Laura, Euna and Bill
When Laura Ling and Euna Lee walked off a plane in Burbank, California after being detained in North Korea for nearly five months, there were cheers and tears. As former President Bill Clinton deboarded, the cheers escalated. Afterall, he (along with many others behind the scenes) had secured the release of the young journalists, and had come face-to-face with North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il. Minutes later, President Obama briefly voiced his delight with this “humanitarian mission”, being sure to keep this saga separate from the current tensions regarding nuclear proliferation issues.
Just a humanitarian mission. I beg to differ. One does not just negotiate with North Korea. It’s too early to judge the full impact of this episode, but we can’t underestimate the fact that a former president (a publicly savy one) visited North Korea. Nor can we put a price on the value of this particular face-to-face meeting. While criticism has been leveled around the series of events that lead to the women being freed, and it will be debated, it still touches on the value of human contact in an era of internet communication and business transactions.
The Face-to-Face Meeting Deconstructed
Sensory overload, distraction, the attention crash, the recession: no matter the verbiage or reason – human contact, those face-to-face meetings have gone the way side. In a white paper by Professor Richard Arvey P.h.D.(Business School, National University of Singapore) entitled Why Face-To-Face Business Meetings Matter, Arvey examines the following:
- The ailments which have been associated with the “business meeting”
- The culprits which have fueled the demise of those personal meetings
- The business advantages of face-to-face business meetings.
It’s the last point that is worth diving into. In our internet age, which values the ability to master the web, are we sacrificing human interaction and value of one-on-one negotiation in our business dealings – to the detriment of profitable business? In Arvey’s white paper he lists a number of studies which found that just might be the case as he states,
“From simply a business perspective, research has also demonstrated the superiority of business meetings compared to electronic communication devices in the context of decision-making.”
Arvey states some significant benefits to face-to-face communication, here are a few that might have applied in Clinton’s North Korean negotiations:
- Face-to-face meetings allow members to engage in and observe verbal and non-verbal behavioral styles not captured in most computer communication devises. There are nuances associated with hand gestures, voice quality and volume, facial expressions, and so forth that are simply not captured in email discussion, chat rooms, and the like.
- Face-to-face meetings occur in “real time” as opposed to non-synchronized time. Computer mediated communications often are delayed because of a variety of reasons, not always received, and sometimes disrupted because of technical problems.
- Face-to-face business meetings provide human contact among members. Human contact is a primitive need among human beings. We are social creatures and isolation is harmful.
- Face-to-Face meetings allow participants opportunities to develop important exchange relationships among themselves. These exchanges can be in the form of business negotiations, personal favors, promises, understandings, etc. that cannot often be achieved via other forms of communication because of their personal and informal nature.
It’s highly unlikely that when former President Bill Clinton left for North Korea that there was even a remote chance of him returning without Lisa Ling and Euna Lee. Arguably most of the talking had been done prior to his departure, but it doesn’t mean that his influence in person didn’t have some impact in the smooth transition.
The bigger picture here is whether Mr. Clinton was able to open a new window of influence by showing up in person in a time of tension between the U-S and North Korea. Many political pundits shun the scenario stating it would be like negotiating with terrorists to take such personal tactics beyond the “humanitarian mission”. But this blip on the screen of political posturing could play out as a snapshot of what’s to come on the international stage.
As tensions mount and North Korea’s Kim Jong Il’s health grows worse, how far will the U-S go to negotiate with North Korea? We might see action sooner than later. Word is, transition might be on the way as Kim Jong Il may soon pass his power to his son. One thing is for sure, I suspect he’ll do that in person, not in an e-mail.
