Fran walked entered my office with a look on her face that said “Paul you are about to get schooled” or she was in the process of smelling something foul. She closed the door and said “Paul, who are we?” Embracing my inner “smart ass” I said, “I’m Paul Castain, you’re Fran and its OK because I’m calling your husband to bring you your meds!” “Paul, we’re Dale Carnegie and we don’t email someone who is 10 feet away in the next office” “Fran, I can win more friends, and influence more people by shooting quick emails.” Fran wasn’t amused and let me have both barrels. “Paul, you’re better than that. Every time you send an email instead of walking the 10 feet, you miss an opportunity to connect. Besides, how freakin lazy can you get?” I must admit that Fran was right and also I dig any 70 year old woman who uses “Freakin” in a sentence. I took my medicine and turned over a new leaf.
Truth of the matter, email is the root of many an evil.
For starters, there’s just way too much of it. Radicatti Group tells us there are 247 Billion emails each day and those number will grow to 507 Billion by 2013!
Can I get a group “Holy Schnikees!” on that one?
The number of emails alone invites numerous problems such as poor “listening” skills because we are scanning and not really digesting. Additionally, we are responding on the fly and we might even find ourselves guilty of what Dr Edward Hallowell calls “Email Voice”. This is the monotone, lifeless tone our voice takes on, while talking with others while reading our emails. Ever have this happen to you? Have you ever had “Email Voice”?
Pissing Contests . . . On Steroids!
According to Dr Albert Mehrabian only 7% of what we say is communicated through words. The other 93% is communicated through tone and visual cues. This would explain why the written word is so often misunderstood!
I had this happen with one of my posts a few months back. I had written a post called “For those about to rock . . . show up first”. Someone reposted it and misunderstood the title to mean “be the first one to show up”. My intended meaning was “if you want to rock, you have to show up before you can rock”. No harm, no foul but a case in point nonetheless. I’m quite confident that if I had mixed in some tone and visual cues I could have expressed myself more effectively but let’s get back to the email.
So now we have a misunderstanding via the written word and instead of picking up the phone, we continue the pissing contest. This is where numerous studies come into play that tell us that misunderstandings via email tend to last longer. This can be attributed to us all taking on the persona of a “7 foot giant” and saying things that we wouldn’t dare say to someone’s face. Egos tend to be a tad larger in writing too. No?
Emails can be a connection inhibitor by keeping things stuck in virtual instead of real time.
Oh, and they can be a huge time waster (especially when a jackass enters the picture and replies all or cc’s needlessly.
So here’s the dealio . . .
A few years back, some companies started a concept called “Email Free Fridays”. The concept is simple, on Fridays, you pick up a phone, walk the 10 feet and God forbid, CONNECT! Studies show that getting off one’s hiney is actually very good for the “Glutes”
I’m not going to lie to you, if we were to take this down a notch it would still be radical and on the surface time consuming.
But what if, for one lousy day each week, we were able to
– Connect with that co worker
– Let our customers know there is a friendly voice behind those emails
– Get back to something called “conversation”
– Work muscles that technology keeps us from working
Don’t get me wrong folks, we’re not trying to turn away more efficient ways of doing things . . . we’re just trying to get back to connecting in real time.
Perhaps there’s either an “Email Free Friday” in your future or for those looking to take baby steps . . . The “Minimal Email Friday”
Relationships are a terrible thing to waste my friend!
Paul Castain is a bad ass who works with organizations and individuals who wish to achieve higher levels of badassery. He is so good that he no longer poses topless for his bio pictures. For more information on how Paul can help you and your company click here dude.
Paul,
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I just sent your article on one of my customers. Being a technology company, they want internal employees to use email or IM to communicate with each other. They feel getting out of your chair waste valuable time. I have been trying to get them to see the light and understand how important “connecting” is. I appreciate the help.
Best Wishes,
Toni
@ Toni: My pleasure! I’ll be the first one to admit that there are numerous advantages to email and also that I tend to rely on it way too much. I’d like to think there is at least an opportunity or two each day for us to connect in real time.
Thank you for stopping by and contributing Toni!
Rock on!
Paul
Great Reading! We are about 200 employee’s and implemented this about 2 years ago with huge success, but as new team members come on board you have to be diligent in getting them to buy-in.
Keep Rockin,
D-
@ Don: Happy to hear that. It’s something that I’d like to see my company (5200 employees) implement as well.
Rock horns to you for stopping by Don!
Paul
Paul, I love this. It reminds me when I first got back into the workforce AC (after children) and getting emails from people sitting right next to me. I would turn to them and say “did you really just send me an email when you could have just opened your mouth?” Seemed a bit ridiculous then and even now. However, unfortunately many use the email system instead of their vocal cords to have written documentation as a form of CYA and sometimes that is necessary.
So true that emails are often misunderstood. But I do believe that is why G-d invented LOL and the smiley face. One CEO I worked for used to tease me about my frequent use of LOL. I wanted to make darn sure that nothing I wrote in an email, especially to him, was perceived incorrectly.
Thanks for the entertaining and insightful post 🙂 (there is that smiley face)
Paul,
This post hit close to home, extremely close to home. This is something I preach to my sales team daily, and I would do it more often if it was possible to do so. Inside sales people need to call customers more often than they email them.
I forwarded the article to all the other division managers within my company and EVERYONE enjoyed it and agreed whole heartedly.
Thanks for all you do. Rock oN!
Thanks Paul! Sometimes in my sales routine I get in the habit of just email my clients and not going calling or visiting them for a couple months. I need to be reminded from time to time how important that face to face connection to keep that positive customer relationship going.
I have to write in support of emails! Not always, but often it’s much more efficient to shoot off an email than to leave your office and communicate face-to-face. There are a lot fewer distractions and opportunities to waste time that way. Of course, you do need to keep in touch and if you’re someone who does not communicate well with emails , please call me or come see me but don’t be surprised if you ramble on while we’re on the phone if you hear some clicking-noises. 🙂
You know I love receiving your articles via email every few days, but this one has me giggling my butt off at the irony! 😉
Lillian, I was thinking the same thing. I was also wondering if I should share this on Twitter since that is another form of non-face-to-face communication!
This is a great post and as much as I like email when you don’t have time to actually get into a conversation, it can be used far too much (especially if you are only 10 feet away).
Right now I tend to try to contact people by phone or in person as much as I can because I work out of my home and I actually need the personal contact (I am a person that NEEDS other people).
Great post Paul. Lets start having real conversations.
Mehrabian’s study is often mis-quoted, God I hope this interesting. The figures you state are 100% correct. However he was referring to when you interupt someone and not during all communciations. So if you want to interupt someone, they maybe speaking with someone else for example, the way to do is by having good tone and body language else you will annoy them and only 7% of what you say will matter.
If however are talking with a group of people content is far more important that just the 7%.
Interesting? Did I interupt you? Sorry. I am smiling promise.
Rockin’ Paul! In my office, we were all becoming anti-social, Cro-Magnon beasts, but it wasn’t email, it was skype (typed chats, not voice)
Just after the recent holiday (Chinese New Year), made a new rule: no matter how small of a question, we have a face to face chat / mini meeting. It’s worked wonders and we all know how to act like people again, folks treating cases more serious..party & professionalism all restarted. Too much virtual communication definitely numbs the senses. Great reminder & Happy Year o’ the Rabbit.
Dude, that one took some b#lls. Guilty here! I get so many emails in a day that I really do lose some, so tend to reply quickly, sometimes with little thought to “tone” and really have to fight the urge to check inbox as I am speaking to someone on the phone or in my office. I do however have a “fear of the phone” . Don’t know why, the whole rejection thing I guess. But if I get up off my butt and go sell something to somebody, I almost always come back with the business. I’ll try baby steps 1st on the email free Friday, see how it works, thanks Paul. aeawwwwwwwwwwwewwwwwwwwwwwwwaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwss