The Personal Guide to Effective Business Communication

Issue #18 🧩 Reply-All: the button made in Hell 🧩 7 C’s of effective communication 🧩 Communication methods & skills 🧩 Do’s and Don’ts of business communication

Welcome to this 💎 premium edition 💎 of BPMexplained🧩, the newsletter that helps us manage better. For more information, check out the About section.

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Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash

Effective communication is the key to success.

Even minor tweaks in how we communicate can make a huge difference - and it’s easier than you might think. Effective communication isn’t just about avoiding mistakes. It’s about using every interaction to build stronger relationships and get closer to our goals.

So how do we do that?

Read on 👇

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📑 NOTE: Treat my posts like mini-guides: choose what’s relevant or interesting.

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📧 Reply-All: The Button Made in Hell

One fine day I received the following work email:

“Hey, everyone, we got a new Head of [Insert Random Department], Patrick [Insert Generic Last Name]. He’ll be running things from [Some City] and leading our [Some Boring Initiative]. Let’s all give him a big warm welcome!”

And I was like, “Cool… Who’s Patrick? Also, why am I getting this? Ah, I see: everyone’s getting it. All 50,000+ people in the company.” No big deal, just a tiny little screw-up.

So, 20 minutes later, as I was still at my desk, bam - 30 welcoming Reply-All emails! Because, clearly, we all needed to individually and very publicly roll out the red carpet for Patrick. I shut my laptop thinking, “Nope, not today,” and headed home. In the half an hour it took me to get there, I received another 40 Reply-All emails. Apparently, Patrick needed that much love.

Being the hero that no one asked for, I hit Reply-All (ironic, I know!) and said, “Hey, folks, I only received around 70 Reply-All emails so far. I’m sure you can do much better than that.” Sent that out, only to get slapped with 5 more Reply-All emails before I even blinked. Patrick must’ve been feeling like a rockstar by that point.

Then people started replying just to me, saying, “Wow, you said what we’re all thinking!” One even went, “Try unsubscribing, if you can 😉” To which I responded, “Nah, I’m just gonna legally change my name to Patrick and embrace my fate.”

But wait - it got better! Even Patrick jumped into the chaos with his own Reply-All just to say “Thanks” to everyone. Sure, let’s fuel this dumpster fire a bit more, Patrick.

Then the original sender chimed in with another Reply-All, “Apologies, the initial email was somehow sent to the entire company. Please DO NOT reply to all!” Oh, what a brilliant idea! But, at that point, it was just a voice crying in the wilderness. All we could do was simply sit there and wait for the email apocalypse to burn itself out.

© Randy Glasbergen

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📰 7 C’s of Effective Communication