Choosing How to Communicate
We have many ways to communicate: email, phone, instant messaging, and in-person. How do you choose which to use when? Get-It-Done Guy has a handy primer.
Get-It-Done Guy listener Cindy writes in:
“Do you have advice or tips on which communication method is most appropriate for a certain recipient and the given message?”
Cindy, this is an important question! Technology was supposed to make our lives easier. And it did. We had paper mail, then moved to telegraph, then telephone, then cordless telephone. Everything was simple and logical, though a few way-too-self-important people had multiple phone numbers. Sheesh. As if they were that important.
Then in a mere 15 years, along came email, a dozen different instant messaging platforms, Skype, Vonage, cell phones, text messaging, BBM. Suddenly there are two dozen ways to reach each of us. This actually isn’t progress. This actually sucks. Not least because different communication modalities communicate different things in different ways. Choosing which channel to use to contact someone can be a real trick.
Use the Right Medium for the Person
Different people have different ways they like to be contacted. Find out someone’s favorite, and use that whenever possible. Some people are writing-oriented people. Use email or text messages for them, as they prefer.
Other people are listeners. For them, use phone and voicemail. Some people, sadly, are talkers. They also like phone, but only the part where they get to talk. And talk. And talk. For them, use email. (Or learn to cut the conversation short so you can get back to work.)
Use The Right Medium for The Message
The more emotion is involved in a communication, the better it is to do it by phone or in-person. You want as many senses involved in the conversation as possible.
You see, even when a person has a preferred interaction style, the mode you use changes how you engage emotionally. Stanley Milgram did a famous series of experiments in which he had normal people, just like you, deliver fatal electric shocks to experimental subjects. They didn’t actually deliver the shocks, of course, they just thought they did. Kind of like a good video game, only with real screams.
Milgram found that when you’re right next to someone, you’re not very willing to shock them to death. When you can hear them and not see them, you’re more willing. When someone else is telling you about their screams, you’re even more willing. I believe—and my experience bears this out—the more removed you are from someone, in terms of your direct experience of them, the less empathy you have for them, and the less they’ll have for you. Also, the more likely they’ll be to deliver fatal electric shocks to you.
This is why horrible bosses lay people off long-distance, by leaving sticky notes on people’s desks saying, “You might want to take an unpaid vacation day today. Forever.” By doing their dirty work at a distance, it’s much easier for them to collect their bonus and avoid the pesky emotions that get stirred up by seeing or hearing a laid-off employee weeping and howling in despair.
If you have an emotional message to deliver, or you’re trying to forge an emotional bond, do it in-person or by phone. Email and IM make it nearly impossible to manage the emotional side of a conversation.
Writing is Permanent
Not only does the medium affect emotional connection, but the medium also affects the record of your interaction. Communication via status update, public bulletin board, or email stays around virtually forever, and can even get indexed by search engines. Communication via instant message can still stick around on one or more computers depending on the IM client being used.
With phone and in-person conversations, there is actual privacy legislation that may restrict what can be recorded or, if recorded, what can be used as legal evidence.
If you’re upset as you’re writing an email, IM, or status update, do not hit send! Wait. Calm down. Take some time. Then if you still want to deliver the message, pick up the phone and do it where it won’t come back to haunt you later.
We saw an example of this recently when sorority president Rebecca Martinson sent her sorority a scathing email using many naughty words. It went viral. She had to resign her sorority position. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happened in email does not stay in email.
(The happy ending is that Rebecca was offered a job as on online chat host with an adult website due to her “girl-next-door looks” and “unique use of vocabulary.” Plus, actor Michael Shannon read the unbelievably offensive letter in a dramatic reading. Guaranteed to have you glued to your seat.)
Here’s how this affects your options:
Instant messages. These are an interruption, but good for quick conversation. They stick around. Use them for discussing quick, real-time information that someone isn’t going to need to refer to later.
Email is great for documents. It’s permanent, easy to forward, leaves a paper trail, and can be saved for reference. Email is best for long explanations and reference material. Don’t use it for emotional discussions.
Phone is much faster than typing, as long as you can refrain from social chit-chat. When an email conversation has more than 3 messages, save time by calling. If you’re discussing something emotional, call, so you can hear each other’s voice tone.
In person meetings are best for highly emotional topics like performance evaluations, hiring, firing, breaking up, proposing marriage, giving feedback, and complimenting a new outfit, no matter how you actually feel about Lycra and paisley.
So the bottom line, Cindy, is that you need to choose the medium that seems right for your communication. If someone has a preferred way they like to interact, use that. But be willing to override that choice as necessary. Choose multi-sensory when you need to manage emotion and empathy. And choose text when you’re giving information that may need to be referenced later.
(That’s why my book, Get-it-Done Guy’s 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More is available in audiobook form, for emotional impact, and in written form, for reference. Buy both.)
This is Stever Robbins. You can find this episode’s transcript with links to videos and my book at getitdone.quickanddirtytips.com
I help people live extraordinary lives. For a free presentation, visit SteverRobbins.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
Email image from Shutterstock
You May Also Like…
About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.
