Baseball is a great game, but sometimes the signals get jumbled. Make sure your email communication skills help you get the point across home plate.
Tradition is one of the things that make baseball so great. It’s America’s pastime and millions of families across the country attend games every year. If it hadn’t been for my grandpa, I might not have followed baseball as much as I do — it’s a family thing. Baseball is a sport that many families pass down a love of — generation after generation.
Baseball teams are run like a business on and off the field. The manager of the team has to be a good communicator to reach all of the coaches and players, many from different countries. He has to speak to the press on a daily basis and be able to run out a good lineup of hitters to try and win games that are played almost every single day.
There are a few things in baseball that are a little out of date, and one of them is the use of signs. The manager goes through an elaborate set of signals to communicate to the third base coach who then tells the hitter what to do. These messages can often be 1-2 minutes long, and most are dummy signals to throw off the competition. The pitcher and catcher will communicate the same way, signalling for a fastball or curve by holding up a finger or two. We can learn from these signals to help figure out what NOT to do with our email communication skills.
Jumbled Messages
A slide of the arm, a tip of the cap, a thumb to the nose. All of these in any order can mean 6 different things and if your player isn’t paying attention, they can try to steal a base when they shouldn’t. The complication of these signals is something that can take a long time to get used to. Every team in the major leagues uses different signs, and when a player comes from a different team, it can hinder their production before they get on board with signs.
We can take from these signals that we need to be straightforward. Make sure your email communication skills are sharp. Be direct with your emails. If you are going to have short hand in your emails, whether it be abbreviations or nicknames for projects, keep it simple. Don’t force an abbreviation just because something might be too long to type out often.
Brevity
One of the big pushes in baseball is to quicken the pace of the game. Many people complain that a game can take hours to finish. One of the reasons baseball takes longer is because of pitcher and catcher miscommunication. The catcher calls for a pitch that the pitcher doesn’t want to throw so he shakes him off. Another pitch and location get suggested and it’s not what the pitcher wants to do. All of this takes anywhere from 3-5 minutes of time while they try to get on the same page.
One of the email communication skills that can be learned here is brevity. Don’t elaborate long paragraphs where you can get off topic. Be quick and to the point. Before writing the email, make sure you know what the point is that you are trying to get across. You will spend less time and energy having long email chains figuring out what exactly was said if you communicate the main topics from the get go.
Tools
One of the funnier stories from this year (looking back at it) was an instance that doesn’t happen too often. The Philadelphia Phillies are one of the worst teams in baseball and came about a bit of even worse luck on June 17th. They were losing quite horribly and had to use a position player to pitch, which is something you generally don’t want to have happen, since it is not his job to do. The reason they had to do as such was because when the manager tried to call to the bullpen to get another reliever in the game, the phone was off the hook and the dugout could not connect with the bullpen. Eventually, the outfielder-turned-pitcher got out of the inning, but it wasn’t until the end of the inning that order was restored.
One of the biggest email communication skills we can learn from the Phillies is to always stay connected. They were unable to connect from the dugout to the bullpen simply because of a phone being off the hook. You need to make sure that your lines of communication are always open. Answer back emails quickly so you aren’t leaving the questioners hanging for your insight.
This is an email communication skill that can be achieved quite easily. Use the right tools for the job. Using email software like Ving will help cut down on any problems you might have in this area. With the read receipts, you can make sure your message got through. You can send attachments and surveys to your staff easily, even make personal videos to help make sure your messages are jumbled and are too the point. Ving makes email communication a home run!
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