Three Ways I've Used Email Incorrectly

There's no doubt that email has become the dominant form of communications in today's world. After all, it provides several major benefits:

• It is super convenient,
• It can be used as a to-do list in a lot of situations,
• It allows us to reach out to colleagues without interrupting them, and
• We can respond to a colleague in a time frame that is, at least partially, conducive to our own personal schedule.

What's not to like?!

Yet, like any tool - convenience breeds misuse, which can easily lead to reduced effectiveness. The following are a few ways I've found myself (and others) using email in ways that does not obtain the intended or desired result.

Trying to convey complex information

As much as I try to be succinct and to the point, asking a nuanced question when there has been no previously established context is very difficult.

Much like social media is a poor medium for a debate, email tends to be a poor medium for describing a situation with a lot of moving parts. I've found that in these scenarios, it is easy to gloss over important points of cognition for the reader. This usually happens because I am so deep in the weeds that I simply don't think of any other way that the variables could be interpreted. And, the more points of cognition that exist in the subject matter, the higher the chance that the reader gets to the end, and is completely lost. As a result, the reader often replies back with an answer to what they understand the issue as being. Sometimes, the reader replies back with 'huh?', putting me back to square one. Frustration builds on both sides.

By contrast, a simple phone call, or person-to-person dialogue to establish context and discuss the fine points of the issue, is far more effective. This way, the recipient has the opportunity to ask clarifying questions, and I have a much higher chance of getting my question answered in a meaningful way.

Faux Progress

Another trap I've found myself falling into is the sending of an email and thinking that forward progress has been made simply because something is off my plate.

Lets say, for example, that I need a piece of information from someone in order to keep things moving with a project. I email the person who has the information, but I may now be at a stopping point until that person replies. The trap is that my brain thinks I've done what I can, I'm waiting on the other person, and then I move on with my day thinking that progress has been made on that project.

A lot of times, all that has happened is that I've wasted time for both me and the recipient. They are likely very busy, so their natural inclination is to reply back via email with clarification questions (see nuanced content, above), and a long back-and-forth email chain that takes place over an extended period of time has begun. Again, it'd have been much more efficient to set up a simple phone call or person-to-person dialogue when both people could be mentally present to the situation.

Lack of Direction

Finally, another really common mistake I've made is the lack of a clear action plan, or lack of what I'm looking for from recipients. Having been on the other side, I've received emails where there are multiple people on the recipient list, and it's not clear who should respond. The email version of bystander apathy runs rather high, and it's easy to think that someone else on the recipient list is better qualified to provide a response.

In this scenario, it's helpful if the email calls out what action items are expected from various individual parties. Even if it's just to hey 'Hey Alice - FYI, no action needed on your part' - that is extremely helpful.

The above are just a few ways I've misused email, where it's been an impediment to communications, instead of facilitating it.

To that end, here are a few general rules I find helpful when writing up an email:

• Make sure both sides have all necessary context of a situation before referencing it in an email.
• Keep questions short, to the point, and written in a way to likewise elicit a short and simple reply.
• When emailing multiple people about something requiring action, call out who I am looking to take said action.
• Finally, take a few moments, and read the email in a contextual vacuum and do what I can to make it easy for the reader. It may mean taking a few minutes to repeat some information that is embedded in a reply further down - but in the long run, it saves everyone time and effort.

Empathy: Your table, or mine?

In a previous post, I wrote about empathy, and that one of the reasons we care about empathy is to establish trust. Empathy, however, is a very large and complicated topic, and being empathetic and establishing trust is a pretty nuanced dance that varies by situation.

So often, we engage in dialogue with someone because we want to either find common ground with the other person, or convince them of our way of thinking. Many times, we end up talking about the issue from our perspective and our values, in the hopes that what resonates with us also resonates with them. We want them to open their eyes to how we see the world.

Spend any time on social media, and you know that things rarely work that way. It doesn’t work because it is a very egocentric approach - we are setting the table and expecting the other person to put their values aside and come to our table. If we already have a rapport with the person, or they are in the mood to venture to our table, it may actually work – but depending on that strategy tends to have a low return on investment. Even if we have facts on our side about an objective topic, it’s not enough to be right.

When we set the table according to their preferences – how they like their silverware set, seating arrangements, menu, dietary restrictions, etc – it is still our table, not theirs. Inviting them is a start to the process of building trust, but it is still going in one direction.

Establishing true trust requires you go to their table. So, how is that done? That’s the tough part, because it is not up to you. You have to be invited. You don’t get to dictate when it happens – that is inherently keeping you in control. You have to be willing to surrender control, be willing to extend overtures, and be willing to wait until the other person is ready. And then, once you’ve been invited, you have to be a gracious guest. That is not the time to bring your ego out and showcase it. Ego must be left at the door.

To step away from the analogy, one way to think about it is to ask: who is asking the questions? Generally, the person asking the question is the one setting the table and extending the invitation. If the other person responds and asks questions, you are moving up the ladder from acquaintance to peer. If the other person responds and there are no follow up questions, the time or opportunity is not quite right yet. If no questions are being asked by either side, then both sides are simply stating their views to the other side, and neither side is in a receptive state. Ultimately, you want the other person to be asking you questions.

Regardless of how long it may take, the benefits of establishing this trust are substantial. You become a trusted advisor. You become a person the other goes to for assistance. You become someone the other person reaches out to when they need help. Whether you are a technical person or a sales person, this is the ultimate goal to reach with your customers.

Free Yourself from Those Pesky Mental Burdens

If you are like most people (and you probably are), there are times you found your thoughts getting in the way of you being happy. Maybe you were able to drop the storyline and move on - those are the easy ones. However, what about the thoughts that you cannot let go?

I find that the biggest stumbling blocks involve an “if… then” statement. For example – if I got a raise, then I’d be happy. Or, if only Bob would respond to my emails more quickly, then it’d be a lot easier to work with him. You get the idea.

The problem is, these statements depend on external factors, which we have limited control over. That is why we have a hard time letting go, because there is not a lot we can do to affect the outcome.

Not too long ago, I was introduced to “The Work” of Byron Katie, which is a sort of meditation designed to help work with those ‘if… then’ statements. It was not advertised as such – but I find it applicable nonetheless.

This meditation is comprised of asking yourself four questions, followed by a turnaround. I'll take a moment here and point out that these questions are meant to be reflected on with some intention - they only help if you put effort into them.

Let’s walk through the example of a thought being “if I got a raise, then I’d be happy”:

1. Is it true?

Yes! Everyone wants more money!

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

Maybe? It’d be nice to get a raise, but how will the money actually help?

3. How do you react when you believe that thought?

It’s frustrating that I have not gotten a raise.

4. Who would you be without the thought?

Less cynical about my employer, and more motivated at work.

The final step, the turnaround, is turning the thought into the opposite. Instead of ‘if I got a raise, then I’d be happy”, you could ask ‘Why is it that getting a raise would make me happy?’ By flipping the script, you are able to realize that perhaps a raise represents validation and acknowledgement by your boss and the organization.

Now we are getting somewhere!

In this case, happiness is not predicated on an incremental increase of income – it’s based on acknowledgement as a valued contributor. I am not saying people should not get, or want, raises for good performance, but this example is useful because it is a very common one, and many times it’s not the monetary value of the raise itself that provides happiness – it is something deeper.

Although the above is just one example, people can usually think of multiple ‘if.. then’ statements that affect their life. It is very easy to unconsciously set expectations that rely on some external factor that we cannot control, and ignore the internal attitude and recognition of factors that we can control.

The magic of the above four questions is that they provide us the ability to really drill down and tease out the real issue that is bothering us. 

Hacking the Habit Loop

Why is it that bad habits are so easy to pick up, and good habits are so hard to create?

It’s because the common perception of how habits work is incorrect. Conventional wisdom tells us that if we want to form a good habit, we have to plod through some onerous ritual every day for 30 days, and then the habit will magically stick; if we want to break a bad habit, we have to suffer through some sort of denial before the craving magically disappears.

That sounds terrible. It’s no wonder we have a hard time managing them.

So, how then, can we better manage them? Or even take advantage of how they work, to our benefit?

The first step is to recognize that habits are, at their core, quite simple – there is a trigger, there is an action, and there is a reward. Put them all together, and you have a habit loop. That’s it.

The next thing that needs to be addressed is the language, and there are two factors here. The first is the idea of good and bad habits. Notice that in the habit loop above, there is no mention of good or bad. That’s because the only difference between good and bad habits is context and desirability. Just like a weed is simply a plant growing where you don’t want it, a bad habit is something you do that you’d rather not do. Good, bad – it has nothing to do with the habit itself. The habit just is.

The second aspect of habit language is the concept of breaking a habit. A habit is not broken – it is replaced. The crux of this concept is mired by the fact that the mechanism of replacement can range from the quite simple, to the complex. If you’ve had a habit that you previously ‘broke’ by brute force (stopping the cycle at the ‘action’ phase) – what actually happened was that the new action, followed by receiving the new reward (even if just the mental congratulations you gave yourself), was stronger than the reward you got previously. For some habits, that can work. But for other habits, the reward is a lot more complex, and you have to reflect on what, precisely, is the thing (or things) that you gain from the habit. Then, you have to find a way to get the reward(s) without performing the same action.

Habits are a crucial part of how we navigate through the world. They are a shortcut tool our brain uses that reduces decision fatigue, which allows us to save our mental energy for new situations we may encounter throughout our day. Like any tool, they provide benefit, but can also cause problems. By recognizing what they are at their core, and reconstructing the narrative around how we think of them – it becomes a lot easier to shed habits we don’t want, and embrace new habits that we do.

How Asking for Advice the Right Way Pays Continual Dividends

There’s a right way to ask for advice, and there are wrong ways. Asking the right way gets you an answer that is not just useful, but also gives you a champion in your corner; asking the wrong way can result in a brush off response that alienates the advice-giver.

If I am looking for advice, and I’ve done some of my own research and invested effort in educating myself on the topic, I can ask pointed, direct questions. As a result, I have a better chance of getting advice I can act on.

For example, let’s say I want to learn a new skill like cooking. If I approach someone who does a lot of cooking, I could ask them ‘I want to get better at cooking – do you have any suggestions on what I should do?’ The response is likely to be vague and generic, like “Find recipes on the internet and just start cooking more.”

The problem is that I haven’t provided the other person with anything to work with, so they aren’t going to get into specifics about what herbs and spices go with chicken vs steak, or how to sauté aromatics properly. I’ve demonstrated no real investment myself, so the other person has no reason to invest their time and resources in me, either.

On the other hand, if I approach that person and ask ‘I want to get better at cooking, and I’ve watched some episodes of America’s Test Kitchen – are their recipes suitable for a beginner?’ then a conversation can happen! They can ask questions to learn about my comfort level in the kitchen, or they can ask what looked interesting to me. They are in a better position to offer me something useful, and I’m in a better position to do something with it.

Further still, now that we’ve engaged in a mutual interest conversation, they are more likely, at some point, to ask how things are going. They have become invested as well, and they will want to see if that investment is paying off. After all, everyone loves to get recognition for giving advice!

Sometimes, people will claim to be asking for advice, but in reality they are looking to validate a decision they have already made. Using the previous example, if I asked "I saw this recipe on America’s Test Kitchen, it looks good, and I was thinking of trying it – do you think that’s a good idea?" I’ve already made up my mind, and it would take a lot to dissuade me from trying it. If the person being asked replied with ‘no’, and I go ahead anyway, then I’ve directly countered their advice, and there’s little incentive for them to be helpful in the future.

The thing about asking advice – it’s a really good way to engender support from someone who knows more about a topic than you do, so it’s worth the effort to make sure you are capitalizing on that opportunity. If you ask someone for advice in a way that shows you’ve already put effort in, and you are open to actually following the advice given – you gain a valuable ally in your corner that you can go to for additional advice in the future.