Communication is a tricky business at the best of times. Email is the communication “Tool of Folly,” especially regarding conflict.
If you:
~~ Would be happy for any number of understandings (or more appropriately, misunderstandings) to occur with your communications...
~~ Are happy to relinquish control over the success, failure or otherwise, of your relationships...
~~ Are too lazy to get out of your chair and actually go and talk to people about problems and issues you or they mutually face...
~~ Would be happy for people to see you as having a ‘timid at home [i.e. with them] but bold when away’ rapport with them... or,
~~ Are happy for people to see you as having an ‘anonymous’ personality...
... Use email.
It’s a common thing that email is maligned; almost everyone knows it’s one of the most unreliable communication mediums.
When we have issues of conflict, email should not be the tool of choice. Even when we wish to commend people we often miss the mark when choosing email to do it. And that’s a heinous outcome, for praise to miss its mark.
We’re so easily fooled into using eloquence when drafting emails and pressing ‘send’ often occurs way too soon. And ‘recalling’ that email won’t always fix the problem; some people get it anyway, and the re-work involved is plain wasteful.
It might sound a bit far-fetched to lay all the blame on a tool, but how many can relate to the lament herein? How many have been bitten by this email curse?
And does email simply hide the fact that we ourselves are to blame for our own errant ways--based in laziness or the acquisitiveness or generation of power?
We’ve all probably been warned before, and I dare say, we may still read this and still fall for the same old email communications trap every now and then. It’s inevitable, though we should apply ourselves to the discipline of ‘doing’ communication more personally.
Copyright © 2008, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
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