting. I think if you could, get your hands on something like how face to face meetings helps you in generating more revenue for organisations, it would be an interesting read too.
Have you written a comparison for video conferences? Many of these arguments, such as facial expression and efficiency, fail when transferred to a video format in which everyone can be seen.
To me, the time math also fails. I’m trying to convince seven other leadership members to use Zoom. If eight people commute 20 minutes each way, that’s 5.33 wo/man hours that could be better utilized and are likely a total time loss combined with a range of unnecessary risks such as commutable disease and traffic accidents.
And what if you have a speech disability/have social anxiety? I feel like email is best for me because then I have time to come up with the right responses.
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