For this
week we were tasked with evaluating three ways of saying the same thing. See my
Resources for a link to “The Art of Effective Communication” course module
(Laureate Education, Inc., n.d.).
The text
version of the message was delivered in a mockup of an email. First I take that
the message is a formal email because of the use of email communication
etiquette; where you address the recipient by name in the salutation and end
with a sign off. This is where the formality ends for me. The rest of the email
is full of pleading and whiny words that would have annoyed me coming from a
team member or even a supervisor. The repeating of the request changed the tone
of the email completely for me. It feels like it comes from someone who may be unqualified for their position and is too wrapped up with preventing their own failure.
The
voicemail was very similar to the email for me, yet the voice tone made it a
little easier to understand the request. Meaning I could hear the need in her
voice and that softened the annoyance I felt about her asking me three times
the same thing. A simple and short “Hey this is Jane. I know you’re busy, but I
need the data from your report. Please get back to me when you can! Thanks!”
would have worked better in my opinion.
The
face-to-face was the best of the three. The repetition of the message gave me
the opportunity to read her body language as I listened to her. I felt better
about her requesting the report because I was in her presence having social
time along with the business talk. This eased any tension I was feeling after
going over the other two modes. I think it was her facial expressions; she knew
she was nagging and felt bad about it, but needed my report data to get moving
on her own work.
At the end of this, I felt
the message needed the face-to-face mode to be communicated most effectively.
In the other two forms the message was lost with all the extra communication
going on. Especially in the written form, the tone of the message was
completely misleading. Instead of coming across as friendly and politely asking
for the report, it came off as whiny and pleading to me. I think that precise
communication is best done through email where it can be documented, progress
check-ups can be done by phone (but not left as a voicemail), and important
requests need to be done live Face-to-Face either in real life or via video
conferencing.
Resource
Hi Lucas,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you about the written email. I would have preferred a short, concise, yet still urgent tone in it. The best communication would probably be a combination of face-to-face and written email. First meet face-to-face and then email commenting the talk and reminding of the urgency of the report.
/Millan
Lucas, you are absolutely right. The voicemail was nagging but I could understand her need more. Face to face clearly worked better in this situation.
ReplyDeleteLucas,
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of what you wrote . However, I work as an ID for a project that is across the US (Phoenix, AZ) from where I am located (Columbia, SC) so face-to-face is impossible. You said " progress check-ups can be done by phone (but not left as a voicemail) and I would agree in this case. The voicemail could be a please call me as soon as you can on an urgent matter." However, if F2F were off the table (as in my case) which method would you resort to using to get the situation resolved?
I wouldn't resort to anything less than face-to-face. It's bad business to allow communication to fail. In your case where travel cost are prohibitive (I am assuming here), Google hangouts, ooVoo, or Skype video calls are what I would use to get that face-to-face feel. Supplement that with a discussion board and/or wiki and I would call it good.
ReplyDelete