The Art of Digital Communication

I recently took the Chris Voss Masterclass on “The Art of Negotiation”. Included in the content was a brief lesson on digital communication. It was very simple, but powerful. Two things stuck with me:

• Have one goal per digital point of contact.

Chris points out how people try to do too much with most text or email. He stresses that having one ask at a time, or aiming to get one point across, is the most effective way to use an email or text. He likens it to playing chess. You wouldn’t email someone 7 moves, they might opt out. But if you’re looking to accomplish one thing - everything is moving forward while being effective and efficient.

• Always assume that everyone is reading all emails with a negative tone. Consciously warm it up.

This rings profoundly true for me. I used to work for a high-level executive that believed in the digital communication principal of K.I.S.S. This acronym stood for “Keep it Simple, Stupid”. He’s not wrong. There’s nothing more difficult to get through during a busy day than a group of wordy, convoluted emails. As mentioned above, it’s critical to get to the point, and to have one goal.

However, this executive was almost universally disliked at the company. Despite people knowing he was essentially a good person, he was deeply resented overall by employees. Often, his emails were mocked or imitated. It was obvious that he was always in a hurry, rarely present, usually disconnected from either the person he emailed, or the work they were currently doing, and his emails came across as distinctly cold. He would often email things like “Can you provide numbers for the Georgia region?”, and sign-off, “Thanks, [Exec]”.

These requests were often bombshells, accompanied by leagues of work, missing information, or failing to acknowledge that the information had already been provided by a colleague, or contradicted the current work stream. He always seemed disconnected, haughty, and mercilessly self-obsessed. I knew him well, and was aware that while prone to these tendencies, the truth was, most of the time he thought was being efficient. He never did understand the tremendous value in an additional line stating something like “I know this could be asking a lot, so I really appreciate your time. But could you provide me with the numbers for the Texas region?”

I learned a lot about building rapport from observing what not to do. I can’t count the amount of times I found myself on a phone call being a listening ear for a colleague, and gently advocating for the executive, attempting to soothe the resentment these one-liner email or text bombs produced. And our turn over was incredibly high. Often in exit interviews, these tensions were cited.

So when I heard Chris Voss talk about how humans can receive digital communication through a negative pre-set, it rang incredibly true for me.

Keep it short and simple. But taking the 50+ characters, and 30 seconds to make it warm - can save more time and turn over than I ever imagined.