Blog in Wordy thoughts

More than any other type of comms, emails run the risk of coming across the wrong way. And when it comes to communicating about coronavirus, the particular words we choose matter more than ever.

We recently ran a webinar where we shared three psychological effects that come into play when we’re writing and reading emails. And the tips to overcome them.

Here, we’ve summed up all the good stuff in three blogs. Find the first blog in the series here.

#3 Know the feeling you want to get across

In our last post we touched on how emotion can get miscommunicated over email: you read an email one way, when the sender meant it to come across totally differently. Linked to that are the neutrality and negativity effects, which come from the research of psychologist Kristin Byron.

A mismatch of intent and effect

Byron suggests that if you intend your message to seem positive, there’s a good chance it’ll be read as neutral. And if you think you’re coming across as neutral, there’s a chance you’ll sound negative.

It’s about a lack of cues

In email you can’t see people’s facial expressions, body language or reactions. Without being able to see a quizzical look or a raised eyebrow, we don’t know an email is landing badly. Nor can our reader see the smile that tells them that our comment was a joke – not a dig.

Knowing that these effects exist is half the battle

As writers, it means we’ll be more aware of how our emails might be misconstrued. And as readers, it can help us question whether Dan from HR using so many full stops really means he’s annoyed at us. We could give him the benefit of the doubt.

Beyond that, the best way to stop emotion getting lost over email is to pinpoint the exact feeling you’re going for. Think beyond negative, neutral and positive. Do you want your readers to feel relieved? Hopeful? Calmed? Curious? Tuning in to the specific emotion you’re trying to convey will help you review your writing, and make sure you’re using language that evokes that feeling.

A word of warning

If you want your email to convey a positive emotion, don’t default to using lots of upbeat adjectives and exclamation marks. The adjectives will mean you’re telling your reader how you want them to feel, rather than actually moving them to feel that way. This is a great opportunity! What an exciting initiative!

And exclamation marks will likely make you sound over-excited or shouty. Don’t do it!!! (See.)

Three ways to beat the neutrality and negativity effects

1. Pick the specific emotion you’re aiming for in your reader, and use language that evokes it.
2. Know that you might have to dial the feeling you’re going for up slightly – it gets dampened somewhere in cyberspace.
3. Don’t rely on hackneyed phrases, exclamation marks and positive adjectives to create a mood.

If your words need work, get in touch with us at hello@thewriter.com

More than any other type of comms, emails run the risk of coming across the wrong way. And when it comes to communicating about coronavirus, the particular words we choose matter more than ever.

We recently ran a webinar where we shared three psychological effects that come into play when we’re writing and reading emails. And the tips to overcome them.

Here, we’ve summed up all the good stuff in three blogs. Find the first blog in the series here.

#2 Get over yourself

No doubt we’ve all had the experience of getting an email that sounds curt or cross or, perhaps most commonly, passive aggressive. But when you meet the sender in person, they’re a ray of sunshine – nothing like how they came across in your inbox.

This is the egocentrism issue at work

Daniel Goleman puts it nicely in this New York Times article: ‘Sitting alone in a cubicle or basement writing e-mail, the sender internally “hears” emotional overtones, though none of these cues will be sensed by the recipient.’

As writers, we imagine our readers read our messages exactly as we mean them to. And we struggle to see past ourselves, to think about how they’ll land with the reader.

The result is what we call ‘selfie-speak’

Inward-looking writing that’s more about the sender than it is about the receiver. You’ll have seen plenty of it about in recent weeks as businesses scramble to show that they’re responding to coronavirus in the right way.

Here’s British Airways at it.

It’s probably meant to sound earnest and reassuring, but it comes off as self-involved and lacking in relevant information.

The tricks to avoiding the egocentrism issue

1. Think about your reader, and frame your message in terms of what they need.
2. Think two steps ahead – answer your reader’s questions before they’ve asked them.
3. Count the personal pronouns in your email. If there are more ‘we’s or ‘I’s than ‘you’s, chances are you’re not focussed enough on your reader.

Next up in this series, we’re looking at how to get around the neutrality and negativity effects.

If your words need work, get in touch with us at hello@thewriter.com

 

 

More than any other type of comms, emails run the risk of coming across the wrong way. And when it comes to communicating about coronavirus, the particular words we choose matter more than ever.

We recently ran a webinar where we shared three psychological effects that come into play when we’re writing and reading emails. And the tips to overcome them.

Here, we’ve summed up all the good stuff in three blogs.

#1 Write adult-to-adult

Which means avoiding the Mum effect. ‘Mum’ stands for minimising unpleasant messages – something we all have a tendency to do.

No one likes to be the bearer of bad news

When we have to do it, two things tend to happen:

1. we downplay the news because we worry about what others will think of us
2. we sugarcoat the message.

 

Both can be dangerous, because there’s a good chance that your reader won’t understand the seriousness of your message. So you need to write adult-to-adult, and give your readers the facts upfront.

Honesty is the best policy. Especially when communicating with higher-ups

One study found that there’s a particular tendency to soften bad news when it’s being passed to someone more senior. (Lee, 1993). As the news goes up the chain, the Mum effect is amplified.

Physics Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman calls this ‘managerial isolation’. The people at the top don’t get a clear picture of the problem. 

Feyman investigated the fatal 1986 Challenger disaster, when the US space shuttle broke apart 73 seconds after take-off. When he asked the engineers who worked on the shuttle to give a probability that its main engine would fail, they said 1 in 200-300. The head of NASA’s estimate was 1 in 100,000. (Have a read of this Psychology Today article for more.)

Leaders need a full picture of what’s happening – so fight your natural instinct to fudge bad news to your bosses.

Next time you have to deliver a difficult message over email, try these three things

1. Give your reader the facts upfront – in clear, straightforward language.
2. Don’t downplay the seriousness of a situation.
3. Don’t sugarcoat your language.  

 

Next up in this series, we’re looking at avoiding the egocentrism issue – or, in simpler terms, how to get over yourself.

If your words need work, get in touch with us at hello@thewriter.com

We’ll keep this brief. Firstly because other writers, Tweeters and politicians have already noted it, and secondly because we’ve covered this topic before. (It’s kind of our thing.) But one last time: if you want someone to do something, please make it clear. This is as true in a time of crisis as it is in everyday business.

Beware the curse of knowledge

 

Virologists and epidemiologists might talk about ‘social distancing measures’ at work every day. But the average person won’t have heard those terms until March 2020. To my grandma, the advice from senior politicans to ‘practise social distancing’ will have been next to useless. She didn’t understand it, so she kept going to church as usual. That was, until my mam told her, ‘Stay inside.’

Specialist insight and advice is obviously invaluable. We’d be lost without it. But sometimes, that deep knowledge can be a curse, as it stops experts getting through to normal people. When there’s something complex to communicate, it can help to call a good writer.  

Use words your reader will understand

 

For my grandma, ‘stay inside’ was exactly the simple and useful information she needed to hear. They’re short, everyday words, and the verb makes the sentence imperative so she knows there’s something she needs to do.

We’ve been thinking back to the ‘Catch it, bin it, kill it’ line that Dave Trott created and the UK government used in the 2009 swine flu outbreak. It’s simple, memorable and effective.

Lately, government spokespeople have appeared next to the slogan ‘stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’. This is better than some of the earlier advice. It starts by focusing on the most important action we can all take, before explaining its powerful knock-on effects. In my opinion, it needs an edit to be snappier. Stay home, save lives. We should have started saying it sooner.

On BBC Radio 2, Jeremy Vine was talking about a workshop where a group from Walsall Council were asked to use Lego in an activity. The participants weren’t happy and the workshop was being mocked online. (You can read the article here.)

Well, I called into the show. Have a listen - I’m on at 1hr50.

Here’s my take: play is fine, as long as you pitch it right.

We’re huge advocates of interactivity in workshops. We’ve rallied against ‘death by PowerPoint’ for 20 years now, and that won’t be changing. It baffles me when people are herded into windowless, stuffy rooms and sat in front of a presenter and a PowerPoint for hours, if not days, at a time. It’s a passive learning experience. And a boring one to boot.

I learnt the other day that when you’re a participant in a workshop, your body becomes depleted in glucose in the same way it would if you were working out a mathematical problem*. Learning is hard work. So the last thing you want is for it to be dull too.

Building stuff with Lego, playing with plasticine, doodling. It might sound frivolous, but it can be really valuable. Play is a great way to get people thinking differently. It can unlock ideas and keeps people engaged.

When we design workshops for our clients, we think really hard about making them enjoyable and attention-keeping.

We’ve got references to Star Trek and Sherlock in our grammar workshop. We use Beyoncé lyrics to teach people about the passive voice. We have people thinking about their bucket lists so they can get better at writing bullet points. We channel poets and journalists when we want to show how to write persuasively. We get people up and moving and playing.

Because we know that it helps the learning stick.

But - and it’s a big but - we never do it for the sake of it, and we always think about who we have in the room and what’s going to work for them. It should never, ever be cringeworthy.

Join us for a workshop and you’ll see what I mean. Lego may or may not be included.

*That's from Roy Baumeister’s book Willpower.