Stop Checking Email While You’re on the Phone

How would you like it if you met someone for the first time and while you were speaking, they were scrolling through their email, looking at new emails and sending a few responses? Doesn’t sound very appealing, does it? How would that make you feel?
How is this any different from you or anyone else doing the exact same thing during a phone conversation? You have two people meeting for the first time, feeling each other out and seeing if they can form a mutually beneficial relationship. If each person is not giving the other their complete and undivided attention, how is that going to happen to its fullest potential?

Look, I get it. We’re all busy and we have to manage our email, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts. That takes time. But think about this way. How many meetings, documents and issues does President Obama have to attend, think about and process on a daily basis. If he can focus exclusively on the matter at hand, why can’t you? Do you think he was checking his Twitter feed while watching Navy Seals take down Osama bin Laden?
Also, are you really using your time effectively if you’re trying to do two things at once? Research would say otherwise and here’s a video explaining that effective multi-tasking is a myth.

When you’re checking email while speaking with someone, you’re not truly in the present. You aren’t focused and you aren’t learning as much from the conversation as you could were you solely focused on the speaker. What a person doesn’t say is just as important, if not more important, than what they do say. Gaps, pauses, pitch, tone, volume. This all matters. So do good follow up questions. Have you ever been looking at an email while on the phone and your mind starts to wander? Suddenly you’re lost and have to BS your way back into the conversation. You just lost a great opportunity to connect and the other person may have sensed the fact your mind was elsewhere.

This is all coming from a reformed simultaneous talker/emailer. When I was younger, I thought I could do it all. Do 5 things at once. Take the world over 5 times faster. But then I realized I was getting sloppy. I was missing things. After reading a number of books and speaking with some of my mentors, I realized the secret to success is to do less, not more. Focus on one thing at a time and do it well. Email can be very impersonal and there is no context so when it comes down to it, I’d rather speak with a person versus emailing them, ten times out of ten. Rest assured that if we do speak, you’ll have my complete and undivided attention.

Conor Nicholson is the Founder and CEO of NSS RPO, a consulting firm that provides on-site and virtual recruiting professionals. Contact NSS RPO to learn about how we can help your organization meet and exceed it’s hiring goals.