I have been forming in my mind a series of essays called “Everything I Ever Needed to Know, I learned in Freshman Chemistry”. As I was working on my PhD, I taught freshman chemistry every semester. I truly enjoyed the teaching but also began to see that virtually every theory you learn in that survey course has an element (pun intended) broadly applicable to life. They don’t call it a Doctorate in Philosophy for nothing. From the Laws of Thermodynamics through Quantum Mechanics, there is always something important we can learn about life if we think about that theory in a broader context.
Today, I want to share one piece of advice about communication that I often gave to mentees (still do, in fact). It is related to the concept of the half-life of a radioactive element. Really. Let me explain. All radioactive elements decay over time, meaning they release subatomic particles and energy and become a more stable element. If you control this process, you can use that released energy to generate electricity. If you choose not to control the process, you can level cities in seconds. The graph that accompanies this essay demonstrates how this process can be viewed: the amount of the element remaining over a period of time drops exponentially; how fast this happens–the rate constant–is characteristic of that element. The time that it takes for half of the starting quantity of the element to decay is called its half-life. This concept is very useful, actually, in thinking about human interaction. I call this law the “Half Life of Effective Communication”.
When I first formulated this theory, there were limited means of communicating with someone. You could meet face-to-face, of course. You could talk on the telephone or leave voice messages. You could send letters, emails, faxes. That was about it. Texting came later, as did video conferences and now virtual and augmented reality. I began to realize that it was those face-to-face meetings that drove the quality of the relationship between individuals and my theory took shape: the effectiveness of communication via telephone, email, etc. decays exponentially since the last time you met with that person face-to-face. Additionally, the rate constant—or how fast that effectiveness decays—is a function of the relationship depth between the two individuals. If I’ve known you for a long time or if we worked next door to each other for a while, then one face-to-face visit will mean fun phone calls and preferential email attention for quite some time. If I’ve never met you or barely know you or it’s been ages since I saw you, then don’t expect preferential response. You are just less on my radar. While I admit to being very face-to-face oriented, I have found that most people are like to this at least to a degree.
Here is one way this plays out for me and this requires a bit of a confession: I really, really hate talking on the phone. I hate calling people I don’t know. I hate calling people I do know. I hate the phone. Whenever I want to be a really good partner to Trish, I volunteer to call and order the pizza. I’m still trying to convince her that is an effort worth recognizing. If you get a phone call from me, know that I’ve had to work up a certain amount of courage and/or overcome a significant amount of “eh” to dial you. If I actually answer the phone when you call me, consider it a small miracle (unless we’ve arranged a time for a chat and I’ve had a chance to prepare myself emotionally). I just hate talking on the phone. But if I recently saw you, I still have warm fuzzies from that personal interaction. Picking up the phone feels like continuing that recent face-to-face. It’s easy.
When you think about it, this theory makes sense. We humans have at least five senses (many consider intuition a sixth sense and who knows what else our bodies may be doing that we don’t yet know about). However, in phone calls we are using only one of those senses—hearing. You have the advantage of hearing tone, but you get no body language. In the written word, which we have become increasingly reliant on, we are using only sight in the form of reading. Not only are you not getting body language, you are not even getting tone (no matter how many emoticons someone uses). And we wonder why there is so much miscommunication! In person, we use sight, hearing, smell, touch, maybe even taste as an adjunct to smell. And our intuition is in overdrive, pulling on data from these senses and more. Relationships are built on all these data. In fact, they require all this information to get a holistic picture.
What happens if you are only using sight (in the form of reading) and maybe sound? Your brain fills in the gaps with assumptions. And you all certainly know how I feel about assumptions! How many times have you begun a relationship with a colleague by phone or email and when you finally meet them they are totally different from what you had pictured in your mind? Or a long distance working relationship seems rocky but YOU HAVE NEVER EVEN MET? There IS no relationship yet. How many times have you tried conflict resolution by email? Did that ever work for you? This phenomenon is even worse in our personal life, either on-line dating or social media, when people purposely try to show you only a small part of who they really are.
When video conferencing first came out, it was marketed as a way for companies to save money on travel since it would be “just like being there”. Except that it isn’t, even while increases in bandwidth have smoothed out early jerky movements. I worry that virtual and augmented reality are being touted anew as substitutes for being there IRL (in real life). We rely so much on social media for connection, but even Facebook is most effective with those with whom you have a deep personal relationship. There truly IS no substitute for IRL for honest relationship building. These other tools are all wonderful for extending the effectiveness of getting together face-to-face, but they can’t replace it.
I remember a commercial many years ago for some airline. The Big Boss had called his subordinates into a conference room and talked about how doing business had changed. They were doing so much more by phone and email and less in front of their customers face-to-face. In fact, he had recently gotten berated by an old friend and longtime customer for that lack of attention. He then tossed airline tickets on the table to each person, sending each out to see a key client. He held up his own ticket—one to go visit that old friend. Corny and self-serving to be sure—but with a big dose of truth. We MUST get face-to-face to build and maintain relationships. Don’t shy away from calls, emails, texts, video conferences, VR/AR–but remember the Law of The Half Life of Effective Communication.
William Styron (Sophie’s Choice, The confessions of Nat Turner) was the commencement speaker at my graduation. He started his by explaining the concept of the half life of a speech – how long it takes half the people to forget half of what you said. Most speeches, he said, have a negative half-life, in that half the people in the audience have already decided not to listen to you before you even start talking!
Another good read Sherri. So relevant and you nailed the challenge of communication!
Very true !
Loved it !
Great read! I had a high school chemistry & physics teacher who said “The half life of unused knowledge is three days.” This is the only thing I really remember learning from her, and I’ve found it to be true over and over again in the four decades since I graduated. I’m definitely adding your effective communication concept to my radioactive decay “philosophies” for life going forward.
Sherri-
Another thought provoking essay by a thought provoking colleague.
I very much agree with you on face to face. I have found that negotiations, at least on difficult issues, can not be well done over the phone or even video links. Just does not work. Communications is information flow, and there are many avenues of information flow between complicated beasts like we humans. Its interesting to note how multiple pathway communications work in complicated situations. Body language is of course an important part of communications and is missed if done only through video or phone. I have had the opportunity to negotiate with Japanese people. I have found that, if compared to western rules of body language, there is a difference. If our societal rules are different, we can more easily miss the cues and a successful negotiation can be more difficult. Even verbally, as we were taught at APCI, a Japanese “yes” means “I here you”, when in the west, “yes” usually means “I agree”. Surprisingly, I find a more western flavor to body language with my non-Japanese yet Asian colleagues.
Another aspect of communication, often most critical to those in leadership roles, is implicit messages rather than explicate words or writings. Leaders often understand the importance of these implicit messages. At times the message that they are trying to convey they don’t want to explicitly state. Nixon, as one politician who screwed it up, was famous for saying “he was not a crook”. Of course, once he said this, everyone thought he was, since he “protest to much”. A really effective leader conveys some messages more indirectly. If these messages are communicated well, they are very powerful, because the audience receives the message as their own conclusion and not necessarily the conclusion of the leader. When listening to his general a soldier about to enter battle, who himself concludes that he will survive without being told by the general that he will survive (or more likely won’t die, when there is a good chance he will) will most likely have a better chance of survival. I’ll give you a more relevant experience that I’m sure we have both encountered. I remember having to present technical results that in fact were discouraging. I had, however, full confidence in our ability in the long-term to solve the problem. The message conveyed needed to be one of technical competence, many opportunities to pursue, and strong likelihood of success. These were the messages we needed to convey, but wanted our fellow sponsors to come to this conclusion without being explicitly told. We knew our colleagues from another company had to tell their bosses that they believed we would be successful, not that we believed it., which was also true but not necessarily objective. They did, we continued to get everyone’s funding and was successful.
I don’t know very much about your personal experiences, but I went through a divorce and I’ll tell you, I certainly did not need to here explicitly the trouble my marriage was in, there were tons of implicit messages flying around, and often for one who was trying to save a relationship, every little implicit sign becomes a signal of failure. Yet, on the other hand, in a new relationship a simple touch can be so profound in its meaning. Implicit messages are an important and often more believable part of the whole communication package. We are such complicated souls, and the art of successful communication at times is so complex, but at others times very simple.
Enjoyed your latest .
Best to you, Doug
Wonderful observations and insight, Doug! Thanks for sharing them.