“Here’s what someone expects if they come to see you on an in-person sales call: that you’ll be prepared, focused, enthusiastic and willing to engage honestly about the next steps. If you can’t do that, don’t have the meeting.”

Seems obvious, but how often do people meet all of those requirements? I really tend to notice when people aren’t focused, which seems to happen quite a bit. I remember being a part of a conference call and the people on the other end shot the breeze for 20 minutes while my co-worker sat by waiting for them to stop. They were her clients so she didn’t want to stop them. I understand that you have to have some non-work related banter, but it can really get out of hand.

After we talked in person the other night, it was obvious that we could have had a script done a long time ago. I know that it’s possible to generate a lot of great ideas online (e.g. Seth’s virtual internship, The Big Think, etc.), but it’s so much more dynamic when you’re bouncing your thoughts off a person a few feet away. All it takes to get a solid free flow of ideas with someone is to be in the same room with them.

The reason I’m writing about something that’s seemingly obvious is because it’s actually not so obvious anymore. I work so much on a computer that I find myself acting like all communication can be done online. But it can’t be done that way a lot of the time. Aside from body language, inflection, volume, and all the other things you need to see and hear to communicate, you also need to feel and develop an energy that’s conducive to creativity in the room. It’s much, much harder to create that type of energy in an exchange of emails.

I know this seems like it contradicts what I said a few days ago. But when you’re generating ideas and really want to move a project along, it’s sometimes necessary to meet in person. The hard part is controlling the group and making sure it stays productive.

Meetings are way less productive than if each individual had spent that time working on their own. I’ve avoided meetings as much as possible throughout college. It’s much easier to work with multiple people on a project through Google documents. Still, a lot of people feel more comfortable in meetings because you’re getting some face time and talking with co-workers. While it’s ok to talk business during lunch hour, I genuinely feel it’s unnecessary to have meetings during the work day. You get very little accomplished relative to the amount of time you actually spend in the meeting.

Email can become a very unproductive way of communicating for group projects. Emailing drafts of things back and forth to one another is brutal, especially when you do it more than a few times. It becomes an instant messaging program, which it obviously shouldn’t. The telephone is still the best channel for asking questions and communicating with team members. It’s faster and, more importantly, you get to hear the person’s voice. There have been many instances in my life where something was lost in translation because of the limitations on email and text messaging.

It’s unfortunate that more companies don’t implement Skype and Google documents into their work tactics. Those two programs are a lot more effective than in-person meetings and email.

*Picture courtesy of Seth Godin’s blog