Slow down and double check.
When I was at the League of Chicago Theatres, we had reached out to a PR agency to request pro-bono services. I got a response back, including her colleague, with me copied. “Let’s tell her we’re interested and schedule a call, and then we can tell her we’re too busy.”
I replied all, “we can skip the call!” Clearly I was not supposed to be included in the response.
Slow down and double check.
As business owners and humans in general we’ve gotten to a frenetic pace of communication. I relish the olden days when you could blame the post office if a promised proposal or project were a day or two late. I’m still slightly traumatized by hearing Bob the airport carpenter’s voice booming into my room while getting dressed for work one morning. Yikes! Time to turn off the Nextel two-way phone–at least until I was clothed.
From text to email to instant messaging from multiple platforms, now we are expected to respond within minutes at all hours of the day and night.
Except that you don’t always have to.
Mistakes happen when we are rushed. Even worse if you are in a hurry and are responding to something emotionally charged. That’s the time to pause, take a breath and apply some of the proven tactics used when responding to the media.
- Phone: Let it go to voicemail if you are being caught off-guard and not ready to talk.
- Text, Email, Messaging: Ask what the deadline is and schedule a time to talk. That way you will know how urgent something is, can set expectations, and schedule a time to respond that works for you.
- Content: Remember that nothing is off the record. So check and double check before hitting send. One idea is to not add recipients to a message until you have triple reviewed it and know that it’s ready to go. That way you can double check that your wording is right, attachments are in place, and you are consciously entering recipients so there’s less chance for errors.
Slow down and double check.
These tactics are all designed to buy time and craft your message, before responding.
The response from the PR agency was to call right away and apologize. They loved our organization and didn’t want to seem disinterested, but also didn’t have the bandwidth to help at the time. The personal call and connection made all the difference. But I imagine special care was taken after that, to not make that mistake again.
Just because we can have immediate access doesn’t mean we should. Take a breath. Slow down. Or, when in doubt, blame the technology. After all, ultimately you are still in control of what you say and how you say it.