Telephone Calls By Appointment Only

About 10 years ago, I wrote an article noting that in the real estate and larger business worlds, people seemed to be moving away from making spontaneous phone calls. Instead, phone calls had often become the subject of elaborate planning and preparation, all via email. Two people might need 20 emails to agree on the need for a phone call, the agenda of that call, the right time to convene it, and who would actually originate the call. Then, when the momentous scheduled time arrived for the phone call, it often didn’t work out because something else happened. In my article, I suggested that it might make sense to pretend it’s 1974, and to just pick up the phone and call someone.

The world did not follow my suggestion. Instead, in the years since, email has continued to grow in importance. Today, telephone calls are less common than ever and more of an organizational big deal. I receive more and more emails asking permission to have a telephone conversation.