Pick Up the Phone!

Pick Up the Phone!

If the business fairy granted me three wishes, my first would be to turn off email for a month and see what happens. I have a long list of situations in which groups of people became completely wedged and wasted lots of valuable time by over-relying on email instead of having a meeting or a phone call.

Why? The obvious reasons are that emotions don't read well in email. People say things in emails that they would not be foolish enough to say in person. And because it's a half-duplex medium - you can only either talk or listen - you can't see how the other person is taking your message. Then there's the anti-network effect: the more people involved, the more emails have to flow to make a conversation occur.

Many of the people involved think they are being more efficient by staying glued to the keyboard, but the sad truth is that they are wasting their time compared to getting a good outcome quickly in direct communication.

Take the trouble to speak directly when there is a problem that needs solving. It's the fastest route to a good outcome.



Prerana Kapase

Software | Technology | Arts | Writing | Ex - Agilent, Bloomberg, Intel, Persistent | UF | PICT

7 年

Sometimes written communication is better than verbal especially when working across global cultures where exact same way of saying things is considered good in one culture and bad in other. In this case emotions don't read well is in fact good way of neutralizing cultural differences! And also for record purposes -- People tend to say different things in different meetings. Also many a times meeting times spent are almost same/more.

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I have been told that I give good phone

Charles van Dortmond

EMEA Enterprise Services Engagement Manager at Agilent Technologies

7 年

I would comment, but will do f2f when we meet again. ??

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Thierry GéANT

Vous n'êtes plus seul pour réfléchir et décider ??enAlto - MYANZO - Le compagnon de vos décisions - Executive Sparring Partner ?? ?????... aussi virtuel boosté à l'IA ??????

7 年

Une chose est s?re : toutes nos entreprises existent car elle sont constituées de personnes. La force du collectif résident dans les interactions entre celles-ci, et l'écoute de l'autre en est l'élément capital. Si vous en êtes convaincu, trouvez tous les moyens qui vous permettront d'avoir un échange direct... Le téléphone existe encore !!!

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