Don’t you think it’s about time we get back to allowing conversation to occur? Texting, emailing, browsing, Tweeting, Facebooking, and Instagramming (I’d include Snapchat, but I really just don’t get it!) is all good and well, but can we just talk?
The bigger need is just for more live conversations to occur, period. This is especially true when people are trying to resolve a conflict or communicate an important business decision. There is a rising and unproductive trend towards people trying to do digital conflict resolution. The de facto path for issue resolution seems to be increasingly via email. More accurately, email has become a convenient mechanism for issue-avoidance. It is easier, quicker, less stressful, and less confrontational to have critical or challenging issues sent over email versus a live one-on-one with a counterpart.
Like you, I have experienced too many unproductive strings of back-and-forth emails or texts that should have stopped in round two, but continue. I am as guilty as the next person of falling into the trap of just not thinking I have time to talk, when had I picked up the phone, the resolution would have occurred much quicker.
Email is one of the greatest productivity contributors of the past few decades, and social communication platforms have fundamentally changed and positively enriched the means and reach with which we are able to interact. Yet we have to recognize when such digital channels cannot substitute for a live conversation. Email and social networking modes of communications have created a generation of casually convenient new connections, and even helped us deepen existing relationships, but they can rarely replace the real world. As digital communication accelerates the pace at which people form and broaden relationships, it is also decreasing the rate at which people are willing to resolve issues professionally and directly in-person.
The next time you experience an issue over email, ask yourself if it is something that would be better served by a real conversation. Then have the courage to stop emailing and pick up the phone. Or even better: have a meeting.
Make it a great day!