This post is part of the series “Communication,” a weeklong effort co-hosted by Switch & Shift and the good people at SmartBrief’s SmartBlog on Leadership.
Everyone is so busy all the time. You probably barely have time to read this article. So it’s tempting to cut corners wherever you can. But, in communications and relationships, particularly in this digital age, what can save you a few seconds in the short term can cost you hours, or even business in the long run. It’s tempting to do everything by email (or even faster modes like texting and instagramming, etc), but I’ve spent a good portion of my time as an executive coach helping my clients unwind the damage they’ve done in the name of expedience. And, I’ve fired a contractor or two because I got sick of being “cyber scolded” with terse emails. So let’s try to save you this trouble.
Mistake #1: Forfeiting “Niceties” for Expedience
I cringe when I’m running a leadership development seminar on personal branding or communications and someone mentions they’ve been taught they can shave a few seconds off each email they send by eliminating the salutation and having an automatic signature. Other so-called efficiency experts have gone so far as to ban the use of adjectives in the spirit of “just the facts, ma’am”. This practice just creates too much chance for the recipient to experience what feels like a slap from the sender. A warm salutation or even a friendly punctuation mark such as a well-placed exclamation point can set a positive tone for the communication and cost the sender no more than five seconds. Consider the following exchange between a manager and his boss after he spent weeks researching and creating a document to go out to a client.
“Hi Sue,
Here is the white paper for XYZ, Inc. I did my best with the information available to me. I think it meets all their needs and then some. As this is my first white paper, I’d really appreciate your feedback and suggestions before we send it to them. As a reminder, it is due in four days, so we have time for edits if you think there’s anything we can do to improve it. Thank you, Steve”
After waiting nervously for hours, Steve received this reply: “OK to send.”
Imagine how deflated he felt after putting so much effort and imagination into creating a killer report for his very first client. In fact, he spent at least an hour venting to his colleagues about how upset he was after receiving that thoughtless reply.
How much longer would it have taken Sue to write “Great job!! Amazing first effort. Go ahead and send.”? Besides making Steve feel good and fueling him up for the next effort, that extra five seconds would have saved at least three hours of staff time spent by Steve complaining to his two office mates.