It’s difficult communicating in the digital era. Physical signals such as handshakes, nods and smiles are no longer used as much as more digital forms of expression, says author Erica Dhawan.
During a keynote speech at last week’s virtual eMoney Summit, Dhawan, the author of Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection, No Matter the Distance, said that since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, people are not in the office as much as they used to be, so they’ve had to learn how to communicate differently.
Zoom calls, for instance, have replaced staff meetings, while texts and email conversations have replaced phone calls, she said. And how people—including employers and employees—communicate through those media affects their emotions and even their confidence levels.
“We are using all types of technology,” she said. “I like to say that interacting has never been easier, but productive collaboration can sometimes feel harder than ever.”
Since individuals can no longer rely on traditional body language, they must focus on what Dhawan calls “digital body language.” These are the “cues and signals we send in our digital communication that make up the subtext of our messages with our teams,” she said.
She laid out five ideas for people trying to communicate better in this environment. The first is to choose clarity over brevity. In the digital age, many people might be inclined to send a quick message or meeting invite without context. When a person leaves out specific details, however, the receiver could misinterpret the intention of the message, she said.
The second tip, she said, is to make sure that your ideas are clearly communicated, since the nuances of visual clues are often missing. “Communicate your mind,” she said.
“What we must understand more than ever today ... what was implicit in traditional body language must be explicit in our digital body language,” Dhawan said.
Not only should the purposes of our messages be clearly communicated but so should their priority, as well as our responses.
The third tip involves putting thoughtfulness over hastiness, Dhawan said. You shouldn’t simply reward those who respond the fastest to an email or a text message. She encouraged people to give others time to respond to a request. If the talk is in the context of a meeting, everyone should have the time to respond and evaluate everyone else’s answers.
The fourth tip is that everyone should assume the best intentions in others’ responses. Financial advisors sending digital communications to clients, for example, might not know where their clients are or how they are feeling. If they were meeting clients in person, they could pick up on normal physical cues to tell if the client were stressed, relaxed, in a good mood, or angry. So, it’s best advisors verify that their interpretations of a response are correct before reacting, Dhawan said.
The last tip is to find your voice. There are many ways to communicate nowadays, and advisors no longer have to recruit clients from their own areas—they can reach out to people in other cities, states or even nations. With that reach it is important that they know what they want to say to potential clients and how they wish to represent themselves, Dhawan said. In today’s fast-paced world, even the decision about how to communicate with one another can’t be an arbitrary one.
“These are the new cues,” she said for those wanting to be understood. It means “knowing what the complexity is, what the urgency is, what the frequency is they want to hear from you in different mediums.”
Advisors will likely have to determine what other people’s comfort level is with digital communication, especially clients and colleagues. Dhawan classified individuals under two categories: digital natives and digital adapters. The former rely more on text messages and emails for their communication. They prefer shorter messages and shy away from voicemails.
Digital adaptors, on the other hand, prefer the telephone and in-person meetings. They’re wary of new technology and aren’t sure how to properly use it. For example, they will text someone as if they are writing them an email.
It’s up to you to figure out which category the person you’re speaking to is in and how to best communicate with them—doing so in a manner that’s respectful and understanding.
“Reading messages carefully is the new listening. Writing clearly is the new empathy,” Dhawan said. “We don’t just walk the talk; we don’t just talk the talk. We write the talk, and how we communicate using technology makes or breaks our success.”