Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2014. It offers a 2014 view of workplace communication (email, WhatsApp, voice messages, instant messaging); team chat tools and video calls have changed the picture since.
Progress towards a more digital world isn’t always progress. Sometimes it’s a big step backwards, especially when it comes to communication within a company, and even between companies.
Email has created a bad communication habit that, more often than not, ends up making people less productive and becomes a distraction from the tasks that really matter. Ironically, this comes from someone who, on some days, spends more than an hour answering emails.
When to use email, how to use it, and when to pick up the phone
Email as an internal communication tool is sold on one advantage: we can send an email instead of calling, so the recipient can read it once they have finished whatever they are doing. In that case it is productive, and we are assuming we use email for something that may be important but is not urgent, at least.
Sometimes there is something even more unproductive: holding a meeting to communicate a few points that could have been sent by email.
When not to use email
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When an email is going to need more than one reply, or is going to turn into an email chain, you’re definitely better off using the phone. You’ll be done much sooner.
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An email, like a WhatsApp message, should be short. If you’re going to have to write too much, it’s more effective to call, especially if you need to give a detailed answer. It’s quicker, and you’re done sooner because you can clear up any questions that come up along the way. In fact, these days it’s silly to type out a detailed explanation on WhatsApp when you have voice messages.
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To avoid misunderstandings. I’m well aware that a few written lines can be twisted to suit the reader. If you need to turn down a proposal and you don’t want it to be taken as a sign of contempt, use the phone.
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When any other communication channel could be more productive.
I’ve sometimes seen someone say: “So we don’t waste time sending each other emails, let’s use instant messaging.” Clearly, when it comes to important matters or business issues, the phone is more useful than instant messaging.
Email between companies
Once, to discuss an advertising partnership for the site, I spent 15 days negotiating email by email. It would have been easier to talk on the phone, and in less than 30 minutes we would have reached an agreement, or not. Doing it the other way, it took us 15 days.
Since in the tech world you learn as you go, at the time I thought this was just how these companies worked, but after that I told myself: “I’m never doing it this way again.”
Ever since, when it comes to doing business online and I sense we’re going to need more than one email to deal with the matter, I usually reply with: “Let’s talk on the phone.” Things have gone much better since then, even though some people seem to act as if it takes extra effort, when for me the effort lies in writing out what I find easier and more useful to say out loud.
In short: before starting an exchange by email, just think about whether another kind of communication might be much more productive and quicker, especially when we’re talking not about internal communication but about communication between companies.
And while we are talking about business here, the same clearly applies on a personal level to WhatsApp messages. Great fun, but most of the time, very unproductive.
Further reading
Featured image: FOTO:Fortepan — ID 8191: Adományozó/Donor: Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
