TBL: This May Be The Worst Way To Communicate

One of the most common communication mistakes is one I still catch myself making

One of the most common communication mistakes is one I still catch myself making. There’s no shame in admitting that you likely do it too.

A couple weeks ago I reached out to an organization I’d partnered with on a few of my previous book launches. I sent a group email to the people at the company I had worked with before and said I’d like to reconnect to talk about my new book, The Compass Within (Coming October 14 and available for preorder!)

I didn’t get a single reply.

While I considered replying all with a classic “Just wanted to follow up on my note below,” I tried a different strategy instead. I emailed the same group of people, but did so with a separate, individualized note to each person.

Every single person who is still at the company responded. Within a couple weeks, I’d arranged multiple book launch initiatives with the team.

This reminded me of a key truth leaders need to internalize: one-to-many communication is not effective at prompting people to take action. Here’s why, and the strategy that works better.

Ownership Matters

If you’re emailing someone asking them to do something, make it crystal clear that they are the one who owns it, and that you’ll hold them accountable for getting it done. Individual ownership really matters: a Cornell research lab found professional tasks are more likely to be completed when owned individually, rather than collectively. If a specific person knows they will be responsible if nothing gets done, they will likely take action.

If you need someone to do something for you, you should email them directly. You can copy other people on the note if necessary to keep others in the loop, but make it clear who the intended recipient is and what action they need to take.

Remember Inertia

Isaac Newton’s second law of physics says that objects at rest stay at rest unless acted upon by a force. This rule applies to your emails.

If you send a group email without specifying who needs to take action, each recipient will wait to see if one of their colleagues will respond first or assume that someone else will answer. The end result is usually that no one responds right away and your email gets buried under a wave of messages, sadly forgotten.

This is what that forgotten email often looks like: