~by Haley Lynn Gray~
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched people fall out over something one of them thought was implied. Intent gets read into words that never carried it, and from there it escalates.
The further apart you are — physically, culturally, or just in the medium you’re using — the easier it is for that to start.
Why it happens more than it used to
We used to conduct business in person. Now it’s video, phone, email, chat, text, frequently across continents.
Each step away from being in a room removes information. In person you have expression, posture, tone and the ability to notice immediately that something landed wrong. On the phone you keep tone. In writing you have none of it.
Add language differences and it compounds. English alone isn’t consistent — lorry, jumper, rubber and flat all mean different things depending on where you are. Someone talking about throwing shrimp on the barbie means something rather different in Australia than the sentence suggests in America.
Now add a non-native speaker, and the opportunities multiply again.
We used to play telephone as children — whisper something down a line of people and see what emerges. We’d translate between English and Portuguese and back as we went. An orange cat could come out the other end as a green Martian on the Eiffel Tower.
Business communication works the same way. Every hop loses something.
The thing that makes it worse
Here’s what most people don’t know: you are considerably worse at conveying tone in writing than you think you are.
Researchers led by Justin Kruger tested this in 2005. People wrote emails intended as sarcastic or serious and predicted how reliably recipients would tell the difference. They expected to be understood the large majority of the time. Recipients were correct at close to chance.
The reason is straightforward. When you write something, you can hear it in your head — you know the tone you meant, so it seems obvious. The reader has no access to that. They supply their own tone, and the one they supply is heavily influenced by whatever mood they’re already in.
Which means a perfectly neutral message, read by someone having a bad morning, reads as curt. And you’ll never know, because they won’t mention it.
What actually prevents it
Match the medium to the stakes. This is the most useful rule here. Anything difficult — disagreement, bad news, criticism, money, anything emotionally loaded — belongs on a call or in person. Writing is for facts that can be confirmed.
Almost every serious conflict I’ve watched began with something difficult being sent as text because it was easier than saying it.
State it rather than implying it. Hints don’t survive the journey. If you need something by Thursday, say Thursday. If you’re unhappy with the work, say so plainly and kindly. The implied version will be missed and you’ll be irritated about something the other person never received.
Read it back. “So what I’m hearing is…” feels laborious and catches an enormous number of problems while they’re still free. Ask people to do the same with you: “just so I know I explained it properly, what’s the first thing you’ll do?”
Confirm decisions in writing after the conversation. Talk it through, then send a short summary. This combines the clarity of voice with a record that prevents two people remembering different agreements in six weeks.
And assume the generous reading. When a message lands badly, the most likely explanation is that it was typed quickly by someone busy, not that it was intended as it read.
The habit worth building
If something bothers you, ask before reacting.
“I read this as you being unhappy with the timeline — is that right?” Nine times out of ten the answer is no, they were typing between meetings, and the whole thing dissolves in one exchange.
The tenth time you’ve surfaced a real problem early, which is also what you wanted.
That single question — asked instead of stewing, or instead of replying in kind — prevents more damage than any other communication habit I know. It costs nothing but a small amount of pride.
The underlying point
We’re working across distance, time zones, languages and a dozen different media. Things will be misunderstood. That isn’t a failure of anyone’s character.
So build in the checks: the right medium for the stakes, explicit rather than implied, confirmation in both directions, and a question rather than an assumption when something feels off.
Communication is the one thing a business can’t do without. Worth cutting each other some slack, and worth building the habits that make the slack less necessary.
More on pausing before you respond and being clear about what you expect.
About the author
Haley Lynn Gray is the founder of Leadership Girl, of In2itive Biz Solutions, and of the Women’s Entrepreneur Network — a community of more than 77,000 women in business.
She writes here about what happens when running a business starts demanding that you lead one. More about Haley →
