You Can Prevent Texting and Email Miscommunication

Texting, instant messaging, email; all are relatively new media, and you'd think they require a new skill set to get the most out of them. Actually, what we need to do is get better at one of the most old-school skills.

People need to learn (or maybe re-learn) to write properly.

Think about most of the complaints you have about the barrage of electronic communication that comes at you every day. Most of the challenges fall into two categories: lack of clarity, or problems with tone. Both can be addressed simply by taking the time to edit, proof and re-write what we send. Let's take a look at the most common problems associated with these tools and how better writing skills can help:

• The sheer volume of messages is overwhelming. This is a challenge primarily with email, and it's not a minor one. The average manager receives over 100 written emails a day and they range from one word messages to email threads that are dozens of messages long. How can good writing help? First, a lot of messages are sent to clarify information that wasn't clear the first time. Instead of dashing off the fastest reply possible, actually stop and craft a clear message that contains the important information: 1)what do you want to tell them? 2)why do they care? And 3) what do you want them to do once they've read the message? This takes time and effort.The first thing you write isn't necessarily the version you should send out into the world.
• People skim email, is your message obvious? Despite what your English teach taught you in 8th grade, people in today's business environment don't take the time to look for good deductive logic. They take less than 5 seconds to look at a written message and decide whether this is something they have to pay attention to or not. Worse, they often don't even open the email--they pass judgment by looking at the "preview" pane in their email program. If they can't instantly see that this is important information, or there's critical action to be taken, your message will be ignored until later or even deleted unread. Think about your message and put it in a coherent sentence, preferably in the first couple of lines of your email.
• There's not enough information to be useful. When I first started teaching business writing and email communication, the problem was people would write long, rambling emails. Now, more often than not, there's the opposite problem. People send terse emails, often not even complete sentences, and tack it onto a string of other email so that people have to scroll down and look for clues like archaeologists reading ancient runes. Don't make your audience look for relevant context...cut and paste it into the newer email. They'll appreciate it and you'll increase the chances of the right action being taken.
• Short isn't always best, especially when it comes to tone. When you are communicating in writing, you lack contextual clues that make communication rich. Tone of voice often helps communicate a message (Is it critically important? Are you teasing? ) and that tone can be misunderstood when you look at words on a screen. Anyone who has spent three days apologizing for an email it took 30 seconds to craft should have learned this lesson by now. "Please", "thank you", using names and giving the reason for a request are all communication factors that should be common sense but somehow get lost when speed becomes more important to us than long-term relationships or effectiveness.
• People judge you by what they see. What message does your spelling and grammar send? Just as people judge us by the clothes we wear and our body language, they often judge the quality and credibility of your message by what they see. In the case of written messages that's spelling and grammar. It might be unfair, but if you can't be bothered proofing the message you just sent to me, why should I be bothered reading it? This is especially true since almost all email and instant message tools now have at least a basic spell-checker. There are precious few excuses for misspelling messages. Also be aware that there are generational differences that can be problematic. If that older co-worker thinks you're a slacker who doesn't care about the quality of your work, a badly spelled message or an IM full of words like "l8er" and "CU Monday" won't help overcome that impression any time soon.

Read more:

• How to write emails that get read
• IM vs. email in the office
• 3 Ways to help your team's introverts succeed