![An old-fashioned typewriter An old-fashioned typewriter](../images/typewriter.png)
An old-fashioned typewriter. When sending messages was more difficult than it is today, people took more time with their writing. Now that sending messages is so convenient, we tend to write more carelessly.
Image by G.C., courtesy Pixabay.
Knowing where you're likely to run into trouble is often the only knowledge you need to avoid it. For example, wandering about your residence in the middle of the night in the dark isn't dangerous if you know the layout well, and if you know where you're likely to trip over something. And even a little bit of light helps a lot.
So it is with communicating by email or text message. This post and the next describe a few of the traps most likely to lead to trouble in these text-based communication media. Here are two of them.
- Rushing to send
- If urgency requires that a message be composed and sent quickly, trading away accuracy for speed is a bad trade. Sending the wrong message quickly doesn't get the job done. I'm not thinking here about typographical errors alone, though they are indeed problematic. Typing "2 PM" when you meant "1 PM" can create a real mess.
- But by any If urgency requires that a message be
composed and sent quickly, trading away
accuracy for speed is a bad trademeasure the more serious problems are those that cause lasting damage to relationships. Omitting someone from the "To" list is an example of a minor slip that can have major consequences for relationships. - Following is a procedure for composing the message you actually meant to compose. Note that in some circumstances, it contains a loop from Step 5 back to Step 2.
- Write what you meant to write. Of course, you might make mistakes, but we'll get to that next.
- Read it after you write it. Make corrections if necessary.
- Let some time pass or do something else to freshen your brain. Two minutes is enough, but take more time if the message is really important.
- Read the message again. If you find something you want to change, change it.
- If you made no changes in Step 2 or Step 4, go to Step 6. If you changed anything in Step 2 or Step 4, set the message aside for a few minutes and do something else to refresh your brain. Then go to Step 2 and resume.
- If you get to this point and you feel good about the message, send it.
- This process might seem at first to be too cumbersome for urgent messages. But it's way faster than cleaning up the mess that a wrong message can create.
- Using relative dates or times
- Don't rely on relative indications of dates or times — terms such as today, tomorrow, yesterday, this afternoon, soon, after the staff meeting, and so on. The problem with relative dates and times is that they're subject to misunderstanding when you read the message at some point in the future. In the future, the message is a historical artifact. At that point, the reader is likely researching the history of something. And the reader might not immediately know the ending time of the staff meeting, or what "tomorrow" was when the message was written. Compare these two: "Tomorrow (Wednesday 3 March 1600 Eastern)" and "Tomorrow right after the staff meeting."
- Confusion can arise in other ways, too, when dates and times are stated in relative terms. For example, when communicating with people who are several time zones distant, the term "tomorrow" can have multiple meanings. Citing times in specific time zones is usually safe, but you can make the practice even safer by citing times by city rather than time zone. Using a time zone can be a source of risk around the biennial switches to or from summer time. Citing time by city can be safer if everyone knows the time in, say, New York or Bangalore.
Last words
Gosh, I surely hope this post contains no obvious errors. I did apply the six-step procedure described above, but no procedure is perfect. Fingers crossed. Meanwhile, next time, I'll explore four more traps we might encounter when composing email or text messages. Next issue in this series
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Are you so buried in email that you don't even have time to delete your spam? Do you miss important messages? So many of the problems we have with email are actually within our power to solve, if we just realize the consequences of our own actions. Read 101 Tips for Writing and Managing Email to learn how to make peace with your inbox. Order Now!
And if you have organizational responsibility, you can help transform the culture to make more effective use of email. You can reduce volume while you make content more valuable. You can discourage email flame wars and that blizzard of useless if well-intended messages from colleagues and subordinates. Read Where There's Smoke There's Email to learn how to make email more productive at the organizational scale — and less dangerous. Order Now!
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Related articles
More articles on Effective Communication at Work:
Begging the Question
- Begging the question is a common, usually undetected, rhetorical fallacy. It leads to unsupported conclusions
and painful places we just can't live with. What can we do when it happens?
Deliver the Headline First
- When we deliver news at work — status, events, personnel changes, whatever — we sometimes
frame it in a story line format. We start at the beginning and we gradually work up to the point. That
might be the right way to deliver good news, but for everything else, especially bad news, deliver the
headline first, and then offer the details.
Dismissive Gestures: III
- Sometimes we use dismissive gestures to express disdain, to assert superior status, to exact revenge
or as tools of destructive conflict. And sometimes we use them by accident. They hurt personally, and
they harm the effectiveness of the organization. Here's Part III of a little catalog of dismissive gestures.
The Limits of Status Reports: I
- Some people erroneously believe that they can request status reports as often as they like, and including
any level of detail they deem necessary. Not so.
Interrupting Others in Meetings Safely: III
- When we need to interrupt someone who's speaking in a meeting, we risk giving offense. Still, there
are times when interrupting is in everyone's best interest. Here are some more techniques for interrupting
in situations not addressed by the meeting's formal process.
See also Effective Communication at Work and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming July 3: Additive bias…or Not: II
- Additive bias is a cognitive bias that many believe contributes to bloat of commercial products. When we change products to make them more capable, additive bias might not play a role, because economic considerations sometimes favor additive approaches. Available here and by RSS on July 3.
And on July 10: On Delegating Accountability: I
- As the saying goes, "You can't delegate your own accountability." Despite wide knowledge of this aphorism, people try it from time to time, especially when overcome by the temptation of a high-risk decision. What can you delegate, and how can you do it? Available here and by RSS on July 10.
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