Hey friend,
How are you? I hope you had a fabulous week.
Let’s talk about an activity you mindlessly do a hundred times every day.
I’m talking about sending emails and texting.
Exchanging emails and text messages is common in our work and personal lives. They’re fast, don’t waste time, and are efficient.
That’s why text messaging is leading the pack in our communication with loved ones:
While email is taking preference in the workplace:
Yet, with all this popularity and benefits, texting and email are prime channels for miscommunication.
The Golden Rule
One of the craziest things I sometimes fall into the trap of is getting all worked up by messages, forgetting the golden rule, which works pretty much like the warning on your car’s side mirror:
Acing the art of textual communication
2 classic examples:
Tone of voice: An email or text message with too blunt language for declining an event invitation from a friend.
To deactivate, a reply with humor can do the trick to deflate the weirdness.
Topic: You receive an email from a colleague about radical changes to a big project you’ve been working on with no discussion or context.
Wrong medium!
To deactivate, don’t be tempted to getting into a push back or endless questions.
No need to add extra conflict to the story :)
Instead, for important topics, kindly acknowledge and suggest a quick chat to go over things.
And guess what, every time when you actually get to talk, over the phone, Zoom or in-person - you realize the culprit is always the medium’s limitations of textual messages that created an unnecessary misunderstanding.
Why does it happen?
People are busy and don’t have time to chat, so email and texting are quite handy.
I get that.
However, when people’s full communication channels are compromised, meaning no voice or face-to-face dialogs - you sometimes get extreme messaging.
That’s how you get radical dis/misinformation on social media or aggressive driving.
When people are securely safe behind their screens or wheels, they let themselves go wilder than they truly are.
Is there a middle road?
To add more humanity and emotions to our textual messaging, we often use visual emojis to spice up our conversation and convey emotions.
It’s entertaining but not a full replacement to our full range of emotional nuances and real-time exchange when actually meeting a person.
In short, when communicating with people around you, consider how to smartly match purpose to the right channel.
In-person meeting is the most effective and is best for important or sensitive topics, and email is the least effective and is best for communicating routine information.
Yes, but…
Because of the sketchy nature of textual messaging it’s a fantastic ingredient for storytelling.
If you recall, I wrote about the important role of personal text messages in moving your story forward faster and ripe with relatable miscommunications:
With that I wish you peaceful driving, responsible social posting and the clarity to choose the right communication channel for the right purpose.
See you next time!
Best,
- Shlomi
Shlomi Ron
Chief Storytelling Officer
Visual Storytelling Institute
story > visual > emotion > experience
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Excellent article as usual, Shlomi. And good reminders!