It’s important to take serious stock in the idea that e-mail has replaced the phone, singing telegrams, and in-person meetings as our primary form of business (and general) communication. Let it sink in: 75% of our lives consist of human email machines talking to one another via non-human email machines. Thinking of this makes me feel like we should treat email with nearly the same respect we do face-to-face interactions.
In what I hope will be a three-part series, I’m going to talk about what makes for good — or bad — communication between businesspeople doing business. For now, I’ll start with email, and talk a little about how (I think) it can best be used in a business context. Later, I’ll address spec docs and meetings.
The Problem with E-mail
Bonking on email communication usually involves two errors: length and non-actionability. Most often, the worst emails are extremely long, involved, and luxuriously nuanced. Other times, they consist of unintentionally vicious and offensive one-liners. In both cases, “bad” emails are unclear, and non-actionable — they don’t help further understanding, move a project along, or make people feel calm.
You Are Not My Spammer
It’s important to remember that on the other end of your email is a human. You are also a human, and that recognition should shimmer through your written exchanges. To help you be more human and impart actionable, helpful information, I recommend the following:
- Keep it short and simple: Limiting the length of your emails will help you focus on providing clear, actionable directions. It will also help you avoid over-explaining yourself, which can sometimes set the wrong tone. Mike Davidson says his snappy policy of limiting all emails to five sentences or less has worked great.
- But not too short: Unless you only need to say “Great, thanks!”, try to avoid those vicious one-liners. Be sure you succinctly provide as much info as is necessary to enable your email’s recipient to understand what you’re driving at.
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Consider tone: You don’t have to obsess over how your writing comes across, but it is important to think about your tone, especially when dealing with clients or managing projects. A thoughtless email that inadvertently offends someone can momentarily derail a project (at worst) or simply cause some unnecessary awkwardness in the project management process.
- Re-read what you’ve written: It’s easy to rattle off bunch of knee-jerk emails and forget to edit them when you’re busy, but re-reading your writing is a really good idea. Even for seemingly unimportant emails (and especially for important ones like project updates), re-reading will save you lots of time in the long run.
- Grammar matters: Good grammar, spelling, and punctuation play a big role in sounding like a bright, competent professional. They also play a big role in clear written communication.
The Bottomline
Email is one of the most important ways we do business, and should be treated with a lot of tlc. Good email exchanges impart actionable, helpful information that is emotionally neutral, succinct, and friendly. Next up: spec docs.
