Sometimes, you get your best ideas from the people you are attempting to teach.
Yesterday, I gave a talk at a business convention and focused many of my remarks on email etiquette at work. As you know, I’m pretty passionate about this subject and even developed a training/edu-taining DVD (The Dirty Dozen Rules Of Email Etiquette).
My first piece of advice is “Don’t give bad news over email.” Why? Email is a weak channel of communication when it comes to conveying your intentions. This is true based on decades of communications research.
Dr. Albert Mehrabian at the University of California has studied how humans decode intentions throughout his career. His findings suggest that email is a terrible way to convey intentions. It may deliver data and simple answers, but it doesn't deliver a fraction of the communication power of a phone call or face to face meeting. Consider this graphic:
What does this mean? If you have bad news, criticism or emotional charged things to say, pick up the phone or see them face to face. This way they will understand you are a coach, not a dictator.
After my talk, an audience member approached me with a wonderful suggestion: Don’t give good news over email, either. Same reason: Email waters down the message. Additionally, email is so weak as a channel, your recipient might confuse your good news with jealousy, envy or snarkiness. “I thought you’d like to know, you got the promotion” over a blackberry could have many meanings. But a phone call with your authentic enthusiasm saying, “Dude, you got the big job!!!” conveys all the excitement and allows the moment to be powerful. Great idea.
Good for you for encouraging people not to give bad or good news via email. We need to "man up" and do the the difficult either face to face or, at least, on the phone. And that works for good news, too. Otherwise the person with good news, doesn't get the joy of hearing the enthusiastic responses of support.
Susan RoAne author How To Work a Room
Posted by: Susan RoAne | April 30, 2008 at 07:59 PM
So glad to read your caution about giving bad news over email. I wrote about that in my last three books in simple terms: just because it's easy, doesn't make it right.
As for goods on good news, I'd agree that it, too, is best done either F2F or Phone to phone. That is really the only way the good news bearer can HEAR the supportive, excited and enthusiastic response. And that feels wonderful!
Posted by: Susan RoAne | April 30, 2008 at 07:55 PM
I'm a big fan of yours, but I have to disagree on this. I'd much rather get people's good news by email.
If you give me good news by email, I can save it. Better still, I can forward it to others.
Posted by: Andrew Warner | April 30, 2008 at 07:08 PM