Take The Flight: Reclaiming Interpersonal Connection In The Workplace

For 22 years, Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport (ATL) held the top spot in the world for the number of passengers moving through its terminals en route to domestic and international destinations. By 2019, the number was 100+ million passengers per year, with many of these travelers catching connecting flights to business destinations.

Then, 2020 arrived. Cue the worldwide pandemic, remote work, and a massive decline in airline traffic. In 2020, China’s Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport pushed ATL down to the second spot due, almost entirely, to ATL’s Covid-induced 61% decline in traffic. This year, ATL is well-positioned to reclaim the No. 1 spot. Even in an era of hybrid work, face-to-face interactions with clients, vendors, and other parties remain the best way to sell, negotiate, collaborate and build trust between parties.

In early 2021, Robert Hooijberg and Michael Watkins of Capella’s IMD Business school audaciously asked, “When Do We Really Need Face-to-Face Interactions?” Recognizing that lockdowns and restricted travel curtailed the possibility of embodied business meetings, Hooijberg and Watkins were simply saying what we were all pondering at the time: “Can our organizations thrive if we never actually sit across the table from our stakeholders again?”

At the time, Hooijberg and Watkins envisioned what’s become reality for most of us—a blending of the remote and the in-person. “While we will likely never go back to our pre-crisis status quo,” the Capella professors surmised, “we imagine the future will be a blended one that leverages the best of what both virtual and face-to-face experiences can offer.” What does virtual offer? The spaciousness to do magnificent work while reclaiming personal time. And face-to-face? Connection, a change of pace and, as I mentioned earlier, the opportunity to build trust among stakeholders.

Connection

René Siegel, CEO of Silicon Valley’s Connext and a professor of public relations at San Jose State University, believes that no matter what kind of business one works in, all workers are ultimately in the people business. Indeed, studies continue to demonstrate that physical handshakes promote cooperation among parties and foster positive negotiation outcomes.

In a recent study conducted by MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab, the data showed that “35 percent of the variation in a given team’s performance was explained by the number of times team members actually spoke face-to-face.” Anecdotally, I know that a drink or dinner with a client, colleague or even a competitor opens the door for intimate conversation, deals and the exchange of important information.

Change Of Pace

The last time I checked, ATL served 215 destinations daily. With Hartsfield as your connection point, you can catch New Orleans street jazz and a beignet in the morning and have a New York Strip in midtown by evening. Variety, they say, is the spice of life.

Face-to-face interactions provide variety in one’s working life, a needed change of pace to sharpen skills, glean wisdom, experiment, share some great lessons and recharge. Face-to-face interactions that happen outside of the office are particularly beneficial. There’s a reason we all love a conference or trade show, especially when it is held in a great destination that’s more than driving distance from the office.

Trust Building

Through her study of 3,000 senior knowledge workers, Heidi Gardner of Harvard Law identified two kinds of trust that will make or break a working relationship. First, people must believe that others have high integrity and good intentions. Second, people need to believe that co-workers and stakeholders will deliver high-quality work. Predictability is the foundation of trust.

While work output is a good predictor of work ethic and integrity, face-to-face interactions are especially helpful in learning about another’s motivations and intent. Because we are wired to be relational beings, we are adept at gauging and building trust when we are together. While remote meetings and digital communication are helpful tools in getting work done, strong, trust-infused bonds are where we get to know a person’s heart.

Take The Flight

While many of us love to work remotely with pajama bottoms on (or Lululemon, if you’re like me) and our favorite tea in hand, there are times—perhaps many times—we need to be together in an embodied way. Go out for a team dinner. Bring your team together for an in-person check-in and happy hour. Take the flight to the conference. I’ll wave to you in Atlanta.