Recently, I was surprised when someone responded to a posting I’d made on a discussion forum by saying that I’d been a bit “harsh” in my posting and describing it as “inquisitorial”. Initially I was stunned: I couldn’t square the response with the content or – more importantly – the spirit and intention of my posting. It took the response of a second member of the forum, which included a number of inferences-presented-as-truths, for me to become aware that a misunderstanding of gigantic proportions had occurred.
One member of the forum responded by writing an impassioned plea: “I have watched the ‘warm’ exchanges and have become more convinced of the futility of communicating anything other than data via email, forum postings or equivalent batch communications. Texting with emoticons helps but it is still a very poor option. Chatting helps because of the instant nature of the responses. Face to face is the name of the game or telephone/Skype as a second best. To communicate well we need the subtleties of body language and tone of voice… Have we not learned the lessons that we teach to others?” Niels Bohr, physicist, is variously quoted as saying that the opposite of a fact (or a trivial truth) is a falsehood but that the opposite of a great truth may also be true. I wonder: what are the opposing truths of electronic communication in the third millennium?
My colleague on the forum summarises one side of the case and echoes a view which is widely held by those who train others in communication in the workplace. They point to the greater risk of misunderstanding between people by e-mail, when inferences are easily made. They also point to the greater likelihood that people will reach a new understanding if they take time to communicate directly. Receiving an e-mail from a colleague who is angry or upset, you may choose to respond in kind – it’s easy for one angry e-mail to stimulate strong emotions in the recipient who may well react in the same vein rather than taking time to process the emotions the e-mail stimulates before choosing a wise response. The wise response may well be to pop your head round your colleague’s door and say “Wow! I got your e-mail and I can see you’re not happy. Can we talk?”
So what is the opposite of this point of view? Personally, I wonder if it’s good enough in the third millennium to say that e-mail is simply for communicating data and anything else belongs elsewhere. There is, of course, the question of what constitutes “data” – isn’t it all (including the angry e-mail) data? There’s also the question of how we work today. I have any number of clients who have colleagues, clients and other key contacts on different continents and who need to communicate effectively across geographies and time zones, making face-to-face and even telephone communication challenging. Above all I wonder if the opposite point of view is this: that it’s not the medium of communication (e-mail, phone, face-to-face) but the skills we have in communicating – the emotional intelligence – that make the difference, no matter what medium we use. Even the man or woman who stops to think “Oh! This is not one to respond to by e-mail”, for example, is succeeding in his or her communication because s/he brings insight and understanding as much as because s/he chooses to communicate face to face.
For me there are two truths to add here: that communication is inherently difficult and that organisations could be far more effective in addressing the challenges inherent in communication. On reflection, I wonder if my posting stimulated strong emotions in at least one of my colleagues. I say this without judgement – not least because I, too, experienced strong emotions on reading his words. This is the “amygdala hijack” Goleman describes in his books on emotional intelligence. At the same time, there are things we can do that make it more likely that we will be successful in our communications. Some of them take time and effort to learn – it’s not easy to master your emotions in the moment, for example. Some of them can be translated into simple rules, such as “check your inferences before you respond”. One of them is to accept that successful communication is possible only when we accept and embrace the full panoply of human experience and the role it plays in communication, which is often messy and difficult before it’s successful.
Recently I pointed to some of my favourite resources in this area in a blog posting entitled Handling Objections. I wonder, what is your truth when it comes to communication in the workplace?