Videoconferencing Psychology

[Michael Sabin]

Whats the role of video in effective business communications ? Video is a key enabler to enhance collaboration between team members who are geographically separated, as well as customers around the globe. The research, presented at Cisco Networkers 2009 in Barcelona, attempted to answer about this and to identify the skills and best practices needed to make the most of the technology, and the potential barriers. Video conferencing is being touted as a potential way of helping organisations meet the challenges of reducing costs, enhancing productivity and minimising environmental impact. The study also found that, compared to traditional voice or text-only communication, the video can help to reduce the impact of culture and personality conflicts to diminish. However, it may also concern and self-consciousness increase mean that the companies should help employees develop the right skills for the majority of these tools.

According to the leader of the research team, Mr. Stuart Duff, head of development at Pearn Kandola, "Over the past decade a lot of acquisitions have occurred and a lot of organizations have globalized, meaning that they have offices that cross many cultural and geographic boundaries. In a phone conversation a pause can mean any number of different things, such as disagreement, boredom, reflection or even agreement. But with visuals added it immediately becomes clearer what a pause means".

The research also revealed that confidence is the single largest factor if it is important distant teams, and that technologies such as videoconferencing can help teams in close contact and trust between geographically separated groups to build.

[Flux]

Finally, the study revealed that visual input can be invaluable when the intersection of cultural watersheds, particularly in situations where the hierarchy is very different views. The report emphasized the contrast between people of places like Japan and Germany, for example, where a typical strict and highly respectful adhere chain of command, and tends to flatter and leveled environment.

According to this study only seven per cent of our understanding comes from pure words, and that 40 per cent is gleaned from the tone of the voice and 53 per cent from visual cues. In addition, Duff said that "If you don't have visual cues, you may be denying yourself half the opportunity to communicate messages."There is some debate as to the accuracy of these percentages, but the consensus is that much of our intonation is non-verbal.