by Laura Camacho
There are conflicting statistics about how many emails people receive at work every day. It’s at least 100 emails. While we’re not sure how many we get each day on average, what we can agree on is that we get too many. Because emails tend to reach larger audiences than texts and phone conversations, rethinking the way you respond to an email is a good investment of your brain power. It’s a way to contribute more value to your company.
Be that person who finds good ways to cut back on the madness and misunderstandings in electronic communications. Use the four R’s: Reduce, Relate, Rearrange, and Rank.
Reduce the word count
Imagine you get paid for every word you take out. Make sure you use plenty of white space.
Relate content to the audience
Sell it to them! Tell them why they should want to read it. (That’s good part to put in the subject line if you can.)
One thing that really sours the mood is reading through an email without seeing why it was sent to you in the first place. Connect the message to your audience’s priorities.
Re-organize the data
Our love affair with data has created such an ocean of data points that we can barely keep afloat in it. What can be left out or moved to an attachment? Ideally, every data point should be supporting the argument or purpose of the email.
Put yourself in your boss’ chair for an imaginary moment, then format and organize your reports so she can best leverage them in the shortest amount of time. If you’re not sure, ask your most important email recipients how would like they to see the data formatted or organized.
Rank your recommendations
Following the example of journalists, your briefings should rank points or items from most impactful to this specific audience, to least important. If you aren’t making recommendations, make sure the email really needs to be sent in the first place.
By inserting your analytical skill and communication savvy into each significant email, voice mail, and any other sort of message, you add value to all the people who cross that message. That’s a level of value that’s sure to be rewarded….eventually.
Laura Camacho, MBA, PhD, PMP, is an executive coach, trainer and speaker who opened Mixonian Institute in 2009 to rid the world of boring business communication. She has created innovative training programs for local and international companies, related to leadership effectiveness, excellent feedback, growth mindset and emotional intelligence. Multilingual, Dr. Camacho’s career highlights include facilitating The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (in Spanish,) being editor of the leading management newsletter in Venezuela. For 10 years she taught communication classes at ECU and College of Charleston. www.mixonian.com
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