One of the biggest challenges with writing emails is getting to the point without offending someone. I dare to guess that millions of times a day somebody is misinterpreting the tone of an email and taking what is "said" personally. We all know that emails lack inflection and visual acuity so it is easy for someone to perceive what was intended in the wrong way. Without the benefit of hearing a person's voice inflection and seeing their facial expressions, words can often come across harsh and insensitive when written in haste or without much context to support the message. This is probably one of the most widely known pitfalls about emails but the least considered when a person receives an email they don't like. We don't often say, "Maybe the sender didn't mean it this way so I shouldn't take it personal." We're more likely to take the message at face value and balk at its tone.
There are three things to remember about emails you write and receive that will take some of the sting out of the ones that appear harsh.
1) You don't have to rely on emojis and emoticons to express emotion. Emojis--the colorful faces expressing an emotion or condition like anxiety 😰--are often used to support comments we write and to give feeling to our words. Emoticons are the original way most of us learned to express emotions by using keys on our computers like :0) to indicate a smile for example. Both are used to support the meaning we're trying to convey when our words don't seem to fully hit the mark. But much like the faces you're using to help people understand your feelings in your writing, you can use words to do the same thing. Instead of emojis and emoticons, you can use the words that would express those feelings. Like a novelist or nonfiction writer, you can say how you feel vividly and candidly without offense.
For example, "Michelle, I am so excited to share news about our upcoming sales report." Or "Hi Mitch, I was disappointed to see we didn't hit our goal this month. What are the plans to recover?" With over a million words in today's dictionaries, surely we can find one that is suitable to share how we feel. Invest in a thesaurus to help you out.
2) Make sure you put enough context in your message. Too often we are rushing through emails. It's hard enough to corral them all and decide what's worth reading when we're bombarded by them like locusts. But they are a necessary and common practice in our communications today so we have to make email our friend. Instead of resenting them, we need to see their value and necessity. They should be brief as a rule of thumb. Getting to the point is essential, but not at the cost of meaning. Oftentimes, we want to jot a few bullets and zip off an email without proofing to make sure we're clear, correct, and considerate. By being too bare bones, we lose the opportunity to put enough meat on the skeleton and offer clarity around what we really mean. We leave too much up to interpretation in that instance.
3) Read the message before you send it! I can tell email messages that were composed without any proofreading. They are fraught with misspelled words, omitted words, and statements that make no sense. This usually generates an additional email that wouldn't otherwise be needed if the message was clear from the start. The irony is that we don't like to receive a lot of emails, but we inadvertently create more when we're not clear out of the gates. Not to mention the fallout that comes from a misunderstanding that will surely get you several more.
I've had on a few occasions emails sent with one immensely important word missing. That one word usually changed the meaning of the email 100%. The word is usually "not". There's a huge difference between conveying something you will do and that you will not be doing. When you agree to something you don't intend to do because you left out that one word, you can see the chaos that can ensue.
Any of the three of these actions will vastly improve the way your emails sound to your recipients. They are easy to do and can eliminate a lot of headaches for you. Give them a try and tell me how they worked for you.
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