Arum lily aka cockoo pint, Lords and Ladies.
Stop Using These Words In Your Emails!
Bernard
Marr
Do you know how you sound in emails?
Without the benefit of being able to hear people’s vocal
inflections or see their faces,
it can be challenging to interpret how the person on the
other end of an email is feeling.
Emoticons and exclamation points can only take you so far
(especially in a business email),
and in fact, sometimes formal business language can start
to sound,
well, negative without context.
A Wall Street Journal article on
enigmatic email tells the story of a consultant
who sent a detailed project plan to her client by email
and received only a one-word response: “Noted."
She feared he was angry or disappointed, when in fact,
he was thrilled to be able to clear the issue from his
inbox with so little effort.
So how can you ensure you get your message across without
seeming negative?
Accentuate the positive.
Overall, the word choices you make add up to the tone of
your communications.
And when you consistently choose negative words and
phrases,
your emails will sound terse, condescending, or angry.
Negativity is never good and always sends out negative
vibes.
Even if you feel negative about a situation, you can
still make an effort to turn your emails
into more positive messages — which usually get better
responses.
Words like cannot, damage, do not, error, fail,
impossible, little value, loss, mistake, not, problem, refuse, stop, unable to,
unfortunately, escalation, urgent, never, inability and unsound
all have a strong negative connotation.
Take this sentence for example:
Unfortunately, it looks impossible to finish the
project on time because
of the problems some people are causing with
submitting their work late.
That’s a lot of negative words for one sentence.
But you could easily convey the same information in a
more positive way, like this:
Can everyone turn in their portion of the project by
Thursday
so that we can complete the work on time and hit the
deadline.
As you can see, it’s all about the words you choose that
conveys your tone.
If the boss in the Wall Street Journal example
above had even responded with,
“Thank you!” instead of “Noted,”
his employee probably would not have worried whether she
had done a good job.
Try to phrase your message using more positive terms like
benefit, it is best to, issue, matter, progress, success and valuable.
Dos and Don’ts
An easy way to fall into the negativity trap is to start
listing out things people shouldn’t do.
Don’t leave uneaten food in the office refrigerator.
Don’t be late to the meeting.
Even saying “don’t
forget” is more negative than saying “remember.”
Instead of telling others what not to
do, try telling them what they should do instead.
Please take your lunches home at the end of the day.
Please arrive for the meeting five minutes early.
People are much more likely to comply with a positive
request
than a negative complaint on their behavior.
When in doubt, spell it out.
If you find that people frequently misinterpret your
emails, you might need to be more explicit. There’s no harm in actually saying
how you feel when communicating with colleagues,
especially those with whom you have a good relationship.
For example, rather than using terse, negative language
in an email about project scheduling because you’re sick of the software you
have to use to schedule meetings,
you might come out and say, “This scheduling system is
frustrating to me,
but it looks like we can meet on Friday…”
That way, the recipient can understand that you’re
feeling negative about something
other than him.
Have you ever had a major email miscommunication? Was
tone to blame?
I’d love to hear your stories in the comments below.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20141208072941-64875646-stop-using-these-words-in-your-emails
You can TCR music, poetry or self development material for internal knowing.
I can Turbo Charge Read a novel 6-7 times
faster and remember what I’ve read.
I can TCR an instructional/academic book around 20 times faster and remember what I’ve read.
Perhaps you’d like to check out my sister blogs:
All aspects of regular, each-word down-each-line
reading and education.
Turbo Charged Reading uses these skills
significantly faster
www.innermindworking.blogspot.com gives
many ways for you to work with the stresses of life
www.happyartaccidents.blogspot.com just for fun.
To quote the Dr Seuss himself, “The more that you read, the more
things you will know.
The more that you learn; the more places you'll go.”
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