Face-to-Face Communication

today we're talking about face-to-face
communication and all of its rich
complexity that is our topic today so
let's get into the details hello there
and welcome back I'm Alex Lyon and this
channel is all about your professional
development especially around issues of
leadership and communication and I'd
like to paraphrase the great Karl Weick
he once wrote that face-to-face
communication is the standard form of
communication against which all other
forms are measured so our phones cool
yes our movies awesome of course is
social media totally fascinating again
yes you may prefer other types of
communication but none of that changes
the fact that face-to-face communication
is the most well rounded complete form
of communication I want to be really
clear face-to-face communication is the
king and the Queen on the chess board
it's the original it hits all the senses
there's so much to pay attention to so
much can go wrong or right there's no
other type of communication that even
comes close and that's why it's so
challenging for so many people in fact
this video is the first in a short
two-part series on this topic and in the
next video I'll compare and contrast
face to face versus online communication
in head-to-head fashion to see which one
you might want to use more or less
depending upon the situation but for the
moment we're going to look at first the
types of communication that we are going
to count as face to face and then look
at the specific variables or ingredients
that make face-to-face communications so
full so first in terms of what it
includes one of the things that pops the
mind immediately is that one-to-one
face-to-face communication or
interaction we call this interpersonal
communication that's talking to a friend
or a co-worker communication between a
parent or a child
these are dyads that's one on one but
another type is group communication if
it's in person that's face to face it
has its own complexities but its face to
face and even public speaking in a way
is face to face like I've presented to
as few as four people and in that kind
of situation its face to face now public
speaking to a big audience changes a lot
but I think for our purposes today we're
just going to focus mainly on the
one-to-one face-to-face interaction
interpersonal communication to keep it
simple so what are the elements or the
variables of face-to-face communication
that it involves we'll hit just six of
them but there are others and the key
here is that each variable adds a layer
of complexity so these are not just
pieces of a pie I see the men as layers
of a cake that add to the conversation
with each layer so as we look at these
pick the variable that seems most
challenging to you so that you can
relate so the first variable is visual
when we're face-to-face you're looking
at people and it's a real 3d experience
if you've ever had someone look over
your shoulder at somebody else in the
room or they look around the room like
they're distracted then you know what
it's like to experience that 3d dynamic
there's a lot to block out face to face
visually there's a lot of depth in your
line of sight for things that you can
notice and you're also noticing people's
nonverbal cues and on their body
language that they're giving off their
appearance how they dress how they move
and that's just when we're listening
when we're the one talking we're giving
off all these visual cues ourselves and
we may not even realize how we're coming
across in that way for example one
really hot summer day I showed up to
teach college in a shirt with one
pattern and shorts with another clashing
pattern and a student leader told me
that she had to focus on my face because
my clothes looked so bad together
so nobody focused the camera
for her on my face she had to put in
that effort that's part of the visual
aspect of communication and yes that was
not a highlight of my day but I mostly
have gotten over that but there's a lot
to consider visually when we're face to
face audio or sound is the next layer
and this can be 3d too when you're
talking to a person for example you're
listening to them but there might be
music on too
there might be other people talking in
the room you might hear dog barking or a
sound of a car pulling up or a phone
ringing and you have to select what
you're listening to and filter out the
rest the best you can that can be a very
challenging experience for some people
nobody has edited the audio in the room
for us you have to do that hard work
another part of our audio experience is
listening for tone the attitude and all
those colors in the sound of the
person's voice can communicate quite a
lot and when we're face to face you
can't really ignore tone the same way
that you can ignore tone for example if
you're just reading a book right you
hear it liven in the moment another
layer to the cake is space and touch so
when you're face-to-face that means that
you're close enough to potentially touch
the other person so you might notice how
close or far you're sitting or standing
from the other people involved in
general standing closer sitting closer
voluntarily means that you have a more
of a connection or a bond you could be
making physical contact even like
shaking hands maybe not but it's at
least possible when you're face to face
for that physical contact to happen
people in fact can sometimes be too
close to us for our own comfort and we
have to manage that personal space
face-to-face and in the United States by
the way usually a little more than an
arm's distance away is a bare minimum
for most Americans close enough to
potentially shake hands but not too
close another layer to the cake is the
real-time and dynamic features of
face-to-face communication it's
happening live in the moment it's
unfolding right there
and this raises this
Xzibit if you miss something you can't
really rewind you can ask them to repeat
it but that changes the flow of the
conversation and when you're talking you
usually don't have time to carefully
choose your words like you would if you
were revising a text for like ten
minutes before you send it so this makes
face-to-face communication really
dynamic people are involved constantly
and adjusting what they say and how they
act based upon what just happened
so you take turns you pause you
potentially overlap your words with the
other person or finish their sentence
and walking away for example in
mid-sentence would be really awkward
there's a commitment that you have when
you're face to face a connection you may
have both agreed to show up and spend
time together and being face-to-face
signals that that conversation is a
priority and so you work it out you
adjust to each other as you go in a
dynamic back and forth another really
important layer to face-to-face
communication is that it's constitutive
in nature back and forth communication
really creates our social reality it has
a constitutive or generative nature for
example you say something and it gives
me an idea and I build on that and it's
like co-writing a song together our
communication makes something makes a
meaning that didn't exist before
an agreement a compliment a joke a
relationship so communication especially
face-to-face creates or constitutes our
whole social reality now we can clearly
do this through writing of course and
some of the other elements we've talked
about however really increase the
importance of face-to-face communication
in this creative generative way so
context also matters that's another
layer your environment shapes the way
you understand your interaction so it
adds a bit of unpredictability for
example to face-to-face communication
you could get interrupted a fire alarm
could go off if you're at work you may
know that you have to see this person
later so you're going to shape the way
you act now time of day matters what
happened right before the conversation
or what might be coming right after
those all matter for example you could
make a funny comment over drinks after
work and people hear it in a certain way
because that's an informal context but
if you made that same comment let's say
in the Monday morning meeting with
everybody it will come across very
differently because it's a different
context so context matters so I combined
some of these related elements so there
are just six in this list of ingredients
or layers of the cake and there are
certainly plenty of others out there
like we could additionally talk about
issues of perception psychological
filters and interpretation but maybe in
another video now the big takeaway from
this video is that when you put them
together no other form of communication
comes close to the fullness of
face-to-face interaction all other types
of communication whether it's social
media texting email those are all
partial representations that use
face-to-face communication as the
starting point and that's why
face-to-face communication is and always
will be the standard against which all
others are measured so we'll compare and
contrast face-to-face versus online
communication in the next video in this
short two-part series so question of the
day what aspect of face-to-face
communication do you find most
interesting or are perhaps challenging I
would love to hear your comments to that
in the section below the video so thanks
god bless and I'll see you in the next
video that compares and contrasts the
two take care
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