Borrow My Brain

This NYTimes article Email is Easy to Write (and Misread) captures something I’ve noticed about email… it’s very easy to misinterpret, and lose the emotional cues that you get in face to face or phone conversation. I don’t know how many times I’ve written an email to someone, and they and ask why I’m angry, abrupt or bossy, with them, when in fact I didn’t intend to be. I had failed to realize how limited the channel of communication is in email, and the friendly tone that was going through my head as I wrote it was totally lost. Any nonverbal or tonal cues are lost when communicating by email, and it’s easy to forget how important these are in communicating a message.

Some ways I’ve found to combat this include:

• Use lots of emotional-rich words. “I was happy to see you”, “I’m really pleased with the great the work you’ve done!”
• Always be as explicit as possible in email. Tell people exactly what you think, and what you want. Don’t rely on them to read between the lines. Write as if you’re talking to someone with Asperger’s syndrome.
• Make use of emoticons. While not appropriate for more formal messages, people have a natural response to a smiley face :) and it can help lighten the tone of an email.
• Don’t use email for hiring, firing, evaluating, congratulating, criticizing, brainstorming, or any other situation that has an emotional component. Reserve email for more neutral forms of communication, such as arranging meetings.
• When in doubt, don’t use email!