Tag: communication

Crisp

FabrizioLeave a comment

Writing long email messages is a disservice to your audience and to yourself.

Your audience does not have time for long, they will at best skim through the message and forget about it the moment they close it (hopefully they will not decide to follow up with another message). You will fail to get through to them, your idea will be diminished, your questions and concerns drowned in adjectives and adverbs, and you will inevitably feel the urge to explain yourself, to add more, to elaborate, in short to add to the confusion.

The time you take to make your message crisp is time well spent.

Damages

FabrizioLeave a comment

Scoring a point, winning an argument, having it your way.

They might all seem like great things, except the damages they make are often greater than the satisfaction they bring.

If you find this difficult to grasp, think back at the last time you failed to score a point, you lost an argument, you did not have it your way.

What you felt back then is the same your counterpart is feeling today. And you know for a fact, it is not a feeling that it is easy to shake off, not a sentiment on which it is possible to build a strong relationship.

And so I guess the question would be: is it worth it?

Personal

FabrizioLeave a comment

When you start thinking that somebody has done something to hurt you, offend you or cut you off, do two things.

Take a break.

Reach out and have a conversation.

Share it

Fabrizio1 Comment

If you have knowledge, share it.

If you have an idea, share it.

If you have a project, share it.

If you learned something, share it.

If you plan something, share it.

If you have a purpose, share it.

If you have experience, share it.

It is the best way to broaden your perspective and actually get things done.

Drain

Fabrizio2 Comments

A meeting is a drain of time, focus and flow. And it compounds the more people are involved.

So, if you are going to have a meeting, make it worth it. Have an agenda, a clear one, even if it is just a sync. Stay on topic. Never go around the (virtual) table to fish for topics, but by all means poke those who speak less and make sure they get a chance to express their opinion. Get to action points in proper time, write them down, and circulate them after the meeting is done. If you have called the meeting, or are in a leadership potion, do a lot of listening and very little talking. And finish earlier.

If you are finding yourself breaking these basics more than once for a particular meeting, the people invited to the meeting are better off if the meeting is removed from their calendars.

They certainly have something better to do.

P.S.: I wrote about meetings a while back also. The rules set out there are still valid for the most part.