Communicating Effectively

"The Art of Effective Communication."

                After I reviewed each message, I thought very little changed from each modality to the next.  I thought the Email was well written, professional, and indicated a sense of urgency without being “pushy” or rude.  The voice mail and the face-to-face did little to change how I perceived the message, though I did feel that the voice mail sounded slightly more urgent.  Without knowing the personalities, it’s difficult to determine if the face-to-face speaker speaks in a more relaxed tone than the person who left the voice mail (it sounded like two different voices to me); however, people who leave voice mails may also tend to speak faster because they want to leave a message before the end of the “beep,” which may make them sound like the message is more urgent than it actually is.

                There are both positives and negatives to sending Emails.  By sending an Email, a person can take his or her time to carefully draft a message and think about what they want to say before they “hit send;” however, in an office environment, many people do not take the time to do this and they may “hit send” before they have even proofread their message.  The other negative is that your “tone” is not conveyed when you send an Email so you have no idea how the other person is going to react.  From the face-to-face meeting, I would surmise that Jane was being somewhat cautious when approaching Mark as she really needed information from him, but was concerned that her request might upset him since he had been busy in an all day meeting.  While I felt that the Email was appropriate and professional, others may feel that an Email would not convey the right tone.  In this case, Jane was cautious and almost apologetic in her asking for the report, but I also felt that she spoke much slower than the person on the phone so that could also be her normal tone.  Either way, a face-to-face allows us to read non-verbal cues that an Email cannot provide.

Ref:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). The Art of Effective Communication. [Video] United States: Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved from http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/2dett4d/Walden/EDUC/6145/03/mm/aoc/index.html