Of Kangaroos and Silence

My busi­ness coach asked me a ques­tion today. He asked me a LOT of ques­tions, actu­ally. But one in par­tic­u­lar stood out. Not so much for what he asked as for how I responded — or more accu­rately, could not respond. It was one of those ques­tions that every­body asks and that you answer on autopi­lot, you know? Not quite as com­mon as “How Are You?” with a quick “Fine” in reply. But close.

I could not speak. I wanted to speak. My mouth opened. My brain said speak, I even thought the word. It was a sim­ple reply, one word — “yes”.

But this was my coach ask­ing the ques­tion. And I had promised myself that I would not hold back or hedge the truth with him. And appar­ently I took my promise to myself to heart, because I froze.

I. Could. Not. Speak. And worse, tears fell. <sigh>

Do you remem­ber that movie with Jim Carey where his young son wishes that Carey’s char­ac­ter (a sleazy lawyer) could not lie for a day? That’s how it was. Say­ing “yes” would have been a lie. And I could not utter the word. I’m still quite astounded by this. I am as capa­ble of fib­bing as the next per­son. I do my best to avoid telling an out and out lie, but I am not per­fect in this effort.

I have never before been inca­pable of speak­ing because the answer would be a lie. I hope it never hap­pens again. It was remark­ably uncom­fort­able, and yet, at the same time oddly com­fort­ing because say­ing noth­ing was the right response.

Some­times, when we pay atten­tion, silence communicates.

NPR had a funny guest colum­nist report this morn­ing about the root of words. The columnist’s clos­ing story was clas­sic. Appar­ently, when the ini­tial con­tact with the abo­rig­ines of Aus­tralia was made, they were asked the name of this intrigu­ing mar­su­pial that hopped around and car­ried its young in a pouch. The response was kanga-​​roo. Pretty cool, right? Except that what the help­ful abo­rig­ine were actu­ally say­ing in their lan­guage was, “I don’t know.”

Some­times, even when we THINK we are pay­ing atten­tion, com­mu­ni­ca­tion fails.

How do you han­dle your day-​​to-​​day com­mu­ni­ca­tions? Work-​​from-​​home chicks have lay­ers of com­mu­ni­ca­tion going on. Phone. E-​​mail. Twit­ter. Instant Mes­sag­ing. Skype. Face-​​to-​​face. Busi­ness and fam­ily, some­times at the same time. Each has its unique chal­lenges that need atten­tion in order to avoid com­mu­ni­ca­tion fail­ure. Effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion requires effort on both sides.

Effec­tive elec­tronic com­mu­ni­ca­tion requires mas­ter­ing tools out­side the ken of the five senses. And yet, a work at home chick can­not avoid using elec­tronic tools to communicate.

Some­times when we take the human ele­ment away, com­mu­ni­ca­tion suffers.

When you use e-​​mail or instant mes­sag­ing or Twit­ter to com­mu­ni­cate with your peers and clients from your home office, do you hear kan­ga­roo and think it’s the name of a giant jump­ing mouse? Or do you hear “I don’t know”? Do you con­sider what is not being said as well as the words on the page?

It is not always evi­dent when com­mu­ni­ca­tion lags or down­right breaks. You can become more aware of the part elec­tron­ics plays in your com­mu­ni­ca­tion; of how effec­tive your mas­tery is of these impor­tant tools. This is a topic we will revisit sim­ply because it’s both impor­tant and con­fus­ing to many chicks work­ing from home. For today, we’ll limit the dis­cus­sion to elec­tronic mail.

Do Your E-​​mail Mes­sages Communicate?

When you work in a home office, e-​​mail is your main tool for stay­ing in touch with your pro­fes­sional peers. No joke shared at the water cooler for us work-​​from-​​home chicks. No bond­ing through shared bits of per­sonal drama dur­ing breaks. We are rel­e­gated to the sin­gu­lar expe­ri­ence of our home office.

Arguably, e-​​mail is the most dif­fi­cult venue in which you can be cer­tain that true com­mu­ni­ca­tion takes place. In the absence of voice inflec­tion and body lan­guage, care­ful use of the writ­ten lan­guage stands alone against mis­un­der­stand­ing. Are you giv­ing your e-​​mail com­mu­ni­ca­tions suf­fi­cient atten­tion? Here are a few ideas to con­sider as you pon­der an answer to my question.

• Read your incom­ing e-​​mail. Scan­ning is OK for the e-​​mail newslet­ter or the for­warded joke from the friend who just does not get that you never send those on. But when it comes to your busi­ness e-​​mails, read don’t scan.
• Never respond imme­di­ately if you feel pres­sured or stressed. Con­sider how you would respond in per­son before you respond by email. If what you say in the e-​​mail is not what you would say in per­son, then don’t say it.
• Read your out­go­ing email BEFORE you hit the send but­ton. Scan­ning is never OK for an out­go­ing email. The per­son receiv­ing your email has absolutely NOTHING but the words on your page to use as a frame of ref­er­ence for effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion. And yet, he will insert his own inter­pre­ta­tion, his own expe­ri­ences, his own mood of the day where you meant none of it.
• Keep your responses short. Silence some­times truly is golden. OK, I admit. I don’t do well with this one. I write vol­umes when I don’t pay atten­tion. Why is this a prob­lem? Think about the for­mat e-​​mail takes. Even though many peo­ple send and receive email in HTML for­mat these days, the major­ity of busi­ness e-​​mails are still received in text for­mat. No color. No bold. No indent or bul­lets. Straight text with (maybe) sen­tences wrap­ping at the edge of the email win­dow to keep it read­able. If you have a com­plex response, con­sider writ­ing it in a Word doc­u­ment and attach it. Or — wait for it — pick up the phone.
• Keep your e-​​mails filed for easy access later on. This includes keep­ing your responses. I am a touch obses­sive about this; I file both the incom­ing mail and my responses in the same folder. Takes a lit­tle longer ini­tially, but when I have to go back and look some­thing up, both sides of the con­ver­sa­tion are in the same place.
• Use an e-​​mail sig­na­ture that includes all of the com­mu­ni­ca­tion venues you use (and want your busi­ness audi­ence to know). E-​​mail addresses. Web­site addresses. Instant Mes­sage han­dles. Twit­ter and other social media accounts. And of course both your busi­ness and cell phone num­bers iden­ti­fied as such.

Of Kan­ga­roos and Silence

My busi­ness coach asked me another ques­tion today (like I said, he asked a LOT of ques­tions). This one I could answer. He asked me to describe what I do. You know, like in work. I told him that I am a teacher and a writer and an entre­pre­neur, all of which is true. What I didn’t tell him is that what I REALLY am is a pro­fes­sional communicator.

Some­times com­mu­ni­ca­tion comes after the fact when we think about what we truly meant to say.

Say what you mean and con­sider the end result of what you say. Words to live by? I think so.