You can add all the smiley faces you want: what really leads to miscommunications is a lack of empathy.
When speaking face-to-face, itâs the verbal and nonverbal social cues that allow us to gauge the best way to arrange our wording in order to get our point across clearly. In email, we donât get such real-time feedback. Once our message is in the hand of the recipient, weâve lost all control.
This, of course, often leads to miscommunications, guessed intentions, and a total unawareness of whether an email was typed in red-faced anger or while sipping a martini by a pool. What really leads to those miscommunications is a lack of empathy.
Crystal is a brand new (still in beta) email extension that operates as a spell check for empathy. As you write to your colleagues, it tells you the way in which your intended email recipient communicates best, and then offers you suggestive edits in their preferred style of emailâthus, hopefully, removing the likelihood that someone misreads your intended message.
âThe most important thing is understanding each otherâs language,â founder Drew DâAgostino said. âItâs not me completely adapting the way I communicate with you, but being aware and considerate of how you communicate best. Everybodyâs different, and if we can just learn to recognize the communication styles of each other we can create much clearer interactions and productive communications.â
So how do we write emails that enable empathyâespecially with people we might have never met in person before? And how can we be more empathetic when reading the emails of others? We asked DâAgostino to share Crystalâs best tips on how to bring more empathy to emails; both in the ones we receive and in the ones we send.
As the Recipient:
If They Write Their Entire Email in the Subject Line, Youâre Better Off Just Calling Them Directly
The infamous âSubject-Line emailerâ is the type of person who writes the email entirely in the subject line, with nothing more than their signature in the actual email body. This person is very direct, and either feels very busy or that the problem canât be solved simply in an email, so itâs too much for them to go into it all.
âIf you respond with more than two to three sentences, they are probably not going to read it,â DâAgostino explained. âYou should probably just get on the phone or get over there in person.â
If They Write âPlease Advise,â They Are Looking For Very Specific Instructions
Itâs fun to quibble over what our email signature says about our intentions, but according to Crystalâs data thereâs one in particular that demands a change in behavior: the ever-demanding âplease advise.â DâAgostino explains, âWhen people write that in an email you know that youâll have to write very specific instructions back. They want to have everything written out.â
If it annoys you that someone has shifted the burden to you, talk about it in person. Or, if it doesnât happen that often, acquiesce. After all, there are likely some email habits of your own that folks find irksome, but itâs all part of the give and take required when emailing. âIt is just normal, non-rude behavior for a lot of people,â says DâAgostino.
If They Use âHey,â They See You as a Peer
Your email greeting is the first thing after the subject line that your recipient will read, so the tone you establish here is key for the rest of your email to be received well. The trick in getting it right, DâAgostino says, lies in the context: Are you sending this to a peer, an authority figure, or a stranger? If itâs not a peer, skip âHeyâ and go for the safe, but respectable, âHiâ or âHello.â âIf they see âHey,â more formal-structured, less-casual emailers will immediately discount the email,â DâAgostino explains. âRight away they wonât take it seriously.â
But donât skip greetings altogetherâthatâll make even more people anxious. DâAgostino says that for a lot of people, if the email starts off with only a name, âthey immediately think the email has a negative connotation, and it comes off as more robotic.â
If They Use Emojis, Donât Dismiss Their Credibility â Theyâre Just Providing You With Additional Emotional Cues
Though widely debated as professional or not, as younger generations age into the workforce, usage of emojis at work will soon become the norm. And thatâs a good thing, says DâAgostino, âBecause we now use emojis like words, or as substitutes for words. Itâs not just a âfunâ thing anymore, itâs a way to communicate your intentions.â
Though easy to dismiss, emojis add context and social cues in text-only communications. However the true genius behind them is that, by design, âemoji have no in-built linguistic capacity for meanness,â as Adam Sternbergh explained in a piecefor New York Magazine. Itâs hard to take an angry-but-still-cute cartoon face seriously.
Even DâAgostino says he uses them all of the time, even professionally. âIf Iâm worried that I might come off wrong due to the context of it being in an email or text-only based communication, I do fall back on a smiley,â he admits.
âŠBut Emojis Can Also Appear as Insecurity, So Use Them Wisely.
Despite their upside, emojis can still sometimes run afoul of their intentions. Though itâd be quite a stretch for someone to get offended by an emoji of a smiley poop, the context in which they are used can work against you. While fine for most professional correspondence, DâAgostino advises that we leave them behind at the negotiation table.
âEmojis can be perceived as a weakness sometimes. If someone is using an emoji but weâre in a negotiating setting, all of a sudden I know that they are, or that they thinkthey are, in the weaker position,â he says. âNot necessarily âweakerâ as in less powerful, but as in they are uncomfortable and worried about my emotional state.â
If you notice someone using an emoji in this situation, it means they donât feel the negotiating table is weighted equally. The conversation itself needs to be improved, because one side is feeling very unsure of where they stand.
As the Sender:
Donât Ask Anyone For A Favor Without Also Giving Them Something In Return
Cold-emails are annoying to receive and are also difficult to send, but largely unavoidable. Even if itâs not part of your job duties now, youâll have to do this at some point in your own life, whether itâs applying for jobs or reaching out to make a new connection or even online dating. But just receiving a cold-email can feel intrusive to start with.
âYouâre essentially asking them to gift you their time and itâs important to be respectful of it,â DâAgostino reminds us. So above all, you want to make it easy for your recipient to say yes. âIf youâre looking for an action to be taken by the recipient,â says DâAgostino, âThat action should be able to be done in less than one click away from the email, without much thought. Every email you want an action to be taken on, make sure you would also want to take that action if someone asked it of you.â
And if you really want to land that big Ask, DâAgostino personally thinks you should turn your cold-emailing into something warmer. Personalize your email by providing not only your request, but also something they could use as well; an article relevant to their recent interests, a service you think would solve a problem you saw them tweeting about, etc. âAll of a sudden theyâre offering me value, thoughtfully, and directly to meâI donât only get the sense that theyâre only trying to take value from me,â DâAgostino says.
Try to Remind Yourself That On the Other Side of the Screen is a Real, Live Human
Traditional letter writing does have a few perks that email lacks, mainly in providing a tangible sense of distance and objectivity. When it takes days or weeks to receive a hand-written message, youâre acutely aware of the barriers between you and the sender. With that in mind, it can be easier to stay level-headed in both your perception and judgment (not to mention that handwriting can carry with it some emotional cues that typed words lackâthereâs nothing more visibly angry than when the writer pressed down so hard on the pen when writing it that they almost tore through the paper). But with emailâs instantaneousness, that visible, tangible barrier is gone.
However, short of putting up a banner that says âI PREFER EMAILS WITH FORMAL GREETINGSâ above your desk, thereâs not much we can do about it, yet. Email-helper extensions can provide a visual reminder that might work for some people, but no software is infallible. For now, the best course of action is to simply recognize and be cognizant of the communication hurdles within emailâand trying to be a little more human.
If you think your miscommunications might be due to the pressure to immediately respond, blocking out specific parts of your day to answer can loosen some of that anxiety and allow for better judgment. If thatâs not a feasible option, keep the negativity bias from creeping in with apps like ToneCheck. The extension flags negative tones as you write, but even the most positively worded messages can still be unclear in meaning or context. To bring in more context while you craft your message, Rapportive pulls your email recipientâs LinkedIn photo and stats into the window while you draft, which can help remind you of the real human you are emailingâbut again, thereâs no guarantee they will still read your email in the way you intended.
âI think itâs very rare that anyone is ever trying to actually offend or criticize you,â DâAgostino explains. âUsually people have good intentions. But much more often we perceive it, especially at work, as critical or rudeâall these feelings we get immediately because we all take things personally, and in the way of our own communication style.â
Email is simply another tool we use to try and understand one another (albeit quickly, and often in rapid succession). Recognizing your own email behavior and working to improve it, in the same way you would recognize your own social behavior âin the real world,â might be the only lasting fix for communication issues both onscreen and off.
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This article first appeared in www.99u.adobe.com
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