Last week, I wrote about some ground rules that I’ve used to define my approach to email and texting. Now, I want to look at a few more detailed examples of approaches that I take in an attempt to improve the efficiency of this communication.
At the most basic level, the purpose of the three guidelines below is to get to achieve the desired outcome in the shortest time possible, with the least amount of time and effort required by both parties.
In some ways, the approaches might seem counterintuitive. If you want to get quick responses and limit your effort, it might seem like short messages that don’t require much time and effort on your part might be the best approach. But I’ve found that’s just not the case.
One lazy email to start a conversation can easily lead to confusion that drastically complicates a situation. Or even worse, the recipient might be so put off by the approach, either consciously or subconsciously, that he/she doesn’t respond to your request at all.
In either of these situations, a bit of extra effort upfront pays dividends in the long run. To put it in financial terms, the goal is to be dollar wise and penny foolish.
With that said, here are three specific examples in which a thoughtful approach can lead to drastically improved efficiency.
1. Scheduling Meetings
If you work for a company that effectively uses a service like Outlook, it’s easy to schedule internal meetings because you can see your co-workers’ schedules. But if you don’t work for a large company, or if you’re communicating with someone outside of your organization, that’s not the case.
In these situations, attempts to schedule a meeting often look something like this:
… great, let’s meet to discuss.
Ok. When works for you
How about 10 am on Thursday?
I’m busy at 10. How about 1?
I’m out Thursday afternoon. Can you do Friday morning?
Sure, Friday works for me. 11 am?
Unfortunately, it needs to be before 9. How about 8?
…
And on it goes, with each of these messages taking time and effort from the participants’ day.
But fortunately, this can almost always be prevented if you take an extra minute to assemble a well-thought-out request from the start.
Rather than simply asking to meet, or proposing one time, I’ve developed the following template that has proven to be invaluable for me:
[body of email]
How about we schedule 30 minutes to discuss? The following time periods work well for me:
- 4/2 from 9-11 am
- 4/4 after noon
- 4/6 any time
- 4/10 from 1-3 pm
Do any of those times work for you? If not, please propose a few alternatives and I’ll do my best to accomodate.
[signature]
This template works because it’s short and effective. The recipient almost instantly gathers all the information he/she needs to know to nail down a time. If they follow directions, it should take only one more email before a meeting time is set.
One interesting result I’ve discovered since implementing this template is that it has become noticeably easier to get a meeting with busy people. When they see an email like this, they know they won’t get stuck in an endless game of back and forth so it makes it easy for them to say yes.
2. Communicating to a Group
If you’ve ever been part of a group text, you likely know how ineffective they are. Other than a few rare situations, group emails and text messages are completely ineffective unless your only goal is to share information.
I’ve seen too many time when a sender says “let’s take care of this” or simply asks for “thoughts?” and almost inevitably no one responds. It’s a clear example of the bystander effect.
When there are several people who can theoretically take care of something, and expectations aren’t clearly defined, it’s almost guaranteed that no one is going to take action.
If you need something done, don’t ask for “someone” to do it, be specific. Rather than “let’s take care of this” say “Mike, please take care of this.” Or sometimes even better, follow up to the group email with a specific email addressed directly to Mike.
3. Getting Quick Responses with Specific Subject Lines
Email wasn’t designed to be a chat service. It was designed to be an electronic version of mail, which was traditionally sent with the understanding that responses would take at least several days.
But nowadays, that’s not always the case. Email can be an effective way to ask a non-urgent question without distracting the recipient from whatever they’re working on at the time. But only if you approach it the right way.
Again, remember that the goal is to make it easy for the recipient to help.
Thus, I try to very clearly and succinctly explain exactly what the person needs to know, and what I’d like to know from that person. If an email requires time and effort to comprehend, the chances of a busy person taking timely action are substantially diminished.
I used to get frustrated when my seemingly simple requests went unanswered, but eventually, I figured out that I was actually the problem. When trying to get input about what to include in a given presentation, I would use a vague subject line such as “Combustion Development Presentation” and then I’d write a few sloppy lines in the email body about what I thought I wanted.
But that’s simply not an effective approach. It requires that the reader opens an ambiguous email without knowing what’s expected of them, reads through messy writing, and then tries to give me what they think I need.
When I thought about it that way, it started to make sense why people weren’t as responsive as I would’ve liked.
To overcome this, I started using a technique that politely leads to results in a fraction of the time.
Rather than making someone open my email and read to figure out what I’m asking for, I give them the information right in the subject line. Taking the above situation as an example, I’ll use a subject such as “Where can I find presentation material on combustion development for [customer]?” And then I give any relevant details that might be needed in the email body.
Now, it’s immediately clear exactly what I’m requesting for. If done properly, the recipient can read the email, track down the information, and send it to me – all in less than a minute.
These are just a few examples, but this general approach of putting in a bit more effort on the front end to improve results on the back end can be quite useful.
One important thing to note though is that context matters.
The way I write to a customer is different than a co-worker, and even within my company, the approach I take with a given individual depends on our relationship, their personality, their position, and more.
-Brandon