My last post was about an email that was written under distress. Unfortunately emotionally driven email communications like this are fairly common and the fallout is typically catastrophic resulting in negative drama and dysfunctional team dynamics. All of which results in employee disengagement that costs $ in loss of productivity.
To help refresh your memory of the email here it is;
[message type=”custom” width=”100%” start_color=”#F0F0F0 ” end_color=”#F0F0F0 ” border=”#BBBBBB” color=”#333333″]
All,
“It is imperative that you all put in some extra hours and put your “thinking caps on” as our numbers this last week are unacceptable. I have stopped counting the number of times I have gone out on the floor and see that others on your teams just are not thinking clearly enough about the importance of reaching our goals. I need a home-run with our numbers and I need it now! Starting today I want all departments heads to send me their data daily so that I can get our numbers up.“
COO[/message][su_spacer]
This email is actually written from a very predictable negative behavior trait unique to this individual. Through the skill of analyzing the words in this email you can actually determine that the writer has moved into a distressed sequence that stems from their psychological needs not being met.
This predictable pattern in their communication revels what their specific psychological needs are. Once this is discovered we can “feed” them their needs and invite them out of their “distress” such that we can effectively communicate.
We see several unique “warning signs” in the wording of this email such that it reveals this person’s underlying psychological needs. From the wording we see that this person is frustrated with others who are not thinking clearly and he is “over controlling” by requiring all department heads to send their data daily so that he can fix the problem.
This tells us that the COO is in need of two unique psychological needs;
- Recognition of Work
- Recognition of Time Structure
To help diffuse this dramatic email an appropriate response from a department head will have to touch on these two needs such that effective communication can occur.
One such response could look like this;
[message type=”custom” width=”100%” start_color=”#F0F0F0 ” end_color=”#F0F0F0 ” border=”#BBBBBB” color=”#333333″]
Jim,
“I appreciate your ability to work hard to reach the goals. We all are wanting to do the same and I think we have a possible latent issue that might be preventing use from achieving our numbers last week. I’m not sure exactly what it is and we need to regroup as a team to leverage each of our perspectives to find the root cause. Will you help organize an appropriate time for a department head meeting so that we can uncover the issue?”
Thank you,
Mike
[/message][su_spacer]
What Mike does in this email is to take the emotion out of the equation by offering some of the psychological needs of Jim such that effective communication can take place. He does this by recognizing him for working hard to reach goals and he also reaches out to him by requesting him to help organize an appropriate time for a group meeting which recognizes his need for time structure.
This invites Jim out of his distress such that now everyone can contribute to the solution.
However, what was discovered in human behavior is that although we all are unique we all possess the different perceptions and motivations of others in varying degrees.
It’s when we learn the skill of “tapping” into these that we can then connect, motivate, and reduce conflict that stems from mis-communication.
Question: Have you ever experienced an email “barrage” that resulted in significant drama on your team? If so how did it get resolved?
