Nice to meet you!

I had a great meeting last year with some business colleagues from India. It was the first time we had met but, after a few coffee's and travel stories we all quickly built a lot of empathy and a lot of interest in each other that will help us work together more effectively.

It never ceases to amaze me how much we can communicate through non-verbal mechanisms. I guess in this respect my 6 year old daughter is probably streets ahead of me. By the time I have managed to get past the initial introductions with someone she will be off with their kids to find out where all the toys are!

There is some interesting science here, Dr Albert Mehrabian, a professor at University College of Los Angeles, provided us with the much cited 55:38:7 ratio. That translates to 55% of our message impact is visual, 38% vocal (e.g. tone, rhythm and inflection) and just 7% verbal (i.e. the actual words we use). That means in any meeting 93% of your message is non-verbal! It also suggests that my dog is probably a better communicator than me, he certainly makes it very clear what he wants by a simple glance at the remains of our dinner on the table that casually moves to his food bowl.

Seriously though it underlines the importance of effective communications, particularly where we're meeting someone for the first time or with audiences from different cultures. This will become increasingly more important as we all enter a phase of corporate travelling restrictions and rely on lower cost mechanisms to keep in contact. The key is to effectively use the various mechanisms available to us.

I learnt a good lesson here at a previous company I worked for. My team were scattered across Europe and in some cases I had to work with some very difficult end clients. One particular client was based over in Paris and for many weeks we had communicated by e mail and the occasional phone call. To put it mildly we had a tense relationship underpinned by mutual distrust. It didn't take long for this to spread across his team which made our job difficult.

I eventually took a flight over and arranged a meeting in an attempt to sort out our problems. I had envisaged a cathartic exchange of viewpoints followed by an agreed way to move forward. On meeting up he warmly greeted me, made a fresh coffee, and took a genuine interest in how my trip over had been and where I was staying. I then received a personal tour of his offices, was introduced to his colleagues and invited out to a meal in the evening.

It was a great evening and we didn't discuss work once. I got to know about his family, friends and interests. The next day we had a series of meetings and not one issue appeared. We shook hands and I flew back to London. Over the months post that meeting we had numerous e mail exchanges, conference calls and video conferences. All were friendly and constructive. I occasionally flew back across for a face to face and each time ended up in a fantastic restaurant with a great bunch of guys and no talk about work!

I guess I had failed to appreciate the need to understand other people's requirements. The social customs and requirements vary per country and person but we all need to understand the need to engage with people on a number of levels to build trust and an effective working relationship. Getting the balance right now means using face to face sessions selectively along with the best possible collaborative technologies to improve the effectiveness of our messages.