"Can you afford to use them freely without knowing what it is costing you"?
In the not so old days of face to face meetings and telephone calls, when you really know your audience, you could speak freely knowing that each word used is spent wisely with judgement of your audience and by viewing and hearing reactions.
In these days of email and social media, verbal communication is taking a back seat and we are relying totally BLIND on our own prefered style, to communicate to the world via email and texts
Here is an example of this:
Your at work and in a leading a meeting with the your team. Subconsiously, communication is taking place every second without a word being spoken! You sense the mood, you feel the static, you can cut the atmostphere, you can feel the excitement, you can see the enthusiasm.
Naturally we calibrate the world around us to set a norm, we can then easily than be aware of variation to this. We are also adept at seeing these changes, some-one looking bored, disinterested, glazed over, excited, happy, sad etc.
Now you can take all this information in, filter it through your own representational preferences and respond accordingly, speaking to your audience in a manner that matches the state accordingly.
In our new World, since email and social media was invented, communication has never been so fast, so fast that when it's sent, it can appear on the recipients device on the other side of the globe within seconds!
This is where a huge bet is placed! With stakes so high that years of relationship building can be blown apart in a milisecond. When sending the text, or sending the email, you are literally "senseless" as to the state the recipients are in on arrival, nor may you know how they like to receive information. A fully detailed, narative with rational, email cover 5 pages will hit the button for some, cause anxiety for others, be ignored by some and get some really annoyed!
A misjudgement in an email or text is far more likely and as this saying goes: "You can make a friend of an enemy with a joke, you can make a friend an enemy with a joke"
For those who have worked with me over the years one of my annoying habits I am sure to some of the team was to persistently say: "Have you called them"?, "Did you phone"? Phone do not email"!, "If it is that important, Phone"! "Call them in for a meeting"!, "That is too important to risk getting that wrong, lets arrange a meeting about that"!
By making more physical connections to the individual or group, you can calibrate and ensure that the message gets through!, Skype, Zoom and other media now allow this to be done remotely, so there is no excuse not to have virtual meetings.
When we are isolated from our teams and customers, it is even more critical to know them better and to communication with them appropriately.
Make sure you invest in understanding your teams, yourself and your customers. Can you afford not too?
