Traveling again
Dr. Selim Erhan | TLT From the Editor October 2021
One only knows when one feels the invisible power of human interaction.
When we interact with another person, our powerful subconscious contributes to an evaluation that builds up trust and make us feel comfortable or uncomfortable.
After a year of attending virtual meetings, many people started visiting customers and attending conferences this year. It is amazing how adaptive people are—how we find ways to manage in every situation and start making the best of it. But not always the best that can be achieved! When in-person interactions opened up, I realized how much I had been missing them. I would say, in my case, more than 90% of the information I could have obtained was lost. At first that looks like a large number since we had virtual conferences, chats and online meetings. There also is a significant amount of information available on the internet. What was missing was the power of face-to-face interactions, the human bond, the opening up to a person that had taken the trouble to leave the comforts of their environment to interact with us, the following appreciation and the mutual respect that establishes a base for a warm communication.
Once I started traveling and meeting people again, each interaction led to conversations and brainstorming followed by a cascade of information that neither side had expected before the meeting. Issues that kept getting lost in emails were solved, and projects that had stalled went back on track and started moving. The mutual desire to find solutions powered actions.
When we interact with another person, our powerful subconscious contributes to an evaluation that builds up trust and make us feel comfortable or uncomfortable. In any case, we become content with the feeling. It is a practice that was established thousands of years ago when there was no other way to judge a person other than having a conversation. When one travels to older countries, this desire to have a friendly conversation upfront is sometimes seen as an unnecessary loss of time. Today, with many technical tools, facts can be quickly presented, decisions can be made fast and parties can go on to their own way in a short time. But then that is all we get—an efficient transaction. Next time we meet, it is again a cold call. There is no history, nothing to fall back on and no particular pleasure that would have lingered from the previous engagement if it had been done with a bit of “wasted time.”
My wife and I once bought two carpets during a vacation when we had no intention of doing so. A curious pause in front of a carpet store led to a warm welcome, followed by an offering of tea and coffee and a comfortable seat in the shade. With a perfectly honed approach, the salesman comfortably displayed samples of beautiful merchandise at our feet. We knew what he was doing, but it was wonderful to watch how he displayed a gentle win-win solution. A second tea gave us time to think without pressure and focus on the decision at hand! We still enjoy not only the carpets but the warm feelings that came with them. It is completely different than the recollection of buying a carpet from IKEA or online.
This is a difficult concept to explain. One only knows when one feels the invisible power of human interaction. Most of us are so frustrated that our children only text, seldom call and hardly visit! So much information is lost.
But, not to worry. We are getting back on track and still have time to retrieve what is waiting for us! Happy travels.
Dr. Selim Erhan is director of business development for Process Oils Inc. in Trout Valley, Ill. You can reach him at serhan@processoilsinc.com.