Do you ever get confusing email or text messages? I do. All the time. Which necessitates that I send a response asking for clarification. Sometimes the reply is clear to me. Sometimes it isn't. So, I spend more time trying to get at the root of what the person wants.
That's particularly bad since we live in the digital era. I can't remember the last time I actually got a hard copy letter through the mail. All that means is that most of our written communication today is through email and text.
Unfortunately, I can not see your face or hear your tone of voice when you send an email or text to me. Just this morning I received an email with a tone that implied the sender was aggravated with me. I quickly sent a response to apologize for any wrong-doing. The reply that came later explained that everything was fine with me but that she was just very busy and having a tough morning. If we funnel our bad moods, frustration and rush-rush work style into most of our correspondence imagine the damage we're doing to our reputations.
With that in mind, here's some advice that might help.
We're all guilty of sending the wrong messages about ourselves. It's mostly through thoughtlessness.
Action Item:
Think about this before you write you next message.
Til next time!
Carol
That's particularly bad since we live in the digital era. I can't remember the last time I actually got a hard copy letter through the mail. All that means is that most of our written communication today is through email and text.
Unfortunately, I can not see your face or hear your tone of voice when you send an email or text to me. Just this morning I received an email with a tone that implied the sender was aggravated with me. I quickly sent a response to apologize for any wrong-doing. The reply that came later explained that everything was fine with me but that she was just very busy and having a tough morning. If we funnel our bad moods, frustration and rush-rush work style into most of our correspondence imagine the damage we're doing to our reputations.
With that in mind, here's some advice that might help.
- Slow down.Don't be in such a rush to crank out your work quickly.
- When you are writing emails and texts, think through what you are going to say before you write it.
- Re-read what you've written for typos and tone of voice. Do you come off angry? If you do, back up and start over.
- Keep your writing simple. Don't write long, convoluted, run-on sentences with tons of commas and semicolons. Keep your sentences short and to the point.
- Don't ask for responses to more than three items in one message.
- Be considerate of the feelings of the person to whom you are addressing your message. In other words, be polite. Even if you have to deliver bad news, do it in a gentle, respectful way.
- Think about the fact that the world doesn't evolve around you alone. You can get what you want without being rude.
We're all guilty of sending the wrong messages about ourselves. It's mostly through thoughtlessness.
Action Item:
Think about this before you write you next message.
Til next time!
Carol
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