RESULTS Based Communication

Ok I get it, I'm impatient.  Yes, yes, I know, I'm unreasonable.  Fine, fine, yes alright all ready, I'm too demanding. 

BUT.... 

I hear all day long when I follow up with someone by asking, "Did you get the XYZ information from so and so yet?"  I almost universally get, "Uh I sent them an email but I haven't heard back from them".   

Email, the great barrier.  

I threw your request over the fence but I can't get any more information until they reply..... 

Aarrgghhhh! 

So many people think that the ACT of writing an email is synonymous to 'getting the information requested'.  But it is not.  Sending an email is NOTHING. 

Tired of my rant yet?  Good, because I'm exhausted. 

Well I have one more RANT-ETTE in me on this subject. Replies. 

I email four questions to some one. 

I get back two answers and the remaining two questions are ignored. 

I have to write back and ask, what about these other two questions?  That yields, perhaps if I'm lucky, "ok, well yes".   

So I wrote again and ask, which of the two questions are you answering yes to?  And what about the other one? 

Aarrggghh! 

Ok, enough, my doctor is going to have my meds upped if I don't settle down. 

I can't affect the outside world (try as I may with this electronic rag), but I can effect the people that work on my team, I'm the 'titular head' after all. 

So I have set out a protocol outlining my firm's email process. 

Communications are all about RESULTs. "The journey is NOT the reward", despite what John Sculley, ex-Apple CEO, might think, especially when it comes to communication. 

"Being clearly understood and seeking to understand", that's communication.  I ask because I want to know. 

I'm ranting again....nurse, nurse.... 

With results in mind I have asked my people to change their use of email.   

1. We will email someone either inside the firm or outside the same way. In the email we will set out clearly the individual points we want addressed, usually to get answered, sometimes just reported. 

2. In the email we will tell the people that this list is preliminary to a PHONE CALL or brief stand up MEETING when we will ask for the responses to our questions. 

3. We will suggest a time for the contact call of meeting.   

4. We will also invite the person to answer our questions via email if its more convenient to them.  And we will remind them they can intersperse their replies right in the text of our original email so they need not take their time to rephrase our questions in a narrative form. 

5. When the time comes around, if we haven't received an emailed response or the one we got was sparse and unclear, then we will do what we said we would do and contact them or visit them.   

6. The email serves as an agenda (remember those?).  We work down the list, get the information we need verbally. 

7. The final step is to email the person again, outlining what you understood and the actions you are going to take. 

8. The most important step of all - do whatever it is, get on with it, make stuff happen. 

I am naive enough to believe that this strategy is actually FASTER than email partial answer/no answer dance. 

I KNOW that this strategy will get the RESULTs we want, which is why we started communicating in the first place. 

Hey, what if it works?