Which means I like detail and routine and ideas. I’m a high-C on the DISC profile. Which means my e-mails sometimes tend to the long side. Longer than they need to be. In retrospect I use writing to think through problems sometimes.
Then one day my boss did me a favour. He expressed his frustration with having to pick through the thicket of my thinking to figure out what I was trying to say. We were working on some mildly interesting military communications kind of stuff so there was a fair degree of thinking involved. He was a high-D type, and not much one for needing to know all the details. He usually just wanted the bottom line. If he needed to understand how we’d gotten to a particular conclusion he just called me in fora a face-to-face conversation anyway.
Where’s Your Point?
After that I took my conclusions, recommendations, and decisions, drop them into one sentence at the beginning of my e-mail. It wasn’t exactly deliberate feedback on his part, but I found a nugget in his venting. I realized having to dig out my point and put it at the beginning forced me to think about what that point might actually be. Even I had a hard time finding it sometimes.
E-mail is a great medium for communicating simple, non-emotional information. Beyond that it’s missing the 85% of facial expression, body language, tone of voice, and eye contact that most people use to communicate. Hilarious misunderstandings can sometimes ensue. Just ask my wife.
I’ve learned.that if my e-mail is going past a page, it’s easier to pick up the phone and talk. Or I send an e-mail asking to set up a time to talk.
Your Actions:
- Keep your e-mails short. One page is a good rule-of-thumb.
- Put your point at or near the beginning
- Avoid emotional or heated discussions via e-mail. Phone or even face-to-face is best, and it’ll be faster. Really.
- Keep your audience in mind. How do they prefer to be communicated to?
Discussion:
Ever written an e-mail that had exactly the opposite effect from that which you intended? Care to share your story? If two people share theirs on my blog, then I’ll share mine!
Other Reading
You Talk Too Much
The Lost Art of Brevity – Mike Myatt, N2Growth blog
Your Emails Are Too Long – Leo Babauta, Zen Habits blog
Quiet Leadership – Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work – by David Rock
