Ann Marie's Blog

How do You Like your E-mails?

Short, sweet, direct + to the point?

Warm and friendly, opening with a nice greeting and closing with a cheery good-bye?

Or long, detailed, and packed full of data, facts and other useful information?

Chances are that the way you typically write and like to receive e-mails is closely related to your individual personality style and, in the case of business correspondence, the culture of the organization in which you work. Which can be fine if you're only corresponding within your own organization with people who share your personality style preferences.

What happens, though, when you have to communicate with someone who doesn't share your preferences or cultural context? Someone in a different part of the organization, with a different personality style, or someone working in a different country who speaks a different native language? What do you do in those cases to make sure that your e-mail message is received and understood in the way you intended? 

I think that the same basic principles that apply to good marketing and effective presentations are useful here too:

1. Know your audience.
2. Put yourself in their "shoes" and imagine the context in which they may be reading your e-mail: on their Blackberry while walking to a meeting, at their desk as the 10th in a pile of 100 messages in their in-box, or at home after their kids have gone to bed. 
3. Clarify what you want them to do in response to your e-mail.
4. Write to connect with them: considering their perspective, speaking in language that they understand, and addressing their needs.
5. Clearly articulate what you need from them in response and when you need it and why (e.g. what's in it for them).

If you're communicating with someone who speaks a different language, then eliminating extra words, avoiding slang, and using visual cues (bullet points, numbers, or colorful, bold type) can all be helpful. 

If you're communicating with someone you know well, a friendly greeting may be just the right way to start your e-mail. 

Sometimes a very brief, urgent, direct message is absolutely the way to go.

There's no magic formula for the perfect e-mail, especially when you're communicating across cultures, time zones and language barriers, but starting from the recipient's point of view will almost always increase the odds that your intended message will be received and understood.

 

The Monty Python Effect

When he was nine or ten years old, our son came home from a week at summer camp with this story:

All of the kids in his group were gathered together while one of the adult counselors threw silly questions out to them. Whenever one of the campers answered a question correctly, they were allowed to get in line for dinner. Apparently, our son earned his place in line with an exchange that went something like this:

Camp Counselor: "What's the average air-speed velocity of the unladen swallow?"

Our son: "African or European?"

Camp Counselor: "Yes!!! You can go to dinner now..."

All the other campers: "Huh!?!?"

It seems that our son was the only kid in the group with such an extensive knowledge of the characters and dialogue from every scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail that he could answer such a ridiculous question with another ridiculous question and make an instant connection with another Monty Python fan like his camp counselor.

Strangely enough, that was not the only time that his Monty Python knowledge has come in handy (not to mention his repertoire of quotes from SpongeBob SquarePants and more recently SNL, NCIS, and the Big Bang Theory). During that same summer I witnessed an impressive exchange between our son and the 6-year old son of one of my college buddies, while we were all walking to the park together. They boys went back and forth quoting different scenes from Holy Grail while we walked behind them laughing.

I made a comment to my friend about how amazing I thought it was that two little boys from different parts of the country who had never met before could form such a strong instant bond with silly comedy dialogue from another country that was popular 25 or 30 years ago.

My friend wasn't surprised at all. He told me that he had exactly the same experience as a freshman in college. He remembered being nervous so far away from home, and meeting his new roommates for the first time. At some point during their awkward introductions, someone muttered a quote from Monty Python under their breath, someone else responded, and the ice was broken.  They had discovered a common language and could take it from there.

Of course, Monty Python doesn't work for everyone. In fact, humor is one of the most difficult concepts to translate across language and cultural barriers. But the idea of searching for something in common to break the ice, especially with people from very different backgrounds, is a good one. Music, art, literature, food, sports....or maybe just a similar sense of what is silly or ridiculous.

 

What's your Vacation Style?

In our intercultural work we pay a lot of attention to different styles: communication styles, personality styles, conflict-resolution, decision-making, leadership and management styles. We help people understand their own preferred styles and the preferences of their colleagues so that, ideally, they can work more productively together. We talk about direct and indirect communication, authoritarian and egalitarian approaches to management, introverted and extraverted personalities, and task-oriented and relational decision-making styles, among other things.

This week, though, my attention has drifted far from all of this to a different set of style contrasts. I've been wondering about vacation styles, and all the different ways that people approach their leisure time, especially when gifted with a full week or more off from their daily work.

I haven't done any formal research about this---after all, I'm on vacation---but I imagine that someone has. Instead, I've just been noticing the different approaches within our own small family and the people around us.

There are people with an action-oriented vacation style, setting goals for the week, filling every hour with something fun or educational to do, and happily checking things off the list as they go.

There are people with a late-sleeping, lounging around doing nothing style, content to simply enjoy a break from the fast-pace and demands of their normal lives.

And there are people with an in-between style, balancing some recreational activities with reading and hanging out with friends, enjoying some good food and drinks.

I suspect that if we did some kind of formal analysis we would find that our vacation styles have some roots in our individual personalities, as well as our cultural backgrounds and upbringing. I would be curious to learn more about this some other time, and to hear about other people's experiences.

For now, I'm content to just notice the differences and enjoy the remaining hours of sunshine and a good book by the pool.

The Power and Comfort of our Social Networks

I resisted joining Facebook a few years ago, thinking it wasn't for me. Too public. Too young. Too frivolous. A waste of time. I didn't see the point.

But I joined because a favorite client asked me to. He invited me to connect and "friend" him and his (from my perspective) young, hip, digitally-saavy team members, in preparation for some work we planned to do together.

And now I'm so glad that I did. It's actually a little bit difficult to remember what communication was like before joining Facebook. And it's definitely hard to imagine how this past week would have been different without the ability to communicate in real time, with hundreds of close and not so close friends around the world, and receive updates from them when disaster struck in Japan.

For me it started with a text message from my husband, Skip, who was traveling home from a quick trip to Shanghai, China. The first message said, "in an earthquake at Narita now...people screaming!" then another, 20 minutes later, "turn on the news...this ain't a good time to be in Tokyo...it's nuts!!"

FYI--Skip is home safe and sound now, after only a 24-hour delay---a minor inconvenience compared to the scope and scale of the real tragedy that's still unfolding across Japan. 

But for the next few hours on Thursday night/Friday morning, I went back and forth between CNN and e-mails from Skip. My husband doesn't "do Facebook," so I posted a status update and almost immediately got a note from our friend, Bill, saying "hey, I'm in Tokyo too. At the office. All OK, but really freaky!" Other people reached out to me with comforting words, and to others with questions or news about the whereabouts and safety of family members, friends, and colleagues. 

As the hours wore on I found myself gravitating more and more often to Facebook. Friends were posting links to updates from the Japanese news stations, making it easy to get a broader perspective than CNN was offering at the time. They shared links to Mercy Corps and the Red Cross websites, making it easier to spread the word about how we could make donations, and start to alleviate some of our feelings of total helplessness. 

When I posted "Skip's home" on my Facebook status Saturday morning, I was humbled by the number of "likes" and comments that came back to us almost immediately, from friends around the world.

Powerful and comforting.

Now, I see the point. 

 

Making "small talk" in the American workplace

How do you start a casual, social conversation with an American co-worker? What kinds of topics are OK/not OK to talk about? How should I answer when someone asks "how was your weekend?" 

I've been hearing these questions often lately, in conversations with people from different countries who've come to work or study for a while in the U.S. The type of "small talk" that Americans have been practicing since childhood can seem strange and even a bit mysterious to people who are operating in English as a second or third language, and coming from places where this communication pattern isn't typical.

There seem to be two underlying questions behind these inquiries. What to talk about and how to do it.

First, the WHAT. What types of topics are good conversation starters? In a recent informal poll of some colleagues and students, we came up with this list of "safe" topics. Topics that most Americans would be happy to talk casually about, without taking offense or losing interest too quickly.

• The weather: how nice/not nice it's been or will be soon, how to cope with, drive in or dress for the rain, snow/ice, heat/humidity, fill in the blank_________.
• Recreational activities/hobbies: what they like to do outside of work, what types of activities there are to do in the area, where to do activities that interest you. 
• Shopping: best places to shop, best prices, places to find specific items.
• Food, music, entertainment (TV, movies): what they like to eat, watch, listen to. Where to do those things in the area. 
• Sports: what they like to play or watch, what sports are popular in the area, how to join a team and participate in a sport that interests you, latest news about local sports teams. 
• School/education: where they went to school, what they studied, how the education system works in the U.S. and how that's different from or similar to your educational experience.

This list could go on, but I think that more important than the topics themselves is the HOW. The approach to engaging in casual conversations. Again, from our informal poll, here are some simple ideas for getting past those first awkward moments more smoothly:

• Be an observer: watch how Americans engage in "small talk." Listen to what they say and how they say it. Pay attention to the types of topics they like to talk about in different situations---at the beginning of the work week, in line at the grocery store, at the fitness center, or in different scenes in movies or TV shows. 
• Ask for advice: most Americans are happy to share what they know, so asking for advice is a great way to start a conversation. 
• Prepare some simple answers in advance: if you've noticed that your co-workers always ask "how was your weekend" on Monday morning, then prepare yourself with a simple answer like "nice, I went to the dinner with some friends" or "not bad, but I can't wait for the rain to stop so we can get outside more." You may be surprised at how easily these simple answers lead to more questions and conversation, either at that moment or the next time you encounter that person in the future.

Finally, relax and enjoy. Casual conversations are important for building and maintaining good working relationships in the U.S., but it's not necessary to become a "small talk" expert. 

 

 

 

Staying Connected---in the same room, and across the ocean

"2010-The Year Technology Replaced Talking"

This headline caught my attention when I was browsing through USA Today online this morning 

(http://iphone.usatoday.com/article/tech/42071104?feedID=17&preferredArticleViewMode=single)

and I wondered if the writers had been peeking in the windows of our house lately. Like most American families, we're spending more time connected to our phones, Blackberries, and laptops, even when everyone's in the same room together. The article offers evidence of this trend, along with commentary about the pros and cons for human relationships, the differences between older and younger generations, and comparisons to the dire predictions about the risk to real social interactions with the spread of telephone technology back in the old days.

But I'm less concerned about the global impact of these trends, than I am about exactly what the implications are for our little nuclear family as our daughter prepares to leave for a semester abroad. When my husband and I moved to Europe nearly 20 years ago, international phone calls were really expensive so we only called home to our parents once a week, and talked for five or ten minutes on Sunday evenings. We wrote letters and sent postcards from our travels to everyone else, and nothing more frequent was expected.

International phone calls are still expensive, but now we have Skype and e-mail and texting and plenty of other options for communicating with each other.  Will this all make it easier to stay connected while Katie's in France? Or will it just raise our expectations about how often she should be in touch, and how quickly she should respond to our messages? 

I was reading the Parent Orientation materials from IES Study Abroad yesterday and one phrase stood out: "most private homes in France do not have internet connections." I realize this might be rapidly changing, but what if it's true for the family that's hosting Katie in their home? How will she cope with being "disconnected" every evening when she's grown accustomed to 24-hour internet access? How will we deal with knowing that her access to our e-mails is limited to the times when she's at the student center or an internet cafe?

Most importantly, how might this influence and enrich her "immersion" experience with her host family? Will they spend more time talking face to face around the dinner table than our family has lately? Will they watch television together without splitting their attention with their individual small screens? I can't wait to hear all about it---maybe in a letter that comes in the mail with real postage stamps...