Email – Is your true intent really getting through?
In the October 2005 Boomer Bulletin, my article entitled “Retooling IM to enrich corporate communication” illustrated several methods of communication are more effective by engaging you through multiple channels . For example, face to face contact involves cues that are related not only to the words you use, but also body language, inflection of words, and attention to the person you are speaking with. Being able to correctly interpret the tone of a message is critical in business. Was the email you just received on the latest policy decisions nice, snide or angry? This makes a huge impact, especially when you communicate with clients.
A case study
With this in mind, a new study published in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 89, No. 5, pages 925–936) sheds light on an interesting development in our fast paced world. Researchers Justin Kruger, PhD and Nicholas Epley, PhD, looked into how effectively an email transmits emotional intent. Kruger and Epley conducted experiments to see how well readers understood the emotional intent of email communication.
The first experiment had participants set in pairs. In each pair, one person read a series of 20 statements aloud. The other person emailed the same list. Both were supposed to convey either a serious or sarcastic tone for each statement. The partner who recorded or emailed the message predicted their partner would have a 78 percent chance of determining the correct tone of his/her message. The spoken message listeners were close – they were correct 75 percent of the time. The participants who read the statements over e-mail were only 56 percent accurate.
That’s barely better than chance, and the most interesting part was that both listeners and readers both thought they were right 90% of the time.
Kruger and Epley went on to suggest that the communication gap really is two sided; both the communicator and listener are both suffering from egocentrism – a situation where people have difficulty in detaching themselves from their own perspectives. Understanding how someone else will interpret an email message is, as shown, really no better than chance if you can’t remove your preconceptions from the communication.
So, what does this mean for people in business? Here are a few suggestions that may improve your chances:
For the writer
Read the email aloud before you send it. Now, read it with a completely different tone. Does it still hold water? Are you going for serious, but sarcastic works just as well? In a second study, Kruger and Epley did exactly this. Reading in a different voice helped in reducing the overestimation of intent on the writer’s side.
For the reader
Email really is printed communication. Read emails as if you were reading a letter. Most people detach emotional intent more effectively with a printed piece; email, because of the immediate feedback, is often compared to talking. Slow down and search for content, not intent. Reading the email aloud is a great way to do this as well.
If you feel that the intent may be, or is being misinterpreted (from either side):
Call. Your chances in this event for a correct interpretation are, well, better than email (or should I say chance?).