Effective Communication:
Being Approachable
Unlike
in the case of telephone calls, recipients control E- mail communication (or at
least they should).
They can
schedule when they will check, read and respond to their E-mail, yet their door
is always open. Many people will feel more comfortable sending an E-mail to someone
who otherwise might seem unapproachable.
A ringing
telephone, or someone at your office door,
is an interruption. The more interruptions during the day, the less effective you will be.
Once interrupted, experts say that it can take you up to fifteen minutes to get back into a
flow. Another interruption, and you’ll spend another fifteen minutes getting back to where
you were. E-mail, being un intrusive, is more effective than either a trip to visit somebody
or a telephone call.
Don’t
give up on the telephone entirely, though. A telephone call is much more personal,
and by answering your phone yourself you give the impression of being accessible to a
broader range of people and having an open-door policy. Plus you have not restricted
your communication to one medium.
1. Formatting E-mail messages
