Most organizations believe email is one of their biggest productivity snags even though email is probably the most important office communication tool available. The technology has eliminated many of our personal boundaries. Some of us have even allowed email to drive our actions when in reality, our communications should be driven by our goals and the tasks required to accomplish them. What we have forgotten is the fact that email is a communication tool.
The real purpose behind communication is the exchange of information in a way that both parties involved clearly understand the shared intelligence. If the email messages you send aren’t clear, then the recipients of those messages will not be clear either, and they will not be able to interpret what you want or what they need to do as a response to the email.
Think about the number of times you have received an email message that made you wonder what the sending person meant — or why you even got the message in the first place. Now on the opposite end of the spectrum, think about the times you’ve sent an email that returned to you with a bunch of questions because you didn’t take the time to write it clearly. This is where productive communication breaks down with office email. This is the snag.
Productive communication can be greatly improved by implementing a simple mental checklist that you can run through before you hit the “send” button for each and every email that you write. This simple set of rules will grade your email (so to speak) and let you know whether it has passed or failed the test. The process is designed to help you think about what it is you are trying to communicate before sending the email off, ensuring that the recipient will understand what you are striving to communicate. In addition, by writing more effective email messages you will greatly reduce the quantity of emails you receive each day.
The process is called the PASS process of effective email communication. The PASS process will assist you in writing clearly defined emails that produce effective action on the side of the recipients. Leer más “Awesomely Effective Email Communication”
