Did you know on average, only 21% of organizations keep their workplace communications simple and jargon-free?

Not everyone understands online sarcasm, and some don't even understand it offline (I feel bad for them). Emoticons are a common thing to include in casual online communication. However, not everyone understands that :-) is supposed to be a smile, and ;-) is supposed to be a wink.

What does the J in emails mean?

Do you use Microsoft Outlook for email? You probably have the popular Wingdings font installed. The cute smile that you include in your message confuses the pants off the recipient if they use a different email client because the smile appears as a single capitalized letter "J."

When corresponding in a professional manner via email, it is best to avoid sarcasm and emoticons. Avoid slang, too, because that can really mess things up for you.

I once ran into a problem with my colleagues. There was confusion over what was needed for an important project. I composed a detailed email to clarify everything, but I made one big mistake.

I meticulously wrote out each step needed for the project in a bulleted email. To be absolutely sure that the team would understand what was needed, I proofread my message multiple times before hitting the send button. My big mistake was how I signed off in the message.

Who the heck is Bob?

You see, I'm Canadian. My Mum is British. That wasn't a typo; I actually call her "Mum." In Canada and the UK, there is a popular expression that we use instead of saying, "And there you have it." The expression is one that completely messed up my perfect email. I ended my email with, "and Bob's your uncle."

I hit send, and I sat back in my chair with a deep feeling of satisfaction for helping everyone understand what was needed. We worked in an open-environment without walls; I could see some of my colleagues at their desks. Their heads were down focusing on their work. Their email notifications went off as my message arrived in their inboxes. Slowly, their heads began to rise with looks of bewilderment across their faces. Finally, one of them exclaimed, "Who the heck is Bob?"

It was tragically hilarious that I then had to explain what the sentence meant. Not only this, but I had to reply to other colleague’s confused emails to me who were not in the room. Yes, it made for a great laugh, but caused a big disruption in the time we could have been using to finish the pressing project.

Whether you're writing an email to follow up with a person you met at a networking event, replying to a customer, or emailing your boss, do yourself a favor and avoid sarcasm, slang, and emoticons. Nobody has the time for long-winded email messages these days, so keep them short, sweet, and nice.

And Bob's your uncle!

I came across the term “humble inquiry” in an article about popular leadership books. This phrase stood out to me to perfectly summarize the best way we can meet new people and lead teams. Ultimately, we can learn to be nice communicators.

The term was coined by Edgar Schein, who authored a book with the same title, Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling. Schein specialized in organizational development, career development, group process consultation, and organizational culture. His definition of Humble Inquiry perfectly captures my thoughts on the topics of asking and listening.

Humble Inquiry is “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.”

Schein writes, “Ultimately the purpose of Humble Inquiry is to build relationships that lead to trust which, in turn, leads to better communication and collaboration.”

The next time you are in a position to ask questions of your colleagues, prospects, and clients, consider these wise words.

“Don’t we all know how to ask questions? Of course, we think we know how to ask, but we fail to notice how often even our questions are just another form of telling—rhetorical or just testing whether what we think is right. We are biased toward telling instead of asking because we live in a pragmatic, problem-solving culture in which knowing things and telling others what we know is valued.”

Ask questions you don’t know the answers to. Be genuinely curious about who you speak with.

Don’t miss this YouTube video of Edgar Schein discussing “Humble Inquiry”. This is the basis of building any type of relationship.

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash.

I recently conducted one of my Communication Mastery improv workshops for a technology company. The business had specific goals to use the workshop to help build stronger employee relationships and to work together better.

I developed my workshops focusing on using improv to improve workplace culture and communication. The idea to take a group of co-workers out of the office and away from their computers to play physical games can sound wild, but hear me out, because the results are astounding.

Try these improv exercises with your team

The skills and lessons learned from improv are vast and essential to anyone dealing with other people in their lives - so everyone.

Count to 20

One exercise involves standing the group in a circle. With their eyes closed and heads down they are tasked with counting to 20. Sounds easy? Not quite, because each person who calls the next number randomly chooses to do it.

With eyes closed and nobody saying "one," the exercise can't proceed. Someone needs to muster up the courage to call the first number. Then someone else must call the next number and so on. The kicker is the number resets to one each time two people call the same number at once.

This exercise is a fun warm up. It teaches participants to work together as a team, to listen intently, and to be leaders by being courageous enough to call the next number. They must work together to get to 20 to succeed.

Improv is filled with these types of lessons. Teams become stronger by working together on different exercises customized to help them achieve their goals. I always poll my clients ahead of time, so I know their challenges and can customize my program to meet their goals.

The New Boss

One of my favorite activities is New Boss. Participants run through some warm-ups where they learn to speak together as one person. Two people are paired up to become a single person, the "new boss." Everyone else is an employee who can ask random questions. The new boss must mouth and speak their answers slowly and in stereo in order to sound coherent.

This exercise teaches listening skills because they must listen to the sounds of the words as they are spoken. They also have to learn to accept the other person's choice, because one single person may not be able to answer the question as they would have otherwise wanted to.

Improv teaches us to listen more effectively, to be team players, to be empathetic and accepting of our colleagues. It also allows us to have fun together. The laughter is my greatest reward as I teach teams how to improve communication with each other and externally.

Try improv games with your colleagues. I am certain your teams will learn new skills, improve the ones they already have, and ultimately have fun doing it. Here’s a quick look at some feedback I’ve received from my workshops.

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