Bosses still prefer face-to-face
Jinfo Blog

3rd October 2009

By Tim Buckley Owen

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With business travel slashed as a result of the recession, it’s no surprise that executives are turning more and more to technological solutions such as teleconferencing, videoconferencing or webconferencing as substitutes for face-to-face meetings. But, as a report from Forbes Insights demonstrates, people continue to value personal contact above all other. More than 80% of the 750 executives that Forbes surveyed for Business Meetings: the Case for Face-to-Face (free at http://digbig.com/5bajtw – registration required) said that they liked in-person contact more than virtual. Asked why, they said that such contact built stronger, more meaningful relationships, offered the ability to ‘read’ another person and permitted greater social interaction. By contrast, those who preferred virtual contact took a more hard-nosed bottom line approach, saying that it saved time and/or money and offered greater location flexibility. But, as one executive put it, ‘the art of negotiation takes the kind of nuance that is only present in an in-person meeting... I don’t think you can really get at strategies without face-to-face time’. It’s a pervasive and persistent view. Last year an Economist Intelligence Unit report, The Role of Trust in Business Collaboration, demonstrated a ‘significant positive correlation between face-to-face communication and project success’ (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e5851) – and an earlier report from IRN on the European business-to-business information market also found that, in the internet age, businesses were increasingly valuing face-to-face contact (http://www.vivavip.com/go/e4677). In many instances, face-to-face meetings may be a luxury denied to all but the upper echelons who can still justify the cost of the business travel. But that doesn’t undermine the principle – something that anyone responsible for rolling out virtual networking capabilities in their organisation might care to bear in mind. There’s plenty of evidence now that many bosses are deeply suspicious of social networking (try http://www.vivavip.com/go/e25158 for example). It could just be cross-generational incomprehension – or it could be genuine concern about things over which they have no control going on under the radar. Either way, a few more face-to-face meetings with the decision makers – complete with eye contact and readable body language – might just be the best way to get your enterprise 2.0 plans unblocked.

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