A few weeks ago I had a disturbing email exchange with a person to whom I was referred during my networking and business development efforts. I began the exchange with a routine follow-up from an initial phone conversation this person and I had. Our initial half hour conversation was lively, illuminating, and--I believed at the time--mutually agreeable. Naturally I was utterly shocked when I received his response to my follow-up email.
In a moment, you'll read the original emails that resulted from the phone conversation (names and details omitted, out of respect for this person). You'll see
for yourself how potentially dangerous emails can be and how very careful you should be before you hit the "Send" button.
Speaking of hitting the "send" button, when I shared the email exchange with a member of my personal "brain trust", he recommended I read a book by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe called "Send."
"Send" should be required reading for those of us (and that's most of us) who send innumerable emails a day. This blog entry features some of the highlights from this entertaining and enlightening book.
But first, here is the email exchange:
From: Bruce R. Mendelsohn [mailto:brm90@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 5:49 PM
To: '---'
Subject: Follow Up from Bruce Mendelsohn re. Introductions
Hi ---. I hope this note finds you well. I am following up on the email I sent to you after our conversation two weeks ago. You will recall you mentioned the potential of referring me to some of your colleagues. Hopefully you have had a chance to do so, and can provide their respective contact information so that I may follow up accordingly. If you have not, I certainly understand, and am providing you (attached) my networking one-pager in the hope that you will find a moment or two to position me as a favor to these folks. Thanks in advance.
Sincerely,
Here is the response I received.
From: ---
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 7:25 AM
To: 'Bruce R. Mendelsohn'
Cc: '---'; '---'
Subject: RE: Follow Up from Bruce Mendelsohn re. Introductions
Bruce,
First, as you can see, I've copied both --- and ---. I trust their judgment and they know me. If they like you a lot and they think that I'm being too direct with you, they'll probably reply with something like, "Come on, ---. Cut him some slack." If not, you've got some work to do.
I don't react well to your style. (Notice the way that's phrased. It's my deficiency, not yours. However, I choose not to fix it.)
You sent your first email to me on 8/15. (21 days ago) I spent 12 of those days at my house in Kennebunkport. I think that it's interesting that your first followup to that original email and conversation happened 11 days later, after you returned from DC.
I recognize that you may be under-employed forcing you to be more proactive, but that doesn't fix your style and I'm definitely not under-employed. I will probably still introduce you to --- and --- because they may be able to use you, (notice the phaseology: they use you vs. you help them) but I will definitely make sure that they understand that it's an introduction and not an endorsement and I will surely not give you their contact info.
I don't need a response.
---
Note his curt, sanctimonious and condescending tone, his inappropriate CC, his criticism, and the misspelling. This is clearly an example of someone not thinking--or even proofreading--before sending a clearly unkind email.
Shipley and Schwalbe say it is absolutely essential to think and proofread before you compose and send your email. I hope my "friend" is reading this blog entry, because I am sure that like me, like you, like all of us, he could well benefit from some of Shipley and Schwalbe's other points:
Pages 10-11: "We also email fast--inevitably too fast... To complicate matters, the speed of email doesn't just make it easier to lose our cool--it actually eggs us on. On email, people aren't quite themselves; they are angrier, less sympathetic, less aware, more easily wounded, even more gossipy and duplicitous. Email has a tendency to encourage the lesser angels of our nature.
Pages 24-25: "Email is both so intimate and so easy that it makes unwise actions far more likely: Once you have someone's email address, you can contact that person any time of the day or night from your very own office or bedroom...
"This once unimaginable access clouds our ability to discern who we are in relation to the person we're writing. Consequently, people issue wildly inappropriate requests to their correspondents that can damage their relationships and derail their careers."
(Crackberry addicts: NOTE!) Page 32: "Much has been written about handheld etiquette (about people who check during dinner, on vacation, at a concert, in a meeting, at the park with their kids). All we have to add is this: handheld checking is not all that different from any other sort of behavior that demonstrates you aren't paying full attention to the people you're with.
Page 35: "The value of a letter--be it a thank-you note or an apology or a condolence--easily exceeds that of even the most effusive or abject email. A handwritten note makes it personal; a typewritten letter on company stationery makes it official. Each in its own way comes with a weight that email will never have."
Page 82: "... Asking people not to read the email you just sent them--Subject: Recall Last Message--is an invitation for them to read it and then to disseminate its contents as widely as possible. In fact, a friend deliberately marketed a book by sending out an email blast about it, followed immediately by an email requesting, in its Subject line, that people not read the initial message. It worked like a charm. Book sales surged."
Page 138-139: "Given that email is written remotely and can be endlessly revised, there is the temptation to be less than honest, in ways large and small. In the end, this is a losing strategy. The more we try to be who we aren't, the less interesting we are to other people.
"The urge to misrepresent oneself can be extremely strong, especially when writing to strangers. Resist. By being dishonest about yourself, you're setting yourself up, in the end, to lose track of who you are.
"You will also be found out. Truth in writing shines through--as does falsehood and phoniness. If we had to choose one hallmark of the phony email, it would be excess. Too much politeness, too many big words, too much of anything means that someone is trying too hard."
Page 170: "If you find yourself apologizing for something serious on email (or by letter or phone call), you'll get a lot farther if you use the active voice (I made a mistake" is much more effective than "Mistakes were made") and take responsibility (I'm sorry I hurt you" is far stronger than "I'm sorry you feel hurt")."
(Attention jokesters!)Page 208: "If you're looking for a list of what not to joke about on email, look no further than the nondiscrimination policy of your company or an organization you admire. For starters, none of the following is an appropriate launching pad for a comedy routine: race, creed, color, national origin, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, physical disability, or mental illness."
So there you have it, folks: The "Cliff's Notes" version of a professional development book that every one of us should read... "Send" by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe.
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