Remember this term!

Media richness theory, introduced by Richard L. Daft and Robert H. Lengel in 1986, holds that some methods of communication reproduce information much more effectively than others. For example, there is more media richness when two people speak face to face rather than one person responding to another on social media. Think how much is lost or misinterpreted in the second case.

So when it’s time to tell your people about major changes or big news, and you have an urge to fall back on email or memos, embed that term in your mind: media richness. As technology has given us wondrous new ideas to communicate quickly and widely, media richness may actually cost in real ways as people connect remotely and secondhand. Big news simply demands a face.