E-mail (Mis)Communication

By Vicki Wrona, PMP:

Have you ever had a misunderstanding result from an email? Especially one that became emotional? Why is that? Why is it so much harder to communicate via email? I craft my messages very carefully and yet still misunderstandings occur.

I have a humorous example of a recent occurrence of this. I will provide a personal (and safe) example rather than a work-related example. I wrote a friend and said, “I was wondering if the kids would like the movie Up for Christmas.” Now, I am sure that some of you read that sentence the way I intended it, and others did what my friend did. I meant to ask if they would like a Christmas present of the movie Up. My friend read the movie title as Up For Christmas. She thought she was current on all the children’s movies that were out, especially Christmas and holiday movies, and was surprised to see that I found one she didn’t know about.  Well, of course I didn’t find a new movie, she misunderstood my meaning. I see now how it could easily be misread.

Whose fault is this? Mostly mine. The wording could be misleading for sure. Plus I should have italicized the movie title to make it more obvious, but in the rush of daily emails, I didn’t bother. On the other hand, if the title had been Up For Christmas the word ‘for’ should have been capitalized. The reader has to guess whether that missing capitalization is an error or on purpose.

Fortunately, the only consequence of this misunderstanding was a good laugh. But we are not always so lucky. Make the effort to craft emails carefully, even the very short, informal ones. I know we are all busy, but we will certainly be busier if a misunderstanding occurs from our message as we try to fix it rather than just doing it right the first time. After you write the message, minimize it and read it a little later with fresh eyes. See if you catch something during the re-reading of the message that you missed the first time. This can include anything from grammar or spelling errors, missing words or words placed in ways that could be misconstrued.

What do you do to reduce miscommunications in your emails?