Face to Face vs Online Communication

today we are going to look at face to
face versus online communication so
let's check it out
[Music]
hello there and welcome back I'm Alex
lion and this channel is all about
helping you develop as a leader and we
are in the second part of a two-part
series on face to face and online
communication the first video looks
almost entirely at face to face
communication and today we'll look at
the similarities and differences and
uses for these two types of
communication in general so what do we
mean by face to face well when we say
face to face we are mostly talking about
one-on-one communication in the business
we call this interpersonal communication
essentially the communication that
happens in personal relationships and
family relationships or in one-on-one
work relationships and really that takes
up a huge part of our lives day to day
so I'll briefly recap why I believe
face-to-face communication is this
standard form against which all other
types of communication are judged so the
bottom line is that it's the most
complex it's the most complete we have
all these variables to pay attention to
at the same time so I love it and it's
the standard at the same time it doesn't
mean face-to-face communication is
always the superior choice it's not
always the best approach that depends on
what you are trying to accomplish so
let's compare the two and see what type
might be best for you given your
specific situation and usually I
emphasize things at work so most of the
examples are at work so in the first
video we talked about how face-to-face
communication lends itself profoundly to
the co-creation of meaning between
people so communication does not simply
transmit existing information from point
A to point B like through the telephone
line that's one of the very old models
of communication
communication creates our relationships
in real time
this makes face-to-face interaction
really good for complex tasks and so
here are three examples of complex tasks
that face-to-face communication is best
at first the co-creation of something
for example songwriting or other
artistic endeavors essentially building
new things together so yes you could
send files back and forth and
collaborate to write a song if you had
to I guess but that would probably not
work out very well over the long run to
really create something you have to
spend some foundational time
face-to-face I was just watching for
example an interview with Paul McCartney
from the Beatles and he was talking
about how he and John Lennon wrote songs
together and they would always be face
to face share ideas and collaborate they
weren't simply sending recordings back
and forth so in most cases co-creating
something is most effective when you're
doing it face to face at least in the
initial stages of creation now once you
have a foundation established you could
send files back and forth later perhaps
the second way that face-to-face
communication is especially helpful is
in connection building relationships
with each other if you think about it
you can't have a complete relationship
if you don't spend time face-to-face
together again especially in the
beginning of the relationship or the
time when the relationship gets real so
face-to-face communication solidifies
relationships and if you do happen to
begin a relationship online like many of
us do nowadays the real turning point is
when you finally meet face-to-face and
interact that in many ways seals or
legitimizes the relationship it makes it
real so in person you begin to create
shared experiences shared history and
shared meaning and this is all very
difficult to do if the relationship
remains 100% on
the third way where face-to-face
communication really is super valuable
is in collaborative problem-solving so
building solutions through like
brainstorming sessions so I talked a bit
about this in the first video in this
series but when you're face to face you
come up with ideas that you would have
never thought of separately so there's
something almost magical about bouncing
ideas back and forth in real time that
creates something new so I was having a
conversation with my wife recently and
we were trying to figure out what kinds
of family activities that we can do
together we're looking for fun for the
whole family which is really challenging
to do if you've ever experienced it and
we were face-to-face and we brainstormed
possible fun things that we could all do
and make a MUP with some really great
ideas and there's just no way we would
have come up with so many interesting
ideas so many possible solutions if we
were just texting back and forth it
would have ran out of gas it's just not
gonna happen in the same way you have to
be there to bounce the ideas off of each
other and hear yourself in light of the
other person's point of view and then
you can even combine ideas reach
compromises it's very difficult to get
those creative solutions if you're not
face-to-face at least part of the time
so face-to-face communication is
especially important when creating
something new and those initial stages
of creation and working through those
difficulties and once you have that
foundation you can use more online
communication but now let's turn to
online communication and it really
leaves out most aspects of face-to-face
communication because each type of
online communication just takes a sliver
of face to face so each of the common
line technology online technologies were
designed for a specific purpose and
because of that they all have really
clear shortcomings so it takes out a
layer of the cake all the almost all the
other layers of the cake that I
mentioned in the first video and focuses
in
entirely on one or maybe two layers and
so it leaves out quite a bit so email
for example bites off one of the
smallest pieces of the face-to-face cake
but it's still really important so email
is great for transmitting large amounts
of specific data in a moment like a
large file detailed instructions in
writing in a somewhat permanent way it's
right there in text it's also great at
sending invites or for appointments are
putting things on your calendar again be
because that information like the times
and the dates they're very specific and
so it's good for the routine
transmission of already existing
information from A to B information that
hopefully doesn't require a lot of
interpretation and emails very fast you
can just attach a document and click
send of course in theory we could do a
lot of this face-to-face but it'll be
really time-consuming really
labor-intensive and that's why we'll
often say can you send me that on email
cuz it's much more efficient but on the
other side email tends to lead to a lot
of misunderstandings and a lot of
confusion about intentions of the other
person it's not great at working through
issues you can't hear tone you can't see
facial expression we can't sense the
other person's mood or sense of humor
and if we are already in a bad mood we
will very likely read their email wrong
right and once a conversation on email
gets off track like this it's really
hard to solve that misunderstanding if
you stay on email you really have to get
face to face as quickly as possible to
work that out and the same goes for
texting there's more back and forth but
those limitations are still there next
type of online communication is social
media and it bites off a bigger piece of
the cake more layers of the cake but
it's still not complete so social media
is multimedia really there is the
potential for video images audio text
and so it's great for sharing parts of
our
lives with other people and the big
advantage is that we can be very careful
and creative about how we craft an
interesting message it's great for
marketing for that reason for
essentially pushing out the best
possible message it certainly does allow
for potential interaction with others
but that really there are two main
criticisms to social media first it can
lack authenticity messages are so
carefully crafted that they can come
across as phony it's all just a show the
second criticism is that people tend to
react to social media any in a love it
or hate it way so it seems like
everything gets sorted into strongly
agree or strongly disagree reactions
there's no middle ground very little
compromise on social media when we're
interacting face-to-face though you have
to look at the person in the eye you
have to feel the potential awkwardness
of saying something nasty and so you
would hold back face to face in most
cases but online we have trolls haters
full-time critics about any topic you
could post a picture about your lawn the
grass in your yard and somebody would
say something about how there's a water
shortage and you should be ashamed of
yourself and the outrage that you have a
green lawn but you wouldn't talk like
that face-to-face in person
people are more courteous in their
conversations so next is video video
takes an even bigger bite of the cake
more layers because it has visual audio
and you can add text through subtitles
so videos great for example for general
education purposes you can even make it
live right you can add chat to that so
there's some interaction it can be much
more dynamic than just one way video and
if you're talking live on video you can
adjust to the feedback that you're
getting in the moment Facebook live is
fun YouTube live is great but with live
video you're still probably going to see
the
professional critics anytime I watch
somebody live on YouTube there's always
at least one person acting crazy in the
chat section so you're still on these
social media platforms that tend to
split people into those extreme love it
or hate it camps and the people that are
in the middle don't tend to comment so I
think the best of the online types of
communication is really one-to-one live
video I love this it's challenging but
using zoom or Skype or FaceTime to do
one on one live video this comes the
closest to face to face it bites off
most of the layers of the cake but not
all so I had a one-to-one call on video
about six months ago to kick off a new
working relationship it was an hour-long
call and we covered a lot of ground but
it was enough to begin a working
relationship to make a foundation and
after that the emails and other online
communication went really smoothly and
it all worked out because we had created
that relationship first live on one on
one video now this is also the most
challenging right people don't have a
lot of experience doing these kinds of
calls especially professionally and I
believe part of that intimidation comes
from the fact that it gets closest to
face-to-face communication in other
words it's one of the most demanding
types of online communication because it
has so many layers of the cake that
face-to-face communication has so that
complexity makes it really valuable but
also really challenging but if you can't
meet face to face to create something to
meet for the first time you're in
different cities for example this can be
a great substitute to face-to-face
communication to make some progress and
to move forward so in all I believe that
face to face is the most complex and the
most complete it's still the standard
form that all the other types of
communication try to imitate really but
some types of online communication are
better choices
depending on where you're trying to
accomplish that's usually because they
were designed for a specific use in mind
like like email as we mention it's great
for appointments and things but it's not
great for discrimination the first video
in this series looks entirely at
face-to-face communication if you
haven't checked that out yet I encourage
you to do so I will put a link to that
in the description below the video and
that really looks at the different
layers of face-to-face communication I'd
also like to tell you about a resource a
free PDF download that I created on the
essential professional communication
skills that every working person should
possess I'll put a link to that and
that's all I have for you today thanks
God bless and I will see you in the next
video