Emails can be dangerous, make sure it doesn’t happen to you

Emails can be dangerous, but so many people don’t realise that until far too late after the damage has been done.

So why are they so dangerous?

I’m sure there has been a time when you’ve done something amazing, or had something amazing happen, or perhaps learnt a real bit of juicy gossip, and on relaying this to a friend they say to you in amazement “Get out of here!” – You then smile and say “no honest it’s true” and the banter continues.

There may also have been a time when as a child you got involved in something you should not have and a parent or teacher said sternly “Get out of here!” – You probably didn’t smile, and quickly your emotional state changed to very negative.

Now in both situations the words “Get out of here” are the same but you reacted differently, the reason is that it’s not the words that define the meaning of the communication – it’s the tonality – how it is said.

So how do you get the tonality right in an email? – You can’t – there is only one tonality for an email – and guess what, as the sender it’s not yours.

The tonality that will be applied by the reader of the email will be their own tonality based on their emotional state at the time, their beliefs about themselves, and beliefs about the world around them and what you have written. You could be saying something in jest and they may get really hurt and think you are serious, because they are sensitive about this subject for some reason and applied a serious tonality to it.

My first suggestion is if you are replying to something you’ve had land in your Inbox that has wound you up then please save your email response as a draft, wait 15 minutes and go back and read it as if you’d received it – is this the best way to respond, in fact is it a response, perhaps it’s a reaction? A response is a considered piece of communication driven by logic and sensible thinking. A reaction is an emotional response driven off your own fears or emotional reactions.

Taking time to calm down and reconsider your approach is the best way to handle such situations, well third best really – first best is face to face, then phone, then this calm email method coming in as third best, but far better than an over passionate over reaction email response that usually happens.

Perhaps you are just composing an email and not responding to something that’s really emotional, still don’t just hit send, go back read it as if you had received it, read it again from a neutral perspective and how the receiver may read it. Is there anything that could be misunderstood? Your brain is running with what you want to say faster than you can type, so you know what it means when you read it again, so try and read it like someone would just receiving it, how can it be read incorrectly? What needs clarifying?

Make sure as much as you can that people getting your emails are getting the message you want them to get!

Oh and I wonder how many have noticed that most people can only answer one question per email, so if you put two or three questions in an email very often they only answer the first or last question and ignore the others and then you have that dilemma of going back and asking the same questions again without knowing if they missed them or ignored them on purpose……..

Mark Rhodes