Breaking Away from Static Communication

I think when we all went home, in 2020, I think videos were the exception, not the rule, and being on the phone was the rule and not the exception. If you couldn’t be in person, I actually think taking time to get off a video and back on the phone is really important. Take a walk, take your call on a walk, get out of your you know, whatever your hybrid situation is.

Why is getting back on the phone so important?

I think it is for focus. I think people go from video to video to video to video, the way we used to go from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting, with very little time in the middle to context switch because we aren’t even changing rooms anymore.

And so, I think it just ends up being eight hours of to-do lists, not actual calibration of the data that I’m receiving, you know, how do I metabolize this and actually put it into action. And I think if you’re getting out of the space, you’re only focused on what this person is saying, you’re walking maybe up and down your street, maybe in a park near your house, or near your office, then I think it just allows the way in which we communicate to get back to something that feels less static.

So that’s one super, super personal tip that I have found helps when we’re tackling hard issues. Of course, sometimes you have to be looking at a spreadsheet, looking at a slide presentation, but for those meetings when you don’t, I think that’s important.

I also think using that time to really ask questions. I think in large meetings, sometimes, it’s easy to say I’ll ask my question offline. I think that happening in a hybrid environment just doesn’t work, we miss the opportunity to learn from each other. And sidebars are no longer like in the office in the kitchen, and so we need to make sure that those sidebars are brought into the meeting for everyone’s benefit.

And then I think for us, we’re scaling a business. And so, I think really, really embracing new folks, setting up virtual coffee in real life coffee, video coffee, phone coffee, something, or tea or something, just so people can be made to feel onboarded very quickly.