What do you do when email is down or it fails to get your point across? I bet you pick up the phone just like I do. Robert Gerrish of Flying Solo makes a great point about conversation and relationships in his latest newsletter.
Just imagine if email were taken away from you. What would you do? Would you type 20, 30, 40 letters a day? Fold them, pop them in envelopes and trundle up to the letterbox? Not a chance.
I sure as hell wouldn’t. It would be worse if I needed to have a printed label on each envelope. The choice of communication channel is critical in the creation of quality working relationships. Email traverses distance in time differently from a phone or face-to-face conversation. It also changes the nature of the interaction. Only last week I shared with someone the example of an email sent to my cousin which drew the response, “Are you allright?”. I was fine as would have been evident over the phone, yet in the email there was no emotional marker. (have you noticed there are emoticons for a lot of emotions but “ok” is not included). My cousin’s own mood effected how he interpreted mine. How ironic that for most of us email travels over the phone line.