I personally experienced this phenomenon when working on a group project with someone whose communication style contrasted with mine. She mistook my excitement as anger, causing strain on the project. Her short and to-the-point sentences may not have been directed to sound frustrated and rude, but to me they were so different than my long, descriptive emails that I took them to be such.
Although email is the number one way of communication in business today, it can often lead to misunderstandings and confusion simply because everyone reads an email differently. Justin Kruger, a psychologist and professor at New York University conducted a study showing that the tone of emails is only correctly detected 56% of the time (APA). Focusing on the point of the email is important, as is keeping in mind the way in which the receiver might interpret your message.
Some people only read the first few sentences of an email which can be troublesome when communicating with someone who tends to write out a whole page of information because they want to be thorough. Make sure your purpose is clear and isn’t buried within fringe information.
One person might read exclamation points as excitement within a sentence while another might read an exclamatory sentence as if the author is yelling in anger. Keep this in mind especially if you aren’t yet familiar with someone’s communication style. Be conscious of how your message might come across to someone who doesn’t know you.
Getting to know the people you are communicating with is the easiest way to increase effectiveness in email communication. Understand their style of communication and how to best make it mesh with yours. Accommodating different email-style preferences of those you are working with is key to success.
In addition to becoming familiar with someone’s communication style it is vital to use different communication tools for business in order to ensure understanding and positive information flow. Reading an email containing only text is the simple way to communicate but may not be the most effective way to send information.
These are just two of the most common misunderstandings with communication tools for business. Had we been using different modes of communication through email, such as video clips, audio recordings and images — it would have been easier to interpret the underlying messages we were trying to get across.
Ving is a useful communication tool for business that allows users to express their messages in whatever way they feel is most effective for communicating. Different mediums such as videos, audio, images, text, questionnaires and files can be used to send a unique message to employees. These tools provide businesses with the ability to communicate more efficiently and effectively because information can be altered to suit many different communication styles.
