Using Digital Body Language to show Appreciation: Value Visibly - Cor Scheepers: Consultant @ pm.ideas
Digital body language requires the mastery of a new way of communication. We need to understand the four laws of digital body language:
- Value Visibly
- Communicate Carefully
- Collaborate Confidently
- Trust Totally
This article will cover the first law: Value Visibly. It is about how we can use digital body language to show appreciation.
Traditional signals and cues used to show our appreciation for other people – a relieved smile, a handshake, a handwritten thank-you note – are either invisible in digital communication or take too much time and effort to implement. Value Visibly is about being attentive and aware of others, while also communicating that “I understand you” and “I appreciate you.”
Valuing Visibly means that we are always sensitive to other people’s needs and schedules. We understand that reading the emails in our inbox with care and attention is the new art of listening. We are willing to sit with others’ discomfort without feeling the need to fix or resolve it. It means recognizing other people – and not being in a hurry about it either.
Valuing Visibly leads to greater levels of respect and trust. Respect means:
- that others feels appropriately valued, included, or acknowledged.
- proofreading your email before sending it.
- honouring other people’s time and schedules and not cancelling meetings at the last second or delaying your response to an email so long that people must chase you down.
- not using the mute button during a conference call (or video meeting) to deal with five other things as someone is talking.
- writing clear subject lines in meeting invitations that explain exactly why you are requesting another person’s time. At a minimum, respect is about spelling that person’s name right!
Valuing Visibly means acknowledging that solutions that may work in one context might not work in others.
- Imagine that you have just completed an all-nighter on a project and your boss responds with “ty” or “tx.” It’s not enough, right? In fact, it can be enraging. Imagine handing the same project to your boss in person and getting a smile and a “thank you.” You would feel much better. Valuing Visibly is about making the time and effort to communicate the equivalent of a smile or a “thank you” across digital channels. It is about consciously, outwardly showing respect towards people in our professional and personal lives.
Harvard Business Review (2017) reported that over half of all employees indicated that they do not receive the respect they need or want from their leaders. That sounds like a whole lot of ungrateful leaders! Could there be another explanation? What if those leaders are expressing respect in ways that some employees do not recognise? As the signs of respect have changed, so too have the skills we need to use to make our colleagues feel valued.
Traditional respect has always been based on signals we share in person. Each personal interaction generates positive signals that our brains understand unconsciously after hundreds of years of evolutionary training. Nowadays, many of our interactions lack visible cues of meaning and understanding. One of the greatest killers of engagement is to assume that if you do not hear from a team member, then everything is OK. With up to 60 percent of teamwork today conducted digitally and via the written word, we can no longer rely on assumptions to gauge feelings of mutual respect. We need to move from relying on a single conversation per project to multiple touchpoints and from unstated appreciation to stated recognition.
Leaders should leverage digital tools like video calls and weekly or biweekly email “check-ins” to ensure that their team feels Valued Visibly.
- Choose a communication medium based on each person’s personality style and make sure to express encouragement or gratitude as often as possible.
- Do not leave messages unanswered, and when meeting with your team, do not allow yourself any digital distractions.
- Valuing Visibly means not assuming people are OK.
- Instead, it means being proactive about explicitly showing that you understand their desires and value their participation.
Respect enables leaders to challenge a situation, not a person, and creates an environment where team members feel valued to engage in healthy, and even heated, conversations.
- Respect facilitates innovation and creativity by allowing leaders to tap into the power of diverse thinking and multiple perspectives.
- Disrespect is the silent killer of collaboration, initiative, and job satisfaction.
Value Visibly is easy to preach but a lot harder to embed in the modern workplace. There are many articles about establishing respect by building a code of ethics or remembering to greet people in the lift – but how does that translate to emails, Instant Messages (IMs), conference calls and video meetings? The inherently distant nature of these communication channels make disrespectful behaviours easy – even in live meetings.
Common Pet Peeves to Avoid
- Being in a rush: Sending a message without proofreading it. Trying to speed through a conference call (or video meeting) in order to get to the next one. Claiming you are “too busy” to check in with your teams.
- Not respecting others’ time: Double-booking meetings. Prioritizing your own schedule over other people’s during the scheduling process. Letting conference calls and video meetings run over scheduled end-times. Sending “urgent” emails that are in no way urgent. Allowing useless recurring meetings to remain on the calendar.
- Forgetting to show gratitude: Getting into the habit of written-only communication without including phone or video check-ins where teams can actually hear “Thank you.” Sending vague emails. Not crediting everyone on the team when sending in a deliverable.
- Multitasking during face-to-face and video meetings: “Just answering a quick text …” routinely halfway through meetings. Responding to emails and IMs on your laptop. Looking down at your phone when others are trying to make eye contact with you. Not putting your notifications on silent or vibrate mode during important discussions.
In the digital world it sometimes seems like we have too many options – and an equal number of opportunities for potential disaster. When should we email, and when is it better to send a text? When is a phone call expected? How long should we wait before answering a message? What is the right timeframe for digital thankyous or apologies? Too soon and you risk seeming careless or insincere; too late and you risk coming over as unfeeling. Do digital thankyous and apologies carry as much weight and significance as those delivered in person or by phone? It is no longer safe to assume that some “gets what we mean.” That also includes whether they feel we are Valuing them Visibly or not.
Value Visibly: The Principles
Considering our probably permanent transition to digital communications, more remote work, flatter team structures, and a more accelerated pace of change, the new principles of Valuing Visibly have never been more critical.
Reading Carefully is the New Listening: Whereas we once mainly talked and shared information across a table or phone line, we now converse in written form. Instead of listening as others share their ideas, we read what they have to say in an email or on another digital medium. The problem is that we comprehend less when reading on a screen than we do when reading print. We devote less time to reading an onscreen passage and are more inclined to multitask. We tend to skim and search instead of reading slowly and carefully.
One big reason that we read so poorly online is that we are typically moving at lightning speed. Instead of taking the time to carefully go through messages, we race through them towards an indeterminate finish line. Our need for speed leads to unclear exchanges – the digital equivalent of talking over each other. Are we really as busy as we think we are? We are just … not. A lot of our speed, and our anxiety around speed, is artificial. This ends up costing us accuracy, clarity, and respect. Even if you really are too busy to get back to people immediately, there are ways to show that you are not ignoring them. You can show respect by sending a quick note (e.g., Got it!) to let them know that you did receive their text or email and are on to it. You could give a ballpark estimate as to when you will be able to respond at greater length.
Always reference details in your communications. It shows that you put in the time to really read through the message, think about the issues and care about the work the other person did. The goal is to show that you have actually read other people’s messages by addressing all their relevant points and answering any and all questions. If that is not possible, let your colleagues know that you will get back to them with more answers when the time is right. That way they know that you are not ignoring the other items.
Writing Clearly is the new Empathy: Writing well and, above all, consciously, is a critical mark of respect. If you are the boss, be mindful of writing “think-alouds,” and separate them from true marching orders. If you are on the receiving end, do not be afraid to ask clarifying questions up front. A clarifying question is less embarrassing and time-consuming than a poor work product down the line.
When writing, do the little things. Check your tone and think about how your message may be perceived, especially based on your rank. Often, a misinterpreted email is the result of a dropped word or misleading punctuation mark. The solution is simple: Proofread your emails! Proofreading is both a habit and a skill: making it a point of pride to send unambiguous copy. This will help people take what you write more seriously.
A phone call is worth a thousand emails. Engaging in good phone conversations is fast becoming an obsolete art. This is too bad since a call can save lots of time while simultaneously generating goodwill. We cannot explain everything digitally!
If you have just received a vague or confusing text or email, do not be afraid to request a phone conversation or, if possible, a video or in-person meeting. If it is a sensitive dialogue, requesting a quick call shows that you are being thoughtful. Instead of making you look indecisive, waiting a few seconds before responding to questions shows the other person that you are listening and taking your work seriously. With so many written platforms available, we can also get caught up in asking too many questions in email or group chats. Phone, video, or live meetings safeguard us from filling our inboxes with one tiny question after the next, instead requiring us to formulate the right questions.
Value Visibly in Action
Practice Radical Recognition: The absence of respect can turn small details into big deals. When a host hijacks a meeting by not inviting (or allowing) anyone else to say something, they are short-changing themselves. By asking remote attendees to lead parts of the agenda, they feel valued, and everyone gets to know each other’s names, faces and presentation styles.
Create new norms and rituals to help ensure your company’s culture puts a premium on recognition and respect. CEO’s can send video messages to convey their gratitude. Monthly conference calls (or townhall video meetings) can give teams an opportunity to share their success stories. They can begin with an introduction of new attendees and a celebration of birthdays during that month. People will feel more engaged, more part of the mission, because they know just how well they are doing at every level. Expressions of gratitude and respect do not have to be fancy and formal. Typing four extra words – “thank you so much” – can yield amazing results.
Acknowledge Individual Differences: It is a greater challenge to meet the needs of both the introverts and extroverts in a team when using digital channels. Introverts may not participate in on phone calls or rapid email exchanges because the louder voices still monopolize the conversation. Teams are also less likely to share difficult news with a leader on team calls because they fear that it would sound disrespectful, as though they are throwing other team members “under the bus.”
One executive created a process following every monthly strategy call. She asks each team member to email her directly by the end of the week and answer two questions: “What is the bad news I do not want to hear?” and “What might we have missed in our last discussion?” Asking for bad news creates a regular space to speak up about challenges in the business. Introverts require more time to process ideas, and they are more likely to speak up in an email or one-on-one conversation. By giving them the space to think through the questions, this executive gets excellent insights that she would not have received in the meeting while reducing overall cultural groupthink. She is also aware of the different ways team members engage in conversation and goes out of her way to meet them where they are comfortable – during a one-on-one post-meeting call or at a small-group lunch. Bottom line: Everyone feels more respected.
Become a Meeting Ninja: Valuing Visibly requires you to literally “watch the clock.” When you do not respect others’ time in phone, video, or face-to-face meetings, it sends the implicit message that you do not value them at all. Design meetings with a clear agenda and plan to offer clear action steps at the end. This shows respect for your colleagues’ time while also communicating accountability. At the beginning of the meeting, say “What success looks like for this meeting is XYZ…” At the end, recap if you have achieved that success, or list what is missing.
At the start of every meeting or phone call, set aside five minutes to make introductions. Ask everyone to share one personal or professional update. This allows for increased vulnerability, familiarity, and trust and helps everyone involved understand where their colleagues are coming from. Distribute an agenda twenty-four hours before the meeting and encourage different members to lead a section of the meeting. Periodically ask for input instead of waiting until the end. Let everyone pitch in. On a phone call or virtual meeting, ban the mute button in order to minimize awkward pauses and multitasking.
Know when to exclude others from meetings in deference to their time. A Fortune 500 chief digital officer regularly removes senior leaders from recurring meeting invitations when their input is no longer needed. We all value our time, and showing respect for it has a significant impact on people’s happiness and overall commitment to work.
Ban Multitasking: It is dangerously easy to multitask during a phone or conference call (or video meeting). It reduces your active listening. A study reported that 65 percent of respondents admitted doing other work or sending emails while participating in conference calls. Leaders can ban the mute tool on all team calls. They should also try to plan meetings that are to-the-point and engaging so that participants are less tempted to let their minds wander. Become aware of the perils of multitasking and realise how it affects your own attention.
In the end, the goal of Value Visibly is very simple. It is all about making people feel appreciated in the workplace.
References Used:
- Dhawan E. Digital body language: How to build trust and connection, no matter the distance (2021)
- T. Frank H.A. Digital body language: How to build trust and win in the online world (2021)
