Comments on: Email With Care

By: mr. traffic

mr. traffic — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:34:02 +0000

Thanks for the info – I wonder how many sites/companys use this in their practice?

By: Web Suunnittelu

Web Suunnittelu — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 10:43:37 +0000

Thank you Daniel for sharing your insights, very inspiring.

I’ve spoken about a similar topic at my university; your website is full of incredible knowledge, this really is a truly fascinating article.

By: Joan

Joan — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 06:17:38 +0000

This is a really fascinating article, among many here at this wonderful website, which I just found today. I love the world library of information, music, and literature of all kinds that is accessible to me “at my fingertips” through the Internet and the World Wide Web and the powerful, affordable tools of email and instant messaging that allow me to stay in touch with friends all over. That being said, along with many other thought-provoking comments, I agree with the readers who mentioned dead novel writers and letter writing and the similarities between and the potentials of email and good old-fashioned letters.
I agree with the writers who mention two possible contributing elements to the lack of understanding of each other’s emails and the “flaming”: the writer’s skill with the written word (or lack thereof) and the increased inability of people to accept responsibility for their actions, in an email, in a memo, or in person. Friends my age (born at the end of the 50’s) notice this apparent inability of people, often younger than us (but not always) to ever own up to just making a mistake, and then apologizing, never mind doing something to fix the mistake, in many areas of life, especially in the neighborhood we live in.
So while I find it regrettable, perhaps I should not be surprised at this kind of irresponsible behavior on the Internet, where it shows up in forums, blogs and everywhere in email.
I went to Catholic school, and while this was not a total advantage in my general educational background, I did learn to spell and use grammar. I may not always do so perfectly, I can get careless too, but I am always called upon to proofread everyone else’s work wherever I have worked at a job that required any written communications and friends ask me to do this for them all the time as well. Administrators everywhere I’ve ever worked praise all my writing, including my emails, which I find strange, until I consider what they have to compare it with. Spelling is like math, for some folks, either they are good at it or not, and I admit, math is not my strong suit. So I double-check my computations with a person who is more comfortable with numbers or at least with the use of both paper and pencil and a calculator. Grammar can be memorized and used or a book referred to, to check what you are doing…which is what I do when I need a mathematical formula I don’t remember – I look it up – on the Internet!
However, I find that in recent years written language is something that has just deteriorated and that this is accepted as the norm in most workplaces (including the biggest office in the state in a state government job I did for the last two years until four months ago) and sadly, schools. At my last job, it was just assumed that this terrible writing (admittedly terrible! complained about as being terrible!) would have to be accepted, They felt that there’s little help for it, and no time for administrators (some of whom wrote even more badly) to teach people with four year degrees and in some cases, Master’s degrees, how to write effectively, never mind grammatically, or to use Spell Check (which does not catch everything, as we know). I found information that was handed to the courts from our office embarrassingly poorly written and spelled and spent much time fixing other people’s work when a file was turned over to me with one of these awful reports in it, I could not just turn this in with my name on it, and would not do so. I was criticized by administration for doing this, frequently, as a waste of time. Oh, they said my written reports were very good…the attorney representing the state would say this each time (in a very surprised tone of voice, too) but it was not “enough” for them. The head administrator told me that it was not valued in my job description to be a good writer, and that she had a new initiative of her own, to start to do “something” to begin to change that in our location. We had that conversation shortly before they decided to terminate me, despite my completion of a “work plan” they proposed.
In support of the people who wrote to say that people are irresponsible and that’s a big part of the problem, I must say that I observed a gross example of this phenomenon at this job (I had burnout, they terminated my employment and despite continuing unemployed other than part-time after four months, I am still grateful, every day, not to be in that toxic environment anymore) and that this incident reinforced what I had brought to management’s attention many times – an increasing atmosphere of a total lack of respect, never mind caring or anything remotely approaching professional behavior office-wide, between all levels of workers in the largest office in that state, of this state organization.
What happened is this: a supervisor of supervisors and regular workers sent an email e vehemently accusing another same-level supervisor of arranging a meeting specifically with the intention of excluding her from attending, due to the date/day it was scheduled – only she sent it to the entire office, not just to the other supervisor who scheduled the departmental meeting. This complaint, in an environment where there are many many days (esp. Fridays, and then Mondays) when you cannot find more than one overwhelmed supervisor in the whole building, when something must be signed off on to make it take effect, even in emergency situations, I found laughable, (as in, she’s surprised that a meeting was being held when she, a supervisor, would be out? ask a regular worker about supervisors being out of the office, for a little reality check!) but I was also shocked that it was sent out to the entire office, as this upper level administrator was known for being “computer savvy”. I was left with one of two assumptions. Either she reacted in an email angrily, first, then hit send, and then realized she had not checked where she sent the email to, as in which mailing list because she was that out-of-control angry when she wrote it. Or, she intended the whole office to become party to this confrontation between two same-level adminstrators. Perhaps because she was taking on, maybe even deliberately challenging, the “untouchable” status of someone with much more seniority in the organization as well as much more seniority at this location than she had (I wasn’t alone in my shock, there were heavy predictions that the “flamer” would be backing down very soon or losing her job or suddenly transferring out) and maybe she wanted all these “innocent bystanders” in case anyone tried any retaliatory gestures. The jury was out, no one was sure, according to the “buzz”. I’m not a big one for office gossip but people were expressing their opinion on this in cubicles next to my own, rather explicitly and it was impossible to miss the conversations, especially since discretion is frequently not the way things are done or discussed in that office.
What happened next was even, to my way of thinking, both funnier and sadder and ultimately, scary. The supervisor who sent out the “flaming” email directed at the other supervisor, immediately sent out another email to the whole office, instructing everyone (including, presumably, the head of the entire office? her superior as well) to not construe anything based on the previous email and not to discuss it or its content. Sad attempt at damage control, if that was what was even intended, in a manner and tone even more arrogant and high-handed than the initial email. She made a spectacle of herself and other administration and then told the rest of the staff not to talk about it. Like she could control the thoughts and feelings of everyone in the office. I’d noticed this kind of high-handed thinking in many behaviors around this organization, but even so, I was shocked at how far things had gone. It also counts as the second-stupidest and ill-advised email I’ve ever read. The “flamer” also never apologized for involving everyone in her ridiculous, unnecessary and unprofessional little small-minded office feud. No responsibility taken, none whatsoever. She has a Master’s degree and double-digit years in her field and in this organization and is a single parent. As I said, scary and bordering on delusional behavior.
Her “flaming” email was ill-advised and rude and unnecessary to begin with, she and the administrator she targeted are literally located just feet apart and could have sorted this out in 10 seconds face to face by her walking over to the other supervisor’s office and asking to be included in the meeting or for an accomodation in scheduling the meeting to be made, a change, so that she could attend also, and she could have used her skills to explain why that was important to the general functioning of her position and the entire office (these are supervising Social workers! with Masters Degrees! please!) but instead she wrote that foolish email, then, she hit Send.
I wasn’t sure what to think of her and whether I trusted her to be a competent leader for me individually, prior to this incident. This action, along with others that she took with me and my situations professionally, sealed my judgment that she was indeed, incompetent. Actually, it was the second email telling everyone else what to think and talk about and what not to think, that really made up my mind on this score.
I remember letters, I wrote a lot of them. I wrote to my friends and relatives while I was in college and until my friend who moved to AZ and then MT learned how to use a computer and email, her letters were treasures I looked forward to, and that I still miss, although her emails are very good, also. She loves email now, and has learned to use computers competently despite swearing she would never do so (I tutored her, by email! neither of us could afford the phone calls…so I have great fondness for email and instant messaging, too). Her only complaint is when too many of us only forward cute emails and jokes and don’t actually write email messages with personal content. She still looks for the personal content, like letter writing and supplies it quite well in her emails.
As with any writing, the writer is supposed to take their audience into account and use proofreading before sending. That is why email programs have these amazing modern features (which us dinosaurs who didn’t grow up with a mouse in our hands learned to use, and so, others could too!) called “Drafts” and “Spell Check”.
They do not do trainings on appropriate email use and writing in places that send out a lot of email every single day (there were few days when you weren’t dealing with upwards of 30 or more emails from every level of the organization there, and from people who didn’t know you and who were disseminating information to people who didn’t need it at all – these were State-level administrators sending this stuff, which was essentially spam) but they have and require trainings on all sorts of information that they never ask you to use again. It’s ludicrous.
On the other hand, I am sure it was another symptom of a system-wide, state-wide failure that is and was bad and is getting worse and was reflected in many areas and in all forms of communication at this particular organization. Or perhaps it is a societal symptom that we now accept what was considered unacceptable behavior, once.
Staff meetings were taking upwards of three plus hours each month and several unprofessional outbursts between supervisory staff and worker staff or other supervisors from different departments occurred at these meetings the last year I was still there, so “face to face” was not working well, either.
My other point here is that communication breakdowns seem to be across the board, and to indicate something more pervasive than a mere impersonality of medium used.
These were not minor disagreements, these were shouting matches in front of all of our colleagues, as attendance at these monthly staff meetings was mandatory. One such public verbal argument, complete with one person leaping to their feet and shouting at the other person, resulted in that staff member leaving the room in a rush and in tears, not to return for the entire balance of the meeting. The other memorable occurrence was a bitter, backbiting debate in front of guest speakers, interrupting the guest’s presentation and persisting in a completely stubborn and childish way for long minutes before the head administrator stopped it as politely as she could. I was embarrassed for all of us.
I think the problem isn’t the impersonality of email as a medium, I believe it’s the choices made in today’s “culture” (using that term loosely!) to be rude, impersonal, unprofessional and to not use any thought or restraint in communications. I believe that until we demand the standards of other times and impose sanctions on people who won’t keep to those standards, it will continue.
There have always been anonymous forums available, where some people try to take advantage and are abusive and inconsiderate and downright stupid (or exhibiting low social/emotional IQ, if you like that better) in their communications.
The Internet is a bigger and perhaps more accessible forum and it’s a bigger world out there today, and there are perhaps more people in it who don’t know any better and don’t care to learn.
Irresponsibility, whether for choosing to use Spell Check, or for choosing to save a message in Drafts and asking a professional colleague to proof it for tone and grammar and content as well as for the impact of what you are writing, is a choice. Choosing to allow yourself to “sleep on it” when writing (drafting!) a message, an email, or a memo, and to reconsider it, maybe more especially if it is personal, not office, email, are tools that are available to everyone and not using them is a choice, too. Cordial and formal or business openings and closings are not “against the rules” in email and I use them when writing an email cover letter to accompany my emailed resume and in other emails as well. It’s a choice. Some of my comment here is sarcastic in tone, and that was also my choice.
When we blame a marvelous, powerful, accessible technology (that was not available to me throughout four years of college, an electronic typewriter was it, back then) for the user’s personal choices to not learn how to use it appropriately and for not accepting responsibility in our communications, we’ve reached the height of irresponsible attitudes in living and need to take another look at ourselves and how we use these helpful tools.

By: EM

EM — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 02:09:51 +0000

I actually enjoy extracting meanings in words. like letters really. think of times when all people had to communicate was via letters. the only difference now is that we can trigger them back and forth so much more quickly. Imagine having to wait months for a reply regarding the the addressee’s letter that you just didn’t understand. It at least keeps the conversation going.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 15:46:07 +0000

I want to thank Daniel Goleman and all who have commented here for insights into a gnarly communication problem.

Emoticons are better than nothing, perhaps, but I don’t find them very useful. They express only the emotions we are fully aware of and want to signal. In personal communication, the subtle shifts in facial expressions, changes in pace of speech, and other subtle cues can let me know when my communication is veering off course, even before the discomfort rises to the level of conscious emotion in the listener. I can slow down, ask a question, smile, or respond in some way to those subtle cues, and my conversation partner doesn’t ever have to resort to the list of twenty-seven officially expressible emotions.

For communication across vast distances, lacking Skype, I am about to switch to handwritten letters. There is a little bit of paralanguage there, from the paper to the pressure of the pen and the subtle variations in size and angle. And there is the tradition of cordiality in the formal openings and closings.

By: miriam

miriam — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 02:56:37 +0000

A hearty Amen to all the commenters who pointed out the importance of letters, literature, and the long history of the written word. What mystifies me, Dr. Goleman, is why this important point has escaped you until now.

How could you have forgotten the letter? That was what I asked you by letter last month. Whether or not you got that letter, I’ll quote from it in this comment.

Is e-mail written in solitude? So are letters. Does e-mail lack paralanguage? So do letters. Even if they are seldom written today, particularly at work, one cannot understand e-mail without knowing how it compares with both speech and other forms of writing.

Those of us born in the 40’s and 50’s are old enough to remember letters. I was a frequent letter writer throughout the 70’s and 80’s. I’ve had friendly correspondences with people I never or scarcely knew in person. I wrote in longhand because I was a bad typist, but the letters I received were usually typed. They were emotionally warm nonetheless.

Readers of this blog might like to check out “Flame First, Think Later,” which appeared in the New York Times this February. But if all written communication were as volatile as e-mail, why would letters and correspondences be so treasured over generations and centuries? Why would they not have degenerated into flamefests, instead of carrying the warmth and wit and subtlety that they so often do?

But, Dr. Goleman, here is my biggest question: You and others have written as though humanity went straight from face-to-face speech to the telephone, with nothing in between. That is like supposing that before the railroads were built, people did nothing but walk. Why have educated people, who supposedly have a sense of history, forgotten about the letter? What accounts for this Svengali-like influence of electronic things?

By: Aquin

Aquin — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 04:33:31 +0000

e-mail….Lately I have been busy and not able to get to all those emails that magicly apear in my INbox..Later only to find out I have disapointed someone by not responding..I would have evently but there is this feeling that when the message has been sent the recipient has read it…Email is a wonderful thing but sometine you just have to reach out and touch someone “pun intended”

By: A Times reader

A Times reader — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 22:34:35 +0000

In your article “E-mail is Easy to Write (and to Misread)”, published on Oct. 7th, you mention that people have a tendency to interpret positive messages as more neutral and neutral messages as more negative. I’m a student at Cornell University working on research about if and how emotion is conveyed through a text-based environment and I am wondering if I could get the source for your information about people’s interpretation of messages because it’s definitely something I would like to read.

By: A Times reader

A Times reader — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 22:34:11 +0000

Mr. Shirky and Mr. Goleman:

While I would agree that for some, if not many, email misunderstandings are like functional Asperger’s. I would also point out that this is an excellent example of how a person with Asperger’s is challenged on a daily basis in almost every human interaction. This could be very instructive in teaching people about Asperger’s and compassion; however, characterizing an Aspie as emotionally brittle is not only inaccurate, it is cruel and misleads the public. It is irresponsible reporting to go beyond simply making the correlation, and to aid in the casting pejorative and harmful characterizations. This level of irresponsibility and ignorance is truly disappointing.

In case a writer from the Times, and a prof at NYU need assistance, according to the American Oxford Dictionary:

brittle
adjective
hard but liable to break or shatter easily : /her bones became fragile and brittle.
/• (of a sound, esp. a person’s voice) unpleasantly hard and sharp and showing signs of instability or nervousness : /a brittle laugh.
/• (of a person or behavior) appearing aggressive or hard but unstable or nervous within : /her manner was artificially bright and brittle.

I don’t know what Mr. Shirky’s credentials are to make any qualifying statements about Asperger’s but unless he/you has something upon which to rely, perhaps he/you shouldn’t cast ASPERsions at those with Asperger’s. Aspies aren’t actually brittle; they feel and they don’t break easily.Â As a matter of fact, it is very difficult to break an Aspie, because they are neurologically incapable of receiving the message that you are trying to break them. The usually feel it only after the 18 ton truck has over run them, having received absolutely no clue it is coming. They aren’t unstable; they don’t usually share their feelings and control them tightly, since interacting with “normal” people has taught them interaction equals rejection. Your brittle comment is just a simple example.

Aspies are not emotionally aggressive; they cannot force their feeling upon someone else, and they are unable from a neurological standpoint to play power games or emotional games. They are missing that particular wiring “gift” that makes normal people so “normal.”

From the NYT:

These quirks of cyberpsychology are familiar to Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in New York University â€™s interactive telecommunications program. His expertise is social computing — software programs through which multiple users interact, ranging from Facebook to Listservs and chat rooms to e-mail. I asked Professor Shirky what all of this might imply for the multitudes of people who work with others by e-mail.

“When you communicate with a group you only know through electronic channels, it’s like having functional Asperger’s Syndrome — you are very logical and rational, but emotionally brittle,” Professor Shirky said.

The quote should have stopped at rational. And could have merely be finished with, but readers miss the emotional cues because they are operating in an emotional vacuum. That would have been responsible reporting, accurate, well informed, and served the same purpose. I never expected the Times to foster ignorance. Shame on the Times! And shame on Mr. Shirky who clearly doesn’t know whence he speaks.

By: A Times reader

A Times reader — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 22:32:16 +0000

I loved the article! *0* It was so helpful to receive information that explained both rationally and persuasively why the email world is a treacherous one in which to live — and why we need to tread its digital turf carefully if we are to obtain more benefit than cost in using it. ^__^! That’s one reason why I think it’s time for adults to ‘mainstream’ the use of emoticons that can provide us a rather significant substitute for facial expression, tone, body language, and the like. It took a while for me to begin using emoticons, but I learned from receiving emails from the younger generation that uses (a fairly broad and sophisticated array of) emoticons that their communications tend to be much clearer than my own. With the use of emoticons, I now live in the email world both with far greater care and with far less danger and anxiety.