Congratulations! You Are More Efficient Now Than A Year Before
Find out how your improved skill of understanding the other person online has boosted your productivity
The pandemic forced you to socially distance and changed the way you do business.
When the disaster hit us, production, marketing sales and distribution, and everything looked impossible. Despite all challenges, you have re-collected yourselves, managed the crisis, and led the recovery.
Brilliant!
Productivity Boost from Improved Online Skills
Your calendar looks different today from what it was a year ago. You have cut out a lot of travel time from your schedule. You do not travel to meet clients, attend meetings, training programs and interviews. You do everything online.
The space-time concept is irrelevant to online meetings. You can do it from anywhere at any time. So, you accomplish more with less time and money. Thus, you have become more efficient.
We can agree that you now have access to more online tools. But the increased efficiency and productivity is not just about access to online tools. It’s about the skills you developed in the last year.
Sharper Skills to Understand the other Person Online
You have developed the skill to recognize the non-verbal and visual cues for the other person’s expression and tone in online interactions. So, you can meet virtually and negotiate deals much more efficiently. In online training, you are capable of retaining participants’ attention for an entire day. You can interview a candidate online and determine who is the best fit for the company.
What has changed?
The key change is the improvement in the capacity to absorb visual and voice content you receive online. You can analyse and assimilate it better. Your decision-making skills based on information from an online meeting is as good as in an in-person meeting.
In a Harvard Business Review study in 2016, 95% of the participants said that face-to-face meetings are essential to building long term business relationships. It is a different world now. The human capacity to build relationships online has improved.
How can you do better?
One of the problems of understanding the other person online is because video tools are 2D, while humans are 3D.
Establishing eye contact during a conversation online is a challenge. You can not see the gait and some of the mannerisms when interviewing a candidate online.
You can improve your business interactions online in several ways.
- Always use a computer or a lap screen. Avoid using the phone.
- Prepare for the meeting.
- Take the permission of other participants to record the interview. Rerun the recording incase of a need.
- If it is an interview, ask the candidate to switch on the video to observe the facial expressions and non-verbal signals. (Reciprocate the favour by keeping your video ON.)
Your improved skills to understand the other person online makes you a more effective Manager. Take time to nurture and improve those skills further.
Remember, any business today is an online business.
