Email in context: my top ten tips
22 October 2012
In a previous post, I offered ten top tips for writing emails. Here are ten more, putting email in context: how to think about email as one communication channel among many.
1. Sharing information is not communicating.
2. Busyness is not an excuse.
3. Use all communication channels efficiently.
4. Tell everyone at the same time.
5. Don’t use email to give bad news.
6. Think about your reader’s communication style.
7. Understand before being understood.
8. Complex words make complex communication.
9. Be yourself.
10. Search for feedback and give feedback.
My thanks to Sebasien Wiertz for writing the blog piece that inspired this one.
1. Sharing information is not communicating.
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
George Bernard Shaw
This is the first and last rule. Don’t assume that sending an email solves your communication problem.
We’re all prone to the transmission fallacy: the belief that communication consists in sending information. True communication is the sharing of meaning. For us to know that we’ve shared meaning, we have to engage in conversations. If you really want to share important information, prefer a phone call or a meeting. If you must write an email, plan it carefully: identify your objective, your audience and your message.
2. Busyness is not an excuse.
He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.
Rabindranath Tagore
The first rule was about sending. This one’s about receiving.
Manage your time. Don’t ignore your emails, and don’t be distracted by every single mail that drops into your inbox.
Allocate time for email work: one hour, maybe, three times a day. If someone is using email to contact you about a seriously urgent matter, they should expect you to delay replying for at least a couple of hours. If necessary, tell people about your email regime, so that they know what to expect.
Being busy is no excuse for communicating poorly.
3. Use all communication channels efficiently.
Email, instant messaging, and cell phones give us fabulous communication ability, but because we live and work in our own little worlds, that communication is totally disorganized.
Marilyn vos Savant
We’ve many communication channels at our disposal. Use them, and use them well. If an email thread starts to unravel, pick up the phone. If the matter’s urgent, use instant messages or texts and look out for replies. If you want to record the phone conversation or keep track of the resolution of the topic discussed, summarize the phone conversation in an email (or a quick note).
4. Tell everyone at the same time.
Nothing is swifter than rumour.
Horace
When you’re sharing information by email, include everyone who needs to know. And nobody else.
Selective communication is one of the chief causes of rumour – which is by far the most effective communication channel in any community or organisation. Make sure that you’re not responsible for starting damaging rumours; distribute information fairly and efficiently. And if you need to gain commitment or deeper understanding, call a meeting.
5. Don’t use email to give bad news.
Bad news isn’t wine. It doesn’t improve with age.
Colin Powell
Email is not for bad news. Don’t hide behind it.
Nothing damages morale more than receiving bad news in your inbox. Not only will it create misinformation, it foments rumour (see above!) and generates a powerfully negative reputation for the sender – one that may persist for years.
Take the courage to deliver bad news personally. You’ll gain enormous respect. Of course, if you can turn bad news into good news somehow, you may gain even more support from those you lead.
6. Think about your reader’s communication style.
To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.
Anthony Robbins
If you’re writing an email, think primarily about your reader.
Do they need to see the whole picture or all the details? How do they like to see information? If the information is complex, consider drafting an accompanying document and attaching it.
How can you build a more effective relationship with them? All this matters especially across cultural barriers. Don’t worry about being absolutely correct; it’s more important to show that you’re trying to be respectful than to get every detail of etiquette correct.
7. Understand before being understood.
The most important thing in communication is to hear what is not being said.
Peter F.Drucker
As someone else said (was it St Augustine?): seek first to understand, then to be understood.
Not easy with email.
Unless, of course, you use an email to enquire rather than advocate. Ask questions; find out what the reader wants; check that they have all they need; offer help. Find out why they need to know, what they need to know, and how they’d like to know – and then seek to be understood.
This point is also of critical importance in the international arena, where language issues can create ‘noise’. Email can be an excellent way to summarize and confirm information and ideas in a previous phone conversation or meeting.
8. Complex words make complex communication.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo da Vinci
Keep it as short as necessary.
If the reader needs to scroll down to read your email, then it’s probably too long. And if they have to use a dictionary to understand it, then it’s too complicated.
English is unique among world languages in having a huge vocabulary, principally the result of its history as a hybrid language. From all the different tongues that have contributed to modern English, the language has acquired many pairs or triplets of words meaning roughly (or approximately) the same (or equivalent) thing (or matter).
As a very general rule, prefer short words to long ones. Prefer familiar words to rare ones. Communicating isn’t about showing your good education and using a thesaurus to find fancy language.
Having said that, longer words may sometimes be more specific in their meaning than shorter ones. For instance: your reader may understand you better if you ask whether they can attend a meeting, rather than whether they can make it.
Be careful with abbreviations, acronyms and technical jargon. If you must use them, explain them.
9. Be yourself.
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.
Andre Gide
Don't pretend to be someone you’re not. (Hopefully, despite Gide's words, you won't be hated for being yourself.)
Email is a powerful example of the growing closeness of written English to spoken English. As you draft your email, imagine speaking to the reader and write down what you would say. Avoid writing sentences that you would never speak.
But don’t forget to plan what you want to say first, and edit it afterwards. Never send an email without editing it.
10. Search for feedback and give feedback.
I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.
Maya Angelou
How will you know that you’ve communicated? That your emails have worked? Check which of your emails have led to requests for clarification or further information.
By the same token, offer positive feedback to other email users. Always assume that their intention was positive – especially when it seems to have been negative and you felt like flaming back. Offer positive and constructive feedback and ask for others to critique your own emails. Open up the communication channels!
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