I heard a great podcast today from Craig Groeschel - on his Leadership Podcast. He interviewed Whitespace founder Juliet Funt.
I personally liked the following tidbits from the podcast:
Many times we send emails when we need to get some question answered, but the timing of WHEN we need a response is not always clear. This can lead to missed deadlines if they are too late, or work interruptions that really could have waited for those cases when a response was not urgent.
Try using Response Needed tags in email subject lines
NRQ = Need Response Quickly
NRT = Need Response Today
NRNBD = Need Response Next Business Day
Consider Messaging and Mediums
- The message content determines the kind of medium to use
- 2D -vs- 3D mediums (email/text/chat -svs- calls or face to face meetings)
- 3D medium is needed for emotions or complex problem solving
- 3D allows for tonality, inflection and facial expression to be added to the communication
Not everything requires an email. Sometimes you have the urge to send an email but if you only delayed it to review it later it may be better served in a face to face meeting or connected to another thought about that individual. Juliet suggests using a document to record your thoughts for later review. She calls it the Yellow List - a place to keep a list of thoughts and ideas for each team member for things that may NOT require an email or meeting. Then review them later to access how to communicate them best, if at all.
Get the full podcast here.
Craig has many podcasts on leadership. His moto is "Everyone wins when the leader gets better." I agree!
