Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is about how to build and maintain close
Speaker 1: ties with people you mostly see virtually. In the past
Speaker 1: few weeks, plenty of people have been trying remote work
Speaker 1: for the first time. It's necessary under the circumstances, but
Speaker 1: I know that for many people there's an assumption that
Speaker 1: it's a poor substitute for an in person connection. Whole
Speaker 1: industries of business travel have been built around the idea
Speaker 1: that in order for people to work well and creatively together,
Speaker 1: they need to spend a lot of time face to face.
Speaker 1: As someone who's been working from home since two thousand two,
Speaker 1: I think this is kind of ridiculous. As one example,
Speaker 1: I co host my other podcast, Best of Both Worlds,
Speaker 1: with Sarah hart Unger, who's a practicing physician who lives
Speaker 1: in Floor It to I live in Pennsylvania. She and
Speaker 1: I have seen each other in person just half a
Speaker 1: dozen times over the last five years, but we have
Speaker 1: managed to start and run an enterprise together and have
Speaker 1: quite a bit of fun doing it. These things don't
Speaker 1: need to be either or I'm certainly not saying that
Speaker 1: you never need to see people in person, but we
Speaker 1: won't all be engaged in social distancing forever. When we
Speaker 1: are on the other side of this, we can all
Speaker 1: recalibrate what should happen in person and what really doesn't
Speaker 1: need to, thus saving time and wear and tear on
Speaker 1: our planet. So how do you maintain close virtual relationships?
Speaker 1: I found that video conferences are a key part of it.
Speaker 1: Sarah and I use Squadcast to record our podcasts, which
Speaker 1: allows us to see each other and our guests even
Speaker 1: though we're only recording audio. I have a Zoom Pro
Speaker 1: account to which I use all the time. FaceTime on
Speaker 1: your phone is good for one on one type stuff.
Speaker 1: Before there were good video conferencing options. It's true that
Speaker 1: remote work did feel more distant, but now this isn't
Speaker 1: true at all. And unless we're talking about someone you're
Speaker 1: planning on touching a lot. The human brain has no
Speaker 1: way of knowing that interacting with someone via video is
Speaker 1: different than interacting in person, because how would it know this.
Speaker 1: It's not like our caveman ancestors would have had a
Speaker 1: way to see people without them being right there. This
Speaker 1: is why people who are on television a lot report
Speaker 1: that when people see them on the street or in
Speaker 1: a restaurant, they act like they know them, as if
Speaker 1: the relationship is mutual rather than one way. It's kind
Speaker 1: of funny, but you can use that knowledge to your
Speaker 1: advantage whenever you possibly can do video calls. Yes, this
Speaker 1: means you need to build in time to brush your
Speaker 1: hair or shave, but so it goes as a side note,
Speaker 1: video calls massively cut down on the multitasking that happens
Speaker 1: during audio only calls. They're much more efficient. Second, build
Speaker 1: in socializing time into your video calls. Actually think it's
Speaker 1: wise to build in social time to meetings in general,
Speaker 1: but this is doubly important when you're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to grab a cup of coffee or go
Speaker 1: to lunch afterwards. I run one monthly video meeting where
Speaker 1: we usually start with an icebreaker question. If the agenda
Speaker 1: is planned well, you can still get through everything, and
Speaker 1: given that any meeting is as much about the relationship
Speaker 1: as the stated agenda, this is a good thing. Third,
Speaker 1: be more systematic about reaching out. The human brain doesn't
Speaker 1: naturally think of people that we don't see frequently. Again,
Speaker 1: that's just the way we're built if someone disappeared from
Speaker 1: our caveman tribe for six months, well, the odds weren't
Speaker 1: good that person was coming back. So in our modern world,
Speaker 1: you need a mechanism for thinking about the people you'd
Speaker 1: like to maintain relationships with, even if you're not physically
Speaker 1: seeing them all that often. Some people are kind of
Speaker 1: funny about this. I get regular emails from people at
Speaker 1: a certain time every three months, and I know that
Speaker 1: they've probably made it a goal to reach out to
Speaker 1: the people in their networks every quarter. Yes, kind of humorous,
Speaker 1: but it's also effective. I remember these people. Frequency of
Speaker 1: contact makes you feel closer than you might actually be,
Speaker 1: So build in time to go through lists of your
Speaker 1: social media connections, old colleagues, people on your Christmas card lists, whatever.
Speaker 1: If you can come up with a decent reason to
Speaker 1: send a note, then do so. And of course, take
Speaker 1: advantage of random opportunities to subscribe to lots of industry newsletters,
Speaker 1: and anytime you see someone mentioned that you know, reach out. Well,
Speaker 1: none of this means that we never need to see
Speaker 1: people in person. I found that these in person meetings
Speaker 1: can be relatively infrequent and you can still feel quite close.
Speaker 1: I have a small Mastermind group that have run for
Speaker 1: a while, and I realized that I can count on
Speaker 1: one hand the number of times I've seen its members
Speaker 1: in person in the past five years. I would consider
Speaker 1: all of them my good friends and colleagues. I believe
Speaker 1: they'd say the same about me. All this self isolation
Speaker 1: doesn't actually have to be isolating if you're smart about it.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your tips for staying in touch virtually.
Speaker 1: You can keep in touch with me virtually by emailing
Speaker 1: me at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeart media dot com.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod
Speaker 1: that's B the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeart media dot com. That Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I
Speaker 1: look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I heart radio, app, Apple podcasts,
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