Dialogue Jump-Start Tip #5: Give Your Fingers a Rest
Author of this post: Tammy Lenski | About Blog Authors »
In 2006, 450 Radio Shack employees opened their email one day and found a message that stated: “The workforce reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.”
Looking at this ill-advised approach from the outside, it’s easy to see that email was a poor communication method for the circumstances. From within our own client universes, though, it’s sometimes a bit more difficult to determine when email could be a similar liability. Consider these research tidbits:
• In one study, email recipients over-estimated their ability to correctly decode the feelings of the sender. The researchers suspect it’s because we assume that others experience stimuli the same way we do, and that’s simply not the case.
• In another study, 50% of negotiations conducted by email ended in impasse, while only about 19% of face-to-face negotiations did so. Because we tend to be less forthcoming in email, particularly in negotiations, the lack of good information exchange gets in the way of negotiating successfully.
• Another study suggested that online groups adopt more extreme positions in conflict, making it much harder to reduce tension and resolve the problem.
• Other authors have noted that email is used more readily to make unpopular requests and avoid confronting in person. There’s even a term for using email to deal with unpleasant business from a distance: coward’s choice.
The take-away is this: difficult conversations conducted via email can escalate conflict more quickly. Because it lacks cues like tone of voice and facial expression, email makes it more difficult to accurately translate the writer’s meaning, making relationships more fragile in a conflict situation.
There’s also the problem associated with the “tweaking cc.” A tweaking cc is the open copying of an email message to someone the sender believes has power over or influence on the recipient. We may use a tweaking cc to cover ourselves, let the recipient know someone else is now watching, or rattle the recipient a bit. It’s one of the quickest ways to alienate the receiver and escalate tension.
If you think there’s any hint of tension or dissatisfaction in a client’s email message, give your fingers a rest. Reject the Coward’s Choice. Make use of the other four tips I’ve offered, and pick up the phone. You and your client will be better for it.
This wraps up my Dialogue Jump-Start series and it’s been a delight to be here with you all. If you like what you’ve read and would appreciate more tips for working with clients, I’d love to have you in my own blog’s audience, too. Best to you!
