Don’t give bad news via email! – answers

Part one – questions

Watch the first half of the video (up to 1.15 mins) and then answer the questions below:

 

1. Which adjective describes the people in the group? ‘sensitive’
2. What happened when David sent out the emails? people ‘got mad’ (became angry) with him
3. How many groups has he worked with at the company? three
4. What quality is he looking for in a group? thick skin (people who are no sensitive to his ‘abuse’)
5. What was David doing in his emails? violating the basic rule (created at Yahoo)of email
6. What is email only appropriate for? saying yes, maybe and sharing harmless information
7. Which methods of communication are better for giving criticism? phone and face to face conversations
8. What cannot be delivered over email? any disturbing or emotional information
9. What is missing in email? subtle clues
10. How do emails look at the end of the day? plain ugly

 

Now watch the rest of the video and complete the gaps in the sentences below.

 

1. When people try to decode your intentions, 55% of decoding is visual. In your face and body language.
2. 38% of the decoding is tone or audible and only 7% of the things you say can be said verbally.
3. When you’ve got disturbing information to deliver at least make a phone call.
4. You’ll be able to communicate if you’re with them, if you guys are still on the same team and that expanded bandwidth of communication will help you have less confrontation in your life.
5. Email, terrible to give bad news!
6. A bonus idea related to rule 1 (no bad news over email) is the concept of don’t be passive/aggressive.
7. The telephone is the next best thing to being there unless you can hide behind your laptop and send an email when they’ve already gone home for the evening.
8. You can’t avoid conflict by using an email to substitute (for) an uncomfortable live conversation.
9. At the very least, if you say no! or if you’re going to attack someone, have the guts to do it in real time!
10. Especially if they can see your face!

Note:

The speaker in this video does something you should never do when presenting (or writing), he completes what he has to say very powerfully (at question 5 above) and then adds something that comes into his head (about passive/aggressive). The last part of the talk doesn’t seem to add anything and because it’s an after-thought is rather confusing. It also spoils what was a very good end to his presentation!

Don’t be tempted to do this – if you’ve forgotten it then tough!

More of this in Modules 19 and 20