Office Communication – Dos and Don’ts

Human is the only living creature who can communicate well and without ambiguity. Is it really? ‘Communicate well’ is ok, at least compared to other living creatures, but without ambiguity is not right. In fact, most people communicate with ambiguities only unless they are aware of a few basic rules and follow those sincerely.

Here I am explaining Dos, Don’ts, rules, and styles which you can follow.

I am not going to state the format, formation, salutation kind of basic things of writing a letter or email anticipating you all know that. Including American style, Indian style and style different countries follow.  Here I am going to discuss how you can make a letter or mail more impactful. Yes, more impactful, because official communication is an action and impact is most important to any action. Especially if the action pointed to a human being.

1. Write on top what you want

People often make the mistake that they explain everything as they feel that they need to convince first and then to ask for help, support or approval. This is absolutely wrong. Write in the beginning what you want. Also, give the purpose of the letter/mail in the subject line with full clarity.

Say for example you are writing a letter to a customer for a delivery extension. Write at the very beginning that you asking for a delivery extension. Then you can explain the reason. Here the customer may not have time or need to read the whole matter and can give approval trusting you, unless that has a serious impact on his/her work. Otherwise, reading first few lines of explanation he/she may fail to realise that you are asking delivery extension.

For internal emails, it may be a formality to explain but the seniors are aware of it. So, if you write the action you want from a senior manager at the beginning and give a short explanation in the subsequent stanza, you may get a quick response and action from a senior.

2. Concise

Do not spew, do not try to say everything. Write what is important for the recipient. What can be of his/her interest?  Write vital points and use bullet points if possible than paragraphs. It helps to make the content smaller, bring better attention to the reader and allow him to answer to the point.

Suppose you are inviting a customer in one of your workshops or conference. Write in brief about the conference but not how big it is, how attractive it will be. Instead of that write how the conference or workshop can help the customer to do his work better, easier or can contribute to his/her success.

3. Psychological

Words play an important role and make the content super impactful. This is my favourite topic. I feel I have some advantages in writing psychological letters/emails as a story writer, as my dozens of stories are published in all leading magazines and many of them were awarded also. Besides this, my stories are bought for stage play by leading theatre groups and movie houses. What I believe is that those touch the heart.

What I want to mean by ‘psychological’? It is simple, the content of the letter or mail should touch the recipient’s heart and not hit the mind.

I used to modify drafts of the emails of my many junior managers and coach them on how the content can be touchy. Many of them learn and follow and acknowledge it.

Besides touching hearts we need to take care that we express the benefit of the recipient (discussed in the above stanza)  and/ or express our own problem to get support of his empathy. In fact, majority of the human beings is good and try to help other unless we by our action prevent it or it is beyond his/her control.

It is difficult to give examples of how words play a role when expressed differently. However, one example from social media which I feel is a good one, reproducing.

It was a nice morning when people were walking toward their offices, busy but in a joyful mind. One blind man was sitting beside the road with a placard. It is written in the placard, “I AM BLIND. PLEASE HELP ME”. He was not getting good responses. Hardly, people were stopping and paying him. Then one person turned the placard and wrote, “HI, I CAN REALISE THAT THIS IS A NICE SUNNY DAY. HOWEVER, I CAN NOT SEE IT LIKE YOU”.  People started realising his pain and started helping him.

4. Hail boss’s attention/action

You may often need the help of very senior managers to get the job done with the least effort.

Do not expect action from very senior level managers like Director CEO etc who are two or more levels higher than you. Do not even expect them to read your mail if you just copied them. And stat spoiling your mind that they are useless or unhappy with you so not responding to your mail.  It is usual that unless you specifically do something which attracts their attention, you may not get the solution.

This something can be – i) write something at the beginning taking his/her name or position. ii) Send them a separate mail asking his/her opinion/ action on your mail sent earlier. iii) Send WhatsApp with a request to help you.

Bosses are always more intelligent, more smart and more keen to solve problems.  Unless you do something to attract their attention in a fair way, they may fail to notice your problem just because they are in a copy of the mail as they may use to receive such hundred copies of different emails daily. Their first priority can be different, like mail of clients and mail from people outside the organisation. If you apply these three methods then surely you are ahead of the others to get their help and perform better.

5. Incubate

It is my second favourite. I taught this to many people and almost everyone appreciated it once they started practising it.

When you draft a mail under an emotional situation, it can be angry, happy, indifferent etc,  and about to send, just do not send. Save it in the draft and go for a coffee or start doing something else. Wait for at least 30 minutes and preferably a few hours in this situation. And then either send or modify when you are calm. Many times you shall delete it and re-write. It is more important when you write to a customer or very senior in your organisation as this may be an ingredient of developing a cracked relationship.

I do it always. Do you know what the statistical result of it. 100% ! Which saved me from having bad relations with many others. In such a situation I just deleted all the mails and rewrote. I suggested this trick to my many juniors when they came to show me the critical email drafts understanding they need to consult me before sending such unusual emails. Surprisingly most of them thanked me after some time and rewrote the emails.

Please accept it that everyone in this world has the right to do injustice against you, trash you, blame you, and hit you below the belt. In such cases, you may find those people are mostly like ‘the frog in the well’ or basically arrogant by nature. In fact, both are linked to each other.

So, the solution is not to reciprocate the same way. Reciprocate logically or just opposite manner.

Two more suggestions –

If possible, during incubation, show the mail to someone you trust. Be careful what I say, ‘you trust’! As, otherwise a wrong person can provoke you, can push you to write even harder.

Never fight with a croc inside water. Pull him in land and you may find it easy to tackle him. Same way, try to be polite and logical when you reply to a bad mail or a wrong action. Most of the time you may find the counterpart can realise his/her guilt and can be a very good friend/supporter of you, as otherwise an enemy.

6. English is not good

This is a big hurdle in the mind of the majority of people as such they either feel shy and refrain from doing written communication or do it unclear manner. This is especially visible among the people of the countries ruled by the British. They implanted the wrong concept that not knowing good English means being useless or inferior. In reality, people who are only very good in language are used to lead (except for exception) a very humdrum and unsuccessful life. So, command on language (grammar) is not the parameter to judge a person but the content, though certainly, it helps a lot if mixed with other qualities. So, learn English but do not wait for it and start using your other skills.

Shyness is very common among the majority of young aspirant writers. My guru, who was a celebrity poet, and story & movie script writer told us one day in a workshop which I also casually attended to satisfy my inclination towards art and culture. He said, the majority of the famous writers are not from a literature background, mostly they are science graduates, engineers or doctors, even accounting backgrounds. They write because they have creative minds and can think independently. They are usually counted in hundreds only when millions of people complete graduation or higher education with literature, but they usually can not write creative content. So, if you have the quality to write use it and give the script to the millios to rectify. This sounds little snobe statement but what he wanted to mean is that English is not your mother tongue, even if you make mistakes writing in your mother tongue, how it matters as long as you can communicate well.

In this regard, I can recall a fact which is like this. When Sachin Tendulkar started his career as a test player, Sunil Gavaskar noticed that he every day writes something in a notebook. One day Gavaskar asked him what he writes. Sachin replied that every day he jot down how many runs he scored, how many boundary and over-boundery shots he played, how many catches or wickets he took etc. Gavaskar suggested to him that instead of writing all these he should concentrate on his batting skill. If he is successful there will be millions of people who will keep his record better than he can do but the millions were not born with the skills that Sachin had.

However, better is, one should learn language and grammar as much as possible without sacrificing his time on his/her creative work. We all live with limited time but unlimited things to do. So, prioritising matters.

7. Give Solution

Always give solutions or options towards solutions. If you are in a senior position, you may mostly receive mails with problems especially when you are in a higher position. Like people come to the doctor with problems only and a doctor needs to provide solutions.

If you are in a junior position what you should do? So, you write problems and ask for solutions. Usually yes, if you treat yourself as an average person doing things somehow. If not, you should write the problem clearly and give several solutions which you think could be. Your senior will appreciate you. It may be that he finds a better solution and suggest you but never be shy to help him giving your thought towards solutions. Sometimes juniors can find a better solution as they are more exposed to the problem. No suggestion is silly.

8. Sorry Sir

Why? Some people make it a habit to say sorry for almost everything. It is because of a hidden inferiority complex or they feel it is politeness. However, it is not. It’s a part of bad habits. It mostly harms than helps.

Say sorry and even ask apology if you make any mistake. If not, and say sorry, then even if it is not your fault, the mail tone changed to defensive.

You may notice most of the outstanding payment reminder letters start with We regret to mention… , Sorry to remind you. Why? Customer is not paying inspite of reminders or not taking action then we need not be sorry to remind him/her. The letter should start with some positive words like, This is to bring in your kind attention… or Please note… or Apropos of our discussion etc.

Same, when we speak over the phone or f2f. For example, You engaged someone for some work and then got a better alternative. If you say, ‘Sorry to inform you…’ the person may feel bad that you wasted his/her time. However, if you say, ‘Good news, we got a better solution… Thanks for your try and help‘, he may feel himself also a part of the team who ultimately found solutions. At the end you can say, sorry for your inconvenience…  (read ‘Office Politics’ in this bog for several other interpersonal tricks).

How you present that is most important. So, be positive about your body/written language, be practical and speak in an appreciative tone.

9. Better avoid a few risky words

It is better to avoid words which people may feel insulting, especially if you are writing to a customer, client, or senior.

No, I am not talking about slang as everyone knows it. The words I am mentioning below are often used even by experts unknowingly.

Concern- ‘It is my concern or it is our concern’. Avoid it and better explain what trouble you are facing in this regard and what can be the solution/action you expect.  Especially when writing to a customer, client or senior person.

Try to understand  – Very often used. It shows you are treating the other person’s ability to understand is low.

I think- Instead say I believe.

OMG !- Avoid. No drama. 

Abbreviation – You can use it only when you are writing to a person of the same field. As otherwise do not use. In case you need to use it then give expanded form within a bracket or in the footnote.

However, some abbreviations became more popular than its expanded form. Like, What is your BP?  Nifty, IOCL, ISRO etc.  

The best example, a funny one, is the city  NOIDA. Which is actually ‘New Okhla Industrial Development Authority’. Again OKHLA is also an abbreviation which is ‘Old Kanal Housing and Land Authority’. So the full form of NOIDA is, “New Old Kanal Housing and Land Authority Industrial Development Authority”. Isn’t it funny? Especially they belong to two states, Delhi and UP. Anyway, in such cases use abbreviation only.

There are many other words as different people think but in my view, those are not that risky words as not insulting anyone. So not mentioning those to confuse you. You can do your own study if you want to learn more.

10. Use right punctuation

it is very important to use the right punctuation because not only words but punctuation makes the meaning of a sentence.

No need to discuss much as one needs to study the basics of it.

However, I can end this article with a hilarious example, which I always try –

Notice board says-

Eating pets prohibited in this hall.

Actually, wanted to mean ‘eating, pets – prohibited in this hall’.

Let us eat Grandma.

Let us eat, Grandma.

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(The topic could be named official communication, critical communication, workplace communication or formal communication techniques etc.

Though the topic is Official Communication but it can be true everywhere whenever we communicate with others. It can be in the workplace, society and even inside our family. You should be more careful or least careful when communicating with your spouse based on your relationship. Take it light)