Tearing someone a new one - via email
Posted On April 17th, 2012 Author Kyle Racki Filed Under Business 2
Email is 70% useless.
As someone unfortunately known in our office for writing 'Rackigrams', that is, pointed emails that are specifically designed to let someone know they're an a-hole, I have learned something:
Email should never be used to express anger when you want to preserve a relationship. It causes hurt feelings and needless drama, particularly because to the reader, you sound about 10 times angrier over email than in person (unless you're Steve Jobs apparently).
In an email, writing "I'm disappointed in your services" sounds to the reader like "I'M DISAPPOINTED IN YOUR FACE, YOU S.O.B". Talking in person however, we use inflection in our voice and soften our language with things like "Sort of", "a little bit", "pretty bad". If you aren't worrying about severing the relationship, then great. Go to town.
Now in a lot of cases, email can be great. Particularly when you want to send a message that has multiple components, broken out in headings, in a numbered list, and you want to offer up this soliloquy with no interruptions, no counter-arguments, questions or even expressions of agreement that get in the way of communicated your multi-facteted point, and keeping a handy record of the exchange. Just be sure that you are overly polite to compensate for the lack of inflection.
If you need to tell someone they're an idiot, do it over the phone or in person. Yes, it may require working up some nerve. A bit of uncomfortableness. But it's worth it.
Two incidents over the past month involved someone sending a nasty email and me responding in a nasty manner. In a way the results were achieved, but at the expense of good relationships.
On the other hand, two other occasions involved me being upset or annoyed at someone and waiting until I could speak with them. One was a client who implied in an email that something was our fault when it had nothing to do with us. I wanted to blast him, but instead I waited, called him, and kindly explained it to him. Some words were exchanged, but overall the tone was friendly and professional. Our relationship is good and we both understand each others points.
The other occasion was just in the last week. A trusted colleague sent an email to me and some other team members that sounded apathetic, flippant and irresponsible. Everyone who read it was understandably pissed. I felt my fingers reaching for the keyboard, ready to carefully craft a world-famous Rackigram, but then I relented.
We had a meeting booked in a couple of days anyways so I waited until after the meeting to discuss the email. As it turns out, our colleague had written it quickly and used incorrect language to explain his position. When he explained in person it all made sense and was much more inline with his character. Crises averted, problem solved, everyone was happy.
I hate to think of how it would of turned out if I had emailed him.
What people are saying
on April 17th, 2012, Ricky Ferris said...
Misreading emails is a reality of business. Either the reader or the sender might be irked by many outside factors and that might seep into the email. If you feel the relationship is going south a phone call is a must. I dig!
on April 19th, 2012, Andrew Milne said...
Great post Kyle.
About 6 months ago, I decided that for any emails I receive that piss me off, I wait 24 hours before responding. I usually don’t get a great sleep, as I tend to “stew” a little - but by morning, I’ve usually cooled enough for an intelligent response, and feel much more confident in what I’ve written.
I’m also generally a non-confrontational person, so I still reply via email as I feel I can type out what I want to say better than I can express it verbally.