Before you send an irksome message, wait until you’re calm and reconsider And reacting out of annoyance or frustration makes you less persuasive. When you’re angry, it’s hard to be objective.
Before laying down a zinger, consider your audience Irony and snark may translate with your work bestie, but won’t always come across in a larger group. Sharing your thoughts (“Ooh, I like that!”) and checking your sentences for terseness (“Cool”) can help. Fears and insecurities can be magnified when we’re not all in the same room, so we’ll need to put in extra effort to make sure our words feel welcoming and inclusive. “In our meeting on Friday, I sensed you were mad at me about X. If you’re still unsure, consider addressing it directly. If a message doesn’t land well with you, try not to assume the sender meant to upset you. Most everyone is doing their best to communicate clearly. What do you think?” are good places to start. Questions like, “Can you say more about that?” and, “It sounds like you’re suggesting X. Before you jump in with feedback or a solution, make sure you understand what the other person is trying to say. Avoid misunderstandings by minding your word choice: But it can feel threatening over Slack or email, where we can’t read facial expressions or vocal tone. Use emotionally intelligent languageĪ simple question like, Why did you make that decision? can come across as perfectly benign in person. Does everyone know what I mean by OKR flywheel?Īnd if you don’t understand something, be sure to speak up.The next time you utter, “W e’re iterating on phase 3 of our PSO for the Q4 roadmap-we’ll need to leverage our OKR flywheel here,” do your listeners a favor by asking: People are afraid of looking silly, so they won’t always admit if something you’ve said stumps them. Keeping it simple will make you sound smarter. Avoid jargon (leverage, utilize) and $100 words (grandiloquence, erudition).Instead of trying to impress readers with grandiloquence and erudition (ahem), challenge yourself to: That’s why many famous authors, like Hemingway, write at a 5th grade reading level. Short, simple sentences are easier and arguably more fun to read. Write for beginners (even when you’re talking to experts) This will make your writing more logical. Start headlines with all verbs or all nouns (but not both). Make your doc easy to digest by breaking up big paragraphs into smaller ones, and using bold headers and bullet points. Respect your readers’ time by being concise. TL DR (too long didn’t read) is the bane of corporate communication. Help people remember your point by getting right to it. Journalists tell us to “put the bottom line on top” (BLOT). “Please leave feedback by 4 pm Friday” is better than, “Look forward to your feedback.” Get clearīefore you start writing, consider, “What’s the one thing I want my reader to take away?” or, “What’s the one thing I want them to do next?” Try to be precise (without overwhelming them with details) and include a clear call to action. At worst, they make you wonder, “Is my work bestie mad at me?” In a Virtual First world, writing to be understood-not just heard-will be more important than ever. We’ve all been on the receiving end of a confusing doc, too-long email, or terse Slack message.
#Paper dropbox how to
Here’s how to speak and write in a way that gets your point across, even when you’re across the globe. So we’ll have to go out of our way to be clear, warm, and inclusive. When most of our interactions are mediated by screen and text, it can be easy to misinterpret each other. Virtual First means going async by default-solving problems with collaboration tools like Dropbox Paper, or over email or Slack, before reflexively scheduling a meeting.
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