In our reliance on text and tweet as primary modes of business interactions we’ve lost far more than good communication skills.
We've lost our manners.
This week I'm off to commemorate a milestone for a business that was instrumental in setting me on my current path, my second career. Whenever I recall my time there, I’m reminded that I owe my success, not to having outstanding industry knowledge (I was an Urban Planner by training), but to understanding the importance of putting a period at the end of a sentence, and a capital letter at the beginning of the next.
Turns out that the most impactful class I've ever studied is typing in high school.
The kind from the book pictured here.
The actual benefit of the mind-numbing repetitions of s-w, s-w, s-w was the burning-in of numerous business communication templates, with the types of letters specific to the desired results, book-ended by appropriate greetings, closings, to ensure we kept our business manners.
You may laugh but, as coincidence has it, l just had a conversation with a colleague regarding a business that would have realized incredible gains in sales had some key individuals followed some rather simple rules of written business etiquette.
Instead of creating an atmosphere of appreciation and collaboration, the poor correspondence instilled feelings of frustration and distrust. In addition to doing a financial audit to find the money being left on the table, your business should also consider performing a communication audit.
What is your trust level of the communications coming out of your organization?