Communicating Effectively

This week I learned that effective communication is vital between team players in order for a project to be successful. I watched a video of a message conveyed in three different modalities: email, voicemail, and face-to-face, I realized that it is not only how you communicate, but what you communicate to others is just as important.

Email: The email wasn’t very personal. There was no feeling of urgency. The grammar didn’t flow for me. I had to read it twice to get to the main point.

Voicemail: In the voicemail, hearing a name directly being spoken made it feel personal. The message was more direct and the tone made it more urgent. Hearing the words spoken after the email made it feel more urgent.

Face-to-Face: This way of communication is always more personal than any form of communication. The tone of voice sets the mood. I always feel more obligated to do something when someone takes the time to tell me. Yet during the face-to-face conversation, I felt the urgency of the matter immediately because this person is depending on me to get her job done.

Which form of communication best conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message?

The form of communication that best conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message to me was the face-to-face conversation.

      I learned from this exercise that best way to communicate effectively is face-to-face first. I think that emails are for updating information and sending other important data. Emails are more like reminders from a calendar. You send them just to give members a heads up on something. A voicemail is a backup to a face-to-face. It is a more direct way of sending a message because the tone sets the mood. A voicemail however doesn’t take the place of a face-to-face conversation. When a deadline is about to come up and data is missing the best form of communication would be to address this person directly, especially if emails and voicemails failed to send the message.