SPEAKER SAVVY -- The Lost Art of Interpersonal Communcation

I'm disturbed about a story I read in Forbes over the weekend that shows a trend among younger employees to rely on email and text messaging to communicate not only with co-worker...but with older bosses, who can't understand why their young recruits, for all their brains and technical skill, hardly ever come over and actually talk to them.

We're running into a critical time in the business world where the next generation of leaders might not have a clue how to interact face-to-face, a skill that most experts will tell you is a key to success. Here's an example from the Forbes article:

"Ruth Sherman, a communications consultant says common complaints about younger workers range from lame handshakes and poor conversational skills to super-casual attire and personal use of company e-mail. Some show up at job interviews in tee shirts. What the Gen Yers don't see, she says, is the meaning and value of gestures and other nonverbal skills that don't come through in a text message."

Advice to the under-30 people who aspire to management--want to get a huge leg up on your competition? Learn how to handle in-person interaction. Understand that there's a difference between chatting with your buddies and talking to the CEO. Use complete sentences in your written correspondance and remember that Googling doesn't necessarily qualify as research.

Otherwise, you're going to spend most of your career stuck in a cubicle. With a serious case of Blackberry Thumb.