Conversational E-mail

In secondary school, we were taught how to write proper business letters. We started with "Dear Sir", inserted a subject, and began our text writing, “Enclosed herewith please find…” or “With regards to the aforementioned subject…”

We memorized lists of businesslike terms that would make the writing sound official and learned to write formatted sentences that would work well in almost any business letter we wrote, including our closing sentence, “Should you have any enquiries, please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned.”

Years ago, business writers had time to craft beautiful business letters and business readers had time to savor them. This is no longer true. Most of our business messages today are short and to the point. We send them over e-mail rather than through the post. E-mail readers prefer brief, clear messages, so e-mail writers can communicate best with a brief, simple and polite style.

The overall tone of a business e-mail is conversational. In other words, the tone you’d use to discuss the message face-to-face with your recipient will be the same tone you'd use in your e-mail. This doesn’t mean that you’ll write exactly as you talk, but that the level of formality in your e-mail will be equal to that of your conversation. For example, you would write to your managers as you would normally converse with them; you’d write to your suppliers as you normally talk with them.

Official language has its place in our business communications, but in our business e-mail messages, it’s a conversational tone that gets the business done.

E-mail and credibility

For hundreds of years, business letters were the primary channel for businesses communications. Company secretaries, usually men, were valued for their effusive prose and elegant cursive handwriting. The business letters that they crafted could take a day to produce and another month to deliver.

Over time, business letter writing styles have become less fancy, production has become computerized, and postal delivery has accelerated. However, the business letters of today remain among the most formal and official written business communications channels.

Meanwhile, e-mail has been around for less than twenty years. In this short time, e-mail has transformed the way businesses communicate in writing. While business letters remain formal and official, e-mail is informal, and sometimes casual. While business letters still follow strict formats, e-mail has few conventions to follow. Where good business letters take an hour to produce, e-mail is dashed off unedited in five minutes. E-mail messages are paperless, brief and almost instantaneous.

E-mail is a conversational business channel. This means that the tone and formality you write in your e-mail should match that of a spoken, face-to-face conversation you would have with your recipient.

Some business writers are still adjusting to this and write their e-mail messages according to formats learned in school. Other business e-mail writers (mostly recent grads) are adjusting from using e-mail as a social toy to e-mail as a business tool.

Loose, unchecked styles such as these allow modern business writers to become careless. Grammar, usage, tone, capitalization and punctuation become unimportant. Styles may be either too formal or too casual for business; and we express ourselves with downloaded cartoon emoticons.

This is okay if you are writing to a friend or an internal colleague, but remember, any e-mail you send out from your office to another represents the way your company does business. As a result, it’s essential to take a few extra minutes with your external e-mail. Reread it for clarity. Proofread it for language errors. Ensure that it looks presentable on your screen so it will look presentable on your reader’s.

Your company’s credibility shows up in the way you write. That’s why looking professional is important. A few extra minutes with each external e-mail you send is time well spent.

Blood, Sweat & Fears? Just Move.

Imagine with me.

It’s Thursday morning. You and your sales team are making a critical pitch for your software solution to a major manufacturer. You’ve spent the past week designing your segment on deployment and service. Your team leader and sales coordinator have just delivered their segments receiving neither applause nor comment from your surly audience of senior managers. Now it’s your turn. Your team leader introduces you and you rise from your seat.

Now, tell me quickly. What’s happening to your body? What are the physical symptoms of the sudden stage fright that you’re feeling?

Maybe sweaty palms, wobbly knees, a dry mouth, a blank mind… The list goes on and on, longer for some than for others.

What causes this? Is it fear? Anxiety? No, these are psychological effects. (In my last post, we discussed how to manage and overcome those using a technique called ‘positive projection’.) The physical effects, however, are biological and you must manage them differently.

These physical symptoms of stage fright are responses to a hormone called adrenaline, which your body produces when you are excited or frightened. Adrenaline enables you, and that’s why it carries the nickname, ‘the fight or flight’ hormone. When your body is pumping adrenaline, you can fight harder and run faster.

Thrill seekers enjoy an adrenaline rush. That’s why they ride roller coasters and jump off of tall buildings. When you deliver a presentation, however, you can suffer because of adrenaline. Standing stiffly before your audience, neither running nor fighting, means your adrenaline remains unused. What results are the uncomfortoble biological symptoms of stage fright, which bump your anxiety levels even higher.

How can you manage this? Quite simply, move. An easy technique. Just move.

Casual movement, such as simple gestures or a few steps across your stage, will activate adrenaline and get it flowing through your body. When it becomes useful, adrenaline can energize you and make you more confident. Professional speakers know this, and that’s why they tap into their adrenaline resources as soon as their performance begins.

So, overcoming stage fright is actually quite simple. To overcome the psychological component, think positive. To overcome the biological component, move.

It’s really that easy.

Managing Stage Fright with Positive Projection

The fastest man on Earth, Usain Bolt, set a new world record for the men’s 100-meter dash at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. He crossed the finish line in 9.69 seconds, a full body-length ahead of his nearest competitor.

I remember watching the event on TV at home. The Olympic stadium fell silent as the referee lifted his starting gun. The runners stretched out, motionless in their starting blocks, and waited. What were they thinking in the moment before that shot?

I’ll tell you what they weren’t thinking. “What’s the point? Everybody here is faster than me. I’m going to embarrass myself in front of the whole world, and everybody’s going to laugh at me. Hey, Ref! Point that gun this way.”

Usain Bolt certainly thought differently. “My aim was to come out and win,” he said after his victory. He was focused on the prize. In his mind, he had crossed the finish line first, even before the race began. It was his projection of a positive outcome that facilitated his success.

My previous post explains how the same technique can help you to overcome the psychological effects of stage fright. Success is easier to achieve if you set your mind to confidence rather than fear before your performance begins. Visualize positive results rather than negative possibilities. Anticipate appreciative applause from your audience rather than embarrassing questions you cannot answer. Talk yourself up rather than down.

Imagine everything going perfectly. You know your stuff and your audience will be impressed with your knowledge. You are the expert, and you have what they need to know. Your boss is in the audience? Great. This is your chance to earn the promotion you’ve been waiting for.

Positive projection will propel you through the critical -- but always frightening -- beginning moments of your performance. Once you realize how well you’re doing and how supportive your audience is, the remainder of your delivery will be a cruise.

Projecting a positive outcome continues to work for Usain Bolt. A year after his Olympic performance, he smashed his own record at the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Berlin. Through practice and experience with this technique, success in overcoming stage fright can be yours as well.

To better your outcome, you’d better change your mind.