Effective Office Communications

By Doug Hissong

Effective day-to-day communications are certainly a key to a successful organization.  The way employees communicate with each other and with customers affects not only the efficiency of work but also the working environment, morale, and interpersonal relationships.  There’s a lot more to communication than information transfer.  Feelings are involved.  Let’s look at our two most extensively used communication methods.

Telephone communication

We do a lot of communicating by telephone.  We need to recognize that talking on the phone is less personal than talking face-to-face.  There’s no visual component.  We hear what he says but can’t pick up any clues from his face.  Gesturing is mostly wasted, although what you’re doing as you talk can have some effect on how you sound.  There’s no opportunity for touching.  When there’s a language barrier, like when the person has an accent much different from yours or your language is not his primary language, it’s more difficult to understand the person when you can’t watch him talk.  You may not think you can lip read, but it definitely helps.

Phone message systems make the telephone even more impersonal.  When you leave a message, it’s one-sided communication.  It can be efficient, like when the other person answers your question with a reply message without even having to call back.  But trading messages certainly is impersonal, and we need to be careful with it.  Messages may be O.K. for transferring information, but when feelings are involved or some interaction is needed, we need to talk with the person.

Here are a few tips to make our phone communications more effective:

Ÿ         Identify yourself at once when you call.  Don't expect anyone but your spouse to recognize your voice, and don't play guessing games.

Ÿ         Return phone calls promptly.  Not doing so sends a bad message.

Ÿ         Think about whether to leave a message or call back.  Don't leave a message if it's a subject that warrants a live conversation.  Leave a message if it will enable him to prepare for the conversation, get the information you’re requesting, and maybe eliminate another call.

Ÿ         If you leave a message include your phone number.  Make it easy for the person to reply. 

Ÿ         Avoid protracted “phone tag”.  Don't leave messages requiring callback just before you're going to be away from your phone for a long time.  If you mis-connect a couple times, don’t keep leaving messages but catch him live.

Electronic communication

More and more communication is being done electronically, that is, by e-mail.  There are obviously a number of advantages to this type of communication.  It's certainly wonderful to be able to instantly send a message to the other side of the world.  It's very helpful when there's a large time difference between the two ends, so someone doesn't have to call during his evening to catch the other person's working day.  It can help when there’s a language barrier, where people can read better than they can hear.  The recipient can study the message instead of having to catch it rapidly while listening.  You can keep a number of people informed by sending copies of the message.  If the recipient of the message isn't the appropriate one to handle the matter, he can easily forward it to someone else.  A record of the communication is kept.

But there are also some potential pitfalls to electronic communication, and we need to be careful about these.  There is some tendency to over-use e-mail, perhaps because we're enamored with it or it's fun.  Sometimes it's not the most efficient way to communicate.  People spend more time typing out a message than it would take to make a phone call.  People send e-mails to others just down the hall, when they could more easily talk to them in person.  At least one survey indicated that e-mail is making offices less, not more, productive.

E-mail is less personal than a face-to-face conversation or a phone call.  E-mail has a depersonalizing effect in the work environment.  It's one-way at a time.  One person puts forth his or her thoughts with no immediate feedback or give-and-take.  Then the other person may respond, but then it's his turn at a segment of one-way communication.  Since writing out the message is more laborious than talking, we tend to leave out the small talk, and maybe some of the courtesy, and just focus on the business at hand.  If there's some criticism or expression of disappointment with how things are going, we tend to leave out the perspective with positive aspects and just get right into the negatives.  One of my co-workers says that if you just trade e-mail messages with someone for long enough you'll make him mad.  Sometimes we fire off an e-mail on impulse, and it shows.

The easy forwarding feature of e-mail is dangerous.  If a message contains something negative about someone else, the message can easily be forwarded to that person.  Or it can be forwarded to someone whose perspective is so different that he will get a completely different message from it.

Communicating by e-mail is challenging and risky.  It's a form of written communication in which you have to get it right the first time.  E-mails are usually sent immediately, with no "soaking" or "cooling off" period, no input from others, and no approval by superiors.  Of course, you can pass the note to others for comments or approval before sending it, but for most notes we don't do that.  It's easy to write something that irritates someone, or worse.

These suggestions should help make our e-mail communications more effective:

Ÿ         Think about whether e-mail is the most efficient and effective way to communicate.  Just because someone sent you an e-mail doesn't mean that's the best way for you to respond.  Maybe a long string of e-mail messages needs to be interrupted by a phone call or visit.

Ÿ         Try to keep your e-mail messages as "friendly" as your personal and phone conversations.  Remember "please" and "thank you".

Ÿ         Don't respond to an e-mail without thinking through the ramifications of your reply.  If it has made you mad, give yourself a cooling off period.  Print the message, read it again, discuss it with someone, then think about the best way to reply.

Ÿ         Think about inputs and approvals you need before sending an e-mail.  You can route a copy to someone for comments or to your boss for approval.

Ÿ         Think about to whom you should send copies, to keep everyone informed and to avoid offending anyone.

Ÿ         Before you hit the "send" button, look over your message, think how the recipient will react to it, and remember that you are in effect broadcasting this message to the whole world (at least everyone having access to your e-mail system).  If you wouldn't want the president of your company to read it, don't send it.

Ÿ         Think about what the recipient will want to do with your message.  Will he want to forward it to someone for action?  Make that easy for him.  That may mean separate notes for separate topics.

Ÿ         Be considerate of the recipient.  Don’t overload messages with attachments that are troublesome to handle and that can fill up someone’s mailbox.  Don’t keep adding to and forwarding a note to extremes.  Sometimes it’s better to write a new note. 

In summary

Choose carefully the communication mode you use:  face-to-face, by telephone, by e-mail, or in writing.  Think about the feelings involved and the possible impact on your working relationships.  Be considerate of the recipient. 

Previous Article   Next Article