Spelling counts

Another primary complaint related to email is information overload: the number of emails exchanged and individual emails that are too long, especially those that have been commented on and propagated by multiple participants in a single thread. Someone with high EQ puts the reader in focus and realizes no reader wants to sift through those epic emails. When those novellas posing as emails hit the inboxes of mature emailers the threads end there. They know to start a new email in which they summarize the story thus far and reevaluate the distribution list. Or they go a different route outside of email. They do what is necessary to progress the project or decision the email is about and not the email itself. One survey respondent offered this approach to epic emails: “Email is often overused when a meeting is necessary; I follow a rule of thumb: after an initial email, if there are more than 2 mails after that with additional questions/information, then [I] call or [convene a] meeting."

Subject lines are another critical element for successful emails. The subject line should tell the reader what the message is about and why it matters and should convey relative priority. Emotional intelligence teaches email users how a subject line can strike the right or wrong cord. A subject line on an email from one’s boss that reads, “Come to my office,” might launch a quivering reader from a chair before opening the email to read, “at 1 p.m. for surprise birthday cake for Sally.” Although there are techniques to create compelling subject lines, one way to avoid abusing certain techniques is to never overuse them. For example. many people start their subjects with “URGENT.” But be warned, readers learn to ignore emails from the sender who cried “wolf!”

Another primary complaint is a recipient who persistently claims not to have received your email or not to have had time to read them “yet.” Most of us know that modern email systems rarely lose mail. What the sender hears is, "your emails aren't important enough to warrant my time and attention." Email etiquette is not limited to what we write, it extends to our behaviors as mature, responsible readers. Readers with high EQ realize that later conversations about emails they received will convey certain perceptions to the sender as would written responses. 

Although it is necessary to accept certain behaviors in our readers as fact, and like them or not, find ways to work around them, there are some behaviors that must be addressed. Emotional intelligence training equips one to recognize these situations and handle them in an appropriate manner relative to the roles both parties hold. High EQ doesn’t imply someone who accepts bad behavior from others. It means someone who can recognize behavior that they simply must or would do well to accept and behavior that they must address.

There are several blogs and websites offering practical tips for using email functionality more effectively. Check your email’s help facility and check the website of the email software company who develops the email package. There are also third parties who provide useful, practical advice to avoid trouble and become a savvy emailer. Here are two of my favorites: 

• “Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better” by David Shihpley and Will Schwalbe
• "You Send Me: Getting It Right When You Write Online" by Patricia T. O'Connor and Stewart Kellerman

Both of these books touch on another implication that everyone should consider. There are legal implications to what we put on paper or in electronic form. Our awareness of libel laws prevents us from bashing each other in emails (or on social websites) and our awareness of plagiarism and copyright laws prevents us from performing a copy and paste and calling the “new” document our own. But there are many other implications that relate to your employer of which you should be aware and of which these books provide great overviews. Your employer may provide additional guidelines.

One final area everyone striving to improve their email communications quality must not neglect is solid familiarity with the rules of the English language (r the language in which they correspond) including spelling, grammar, word usage, and punctuation. Use the spell checker your software comes with but never rely on it. Use it to bring your to your attention to potential errors but do your own proofreading, or enlist a friend or colleague for help. Failure to properly proofread is another common contributor to email failures. There are many books, podcasts, and websites that can help you quickly ramp up your skills. Here are a few of my recommendations: 

• Podcasts, books, or the website by “Grammar Girl”
• “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation” by Lynne Truss
• “Woe is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English” by Patricia T. O’Connor (author of “You Send Me”)
• “The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed” or “The New Well-tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed” by Karen Elizabeth Godon
• “My Grammar and I… Or Should That Be Me? How to Speak and Write It Right” by Caroline Taggart and J.A. Wines
• “The Elephants of Style: A Trunkload of Tips on the Big Issues and Gray Areas of Contemporary American English” and “Lapsing Into a Comma: A Curmudgeon's Guide to the Many Things That Can Go Wrong in Print—and How to Avoid Them” by Bill Walsh

Putting the reader first has special implications in a multicultural organization. As one survey participant puts it, “[when writing to] colleagues for whom English is not a first language, it is even more critical to pause and re-read the email and perhaps even have someone else read it." 

With all its faults, email is here for a long time to come and in spite of its faults, it adds great value to our work and personal lives. It enriches our communications and sometimes heralds good news. It isn't all bad, as noted in this survey respondent’s praise, "a clearly written email is great; you get the information you need and even have a permanent record." Another respondent said, "It can empower people to take action or provide just the right information at the right time. If crafted well and sent in a timely manner, email is a hugely helpful tool." Email doesn’t always piss us off or leave us scratching our heads, as one survey participant reminds us, "E-mail, when utilized as a direct response tool, with action items as part of the text, can often elicit positive responses."


While improving your mastery of the English language will help you be a better writer in any medium, and becoming an expert-user of your email package will help you be more efficient email user, combining those skills with a high EQ will take you to new levels of communications excellence.

Help wanted?

Considering the significant role our emotional intelligence plays in our communications skills, improving our EQ might be a prerequisite to making improvements. “But my EQ doesn’t need improving,” you say? How do you know?

How do you know you need to lose weight? The fit of your clothes, your scale, or your doctor might tell you. How do you know you need to work on your EQ? Problems at work or in personal relationships might indicate a need and finding yourself repeating emails for additional clarity made be a sign. Another way to find out is through an EQ test. If you already know you want to work on improving your emotional intelligence, you still need to begin with an assessment. People who’ve dieted know they won’t be able to measure their success later if they don’t take their measurements at the outset. The same is true when setting out on many self-improvement programs, including this one.

Many employers offer EQ training programs. Find out if yours does and take advantage of it. If your employer does not offer training you can take advantage of, find out if you are eligible for outside training reimbursement. Failing that, if you still want to pursue training, consider it a personal investment in your future success.

A few online self-assessments to consider:

Queendom: The land of tests

TalentSmart - Emotional Intelligence Appraisal

“Emotional Intelligence 2,0” by Travis Bradberry & JeanGreaves

Six Seconds - EQ Coach Cards

Institute for Health and Human Potential

I used three of these. IHHP's free assessment tool was brief and high-level. It serves as a good first step in EQ self-discovery.

A free TalentSmart assessment was included with my purchase of “Emotional Intelligence 2.0” (I suspect this is a scaled-down version of TalentSmart’s full fee-based assessment tool.) The book opens with a high-level introduction to EQ and is organized in chapters, one for each EQ competency. The test doesn't take long and the results equate to the competencies, making it easier to develop an improvement plan. Re-taking the test later will serve as a progress assessment. The bulk of TalentSmart’s training offerings are on-site corporate solutions; however, the book offers simple, practical solutions for the independent practitioner.

Queendom’s test took longer and provided the most detailed assessment. Their test included showing images of people interacting and asking the respondent questions based on his or her observations. I tend to believe that this type of assessment is more accurate than one based solely on verbal questions for measuring one’s ability to accurately perceive what one observes. Their results don’t include improvement plans or training, but the information they provide is very useful for focusing your training dollars where you will benefit most.

Once you have your results, you need to formulate an improvement plan. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and Six Seconds provide both assessment tools and resources for self-improvement. Six Seconds largely offers corporate on-site solutions but also sells many workbooks, multi-media kits, and webinars for the solitary student. One of their unique offerings that makes EQ training fun is an interactive web-based  EQ TV online program. 

A few other training solutions ranging from $2300 seminar-based training to free, web-based resources:

• American Management Association: Developing Your Emotional Intelligence
• Institute for Health and Human Potential: Emotional Intelligencefor Personal Leadership
• Podcast: Leading with Emotional Intelligence
• A YouTube search for “emotional intelligence training” returns videos and channels offering free video training segments.
• Daniel Goleman is one of the primary contributors to the field of EQ. His website offers resources for understanding emotional intelligence and improving personal scores.
• A GoogleBooks search returns a list of books ranging from scholarly works to practical self-improvement guides.

Practitioners of Taoism, Buddhism, Christianity, and spiritual quests know the secret to improving their EQ, even if they’ve never heard of it. So do people who have tried to end a bad habit like smoking, unhealthy eating, cursing, or complaining. The secret is being perpetually mindful. The most expensive EQ training solutions won’t work without mindful awareness of one’s observations and inner responses. It sounds simpler than it is.

Developing mindful awareness as a sixth sense takes dedication. In the beginning, many people adopt tricks that serve as a yield signs between the emotional and rational areas of the brain. Techniques to adopt mindful awareness can be as challenging as transcendental meditation or as simple as wearing a rubber band around one’s wrist. Journaling one’s experiences throughout the day is another common technique. 

A higher emotional intelligence and heightened self-awareness will improve the quality of your communications. There is one last element to being fully effective. You still must master the mechanics of language and email. 

Do the math

          If

email is one of our primary communications tools

          and,

EQ affects the quality of our communications

          and,

email inadequacies can reduce a company’s profits

          and,

EQ can be improved,

          then

our communications skills can be improved

          thus

improving the quality of our communications which includes email,

                                             and

eliminating hidden costs of ineffective emails.

Companies lose money due to email failures every day. Here are few examples:

·        Misinformation in emails cause work to be repeated when the information is later corrected.

·        Lack of information (including lack of responses to emails) causes project delays.

·        Workers spend hours on email threads when a meeting would cut that time significantly.

·        Rumors and gossip erode morale and productivity; email emphasizes the problem through its speed and reach.

·        Lack of clarity regarding who should take a particular action causes delays because no one takes action or causes duplication of effort because multiple people take action that was intended for only one.

·        Legal implications of what gets documented in email often result in monetary penalties and losses.

·        Emotional responses from emails can cause uncomfortable working relationships that result in work inefficiencies and in extreme cases, lost talent.

These are but a few of the many ways in which email failures can erode a company’s profits. If the math doesn't convince you that there is value in emotional intelligence training, perhaps you will be convinced by the many degree programs that now incorporate EQ training in their curriculums. NYU's Stern business school uses EQ scores to evaluate applicants and markets their MBA program by highlighting their focus on EQ. Developing new curricula is an expensive endeavor for any educational institution and this investment indicates their belief in EQ as a critical success factor and their belief that it can be improved.

Evidence that corporations share those beliefs abounds. Similar to degree program screening measures, two-thirds of corporations have adopted EQ assessments to their candidate screening process. Companies are investing millions in EQ programs to develop leaders and help individual contributors attain higher levels of success. Review this list of companies TalentSmart identifies as clients of their EQ programs or this list of clients RocheMartin® provides. Although many of these training providers don't publish pricing for on-site courses, with a price tag of $2300 for  the American Management Association's emotional intelligence seminars for just one student, the investment is surely significant for entire teams, departments, or leadership groups. Companies would not invest in these assessment tools and training programs if they did not anticipate a return on that investment.

More evidence exists in the software development industry. Spell check software continues to evolve and newer desktop applications now catch word choice errors such as homophones. Companies are working to develop tools that provide other cues to potential faux pas in our electronic content. Lymbix (located in in New Brunswick, Canada) is the first to present what the press has dubbed “anger checking” and Limbix calls sentiment checking. They offer an API that applications can leverage to enable sentiment checking in their content editing, word processing, text messaging, or other software. Limbix also offers ToneCheck™, “a simple tool that enables the individual to become more conscious of the overall ‘tone’ in their email. Flagging phrases that may cause misinterpretation.” That fact that software development companies are investing in development of tools like this is further evidence that there is a potential market expressing a need for this type of help. 

He said WHAT!*%!?

The consensus is that email sucks; although, it is a communications tool we use in astounding amounts and one that consumes vast portions of our time. As Samir Ghosh observes in his article "Seven Reasons Why Email Sucks," "Let’s face it. Most of us have a Love/Hate relationship with email." Survey results bear this out, and the consensus is that like most inventions (tools, transportation, drugs, weapons…) email is inherently neither good nor evil. It is a a valuable  tool when used responsibly. In all fairness to mankind, email is in its childhood, having been in general use for less than fifty years, as compared to written and verbal communications, which man has had thousands of years to master. So, perhaps our lack of experience with email explains why still wrestle with it? Perhaps our emotional intelligence is limiting our dexterity with the tool. (One could argue we haven’t universally mastered verbal and written communications either, perhaps for the same underlying reason.)

Emotional intelligence training will teach willing students to identify cues in body language, facial expression, and tone of voice. Email presents challenges because these cues don't exist in that environment. And worse, we build inferences from cues such as bold-faced type and text colors where no inferences were intended by the author. Emotional intelligence training focused on email will enable the reader to accurately assess the sender's intent and avoid misinterpretations or unfounded inferences. Emotional intelligence training will also help email writers increase clarity and avoid language and other message attributes that can cause miscommunications and unintended emotional responses from readers. Someone with this type of training will also recognize situations that need to be diffused and will end certain email threads, opting for conversations and meetings instead. The savvy email user knows when the best response is no response at all in any form.

Another problem with email, which someone with high EQ can mitigate, is that there is no way for the sender to know if the recipient read, understood, and accepted the message. An email application can verify that an email was delivered to a target inbox and was opened by the recipient. That’s not the same as confirming that he recipient read the content. And it is not the same as maintaining eye contact or observing other visual cues, such as nodding, to ascertain someone's understanding or acceptance of a message. Samir Ghosh observes that "some people ignore emails if they’re only included in the 'cc' or 'bcc' list." A week ago, this would have surprised me, but last week a colleague confessed this habit to me.

Admonishing other people’s email habits or ignoring them and continuing to encounter these flaws does nothing to further to goals of the sender's intended message. Someone with high EQ recognizes these behaviors as constraints of email and finds alternative approaches to information exchanges including meetings, phone calls, or perhaps different separate emails the intended 'to" list and 'cc' list with introductions such as "please take the following action," or, "this email was sent to your staff members and is being shared with you only for your awareness."

One survey respondent suggested that email is "good for certain things but not as a means of conducting business." Although the statement is probably too broad to be generally accepted, most people agree that email isn't the right tool for every situation. There are many occasions when it is appropriate to express emotions or sentiments to colleagues, subordinates, and superiors. Gratitude for a job well done, congratulations for achievements, condolences for personal losses are just a few examples. Email may often be the best option given time and distance between sender and receiver, but nothing can replace a handwritten note or greeting card much less a phone call, eye contact, a handshake, or pat on the back.

As the US Postal Service marketing campaign says, "Email Sucks, So Mail Stuff Instead." While they are obviously trying to sell more services, they do have a point. I recently donated to a program that purchased books for underprivileged kids. A few weeks later, I received an over-stuffed, legal-sized envelope in my mailbox. In it were several handwritten thank you notes from those kids. I was touched and will keep those letters for years to come. If they had sent me emails, the effect would not have been as profound. I'm sure their teacher's insight into the powerful difference between hand-written letters and emails led to their selection, but her choice is a good example of one that garnered the intended emotional response from the reader. This is emotional intelligence in action.

EQ? Don't you mean IQ?

We consume information with our eyes and ears, which relay that information to our spinal cords as electrical signals. Those signals must ultimately reach our frontal lobes for analysis, but they must first pass through the limbic system, which has many functions including controlling our emotional responses. When those signals reach our frontal lobes, reasoning, judgment, and impulse control are applied. Unfortunately, too many times, we react emotionally before we’ve analyzed the information. “The communication between your emotional and rational ‘brains’ is the physical source of emotional intelligence. (Read more in the first chapter of "Emotional Intelligence 2.0.”)

Daniel Goleman, one of the leaders in the field of emotional intelligence, purports that the human brain has evolved from the bottom up. Primitive man fully developed the sensory perceptions to prevent touching something hot and incurring burns or eating something bitter and perhaps poisonous. Early man’s brains developed emotional responses to external stimuli and reliance on those emotions, such as fear, as signals that increased his survival. Modern man relies on sensory input and emotional responses for survival too but also relies on intelligence and reasoning for survival in a world that runs on complex tools, economies, and concepts. (Read more in “Evolution of the human brain and emotional intelligence” at HubPages. )

Our brains have not evolved to where analyzing information before reacting emotionally comes to us as a reflex. For most of us it is an adaptation we must learn. In “Emotional Intelligence 2.0", the authors tell us that out of the 500,000 study participants, “only 36 percent of the people we tested are able to accurately identify their emotions as they happen.” These results indicate that “two thirds of us are typically controlled by our emotions and are not yet skilled at spotting them and using them to our benefit.” Authors Bradberry and Greaves define emotional intelligence as the ability to both 

• recognize and understand emotions in self and others and
• apply this understanding to behavior.

Who you are is a combination of your EQ, your IQ, and your personality. Scientists agree that IQ is a constant that is set for life at birth and cannot be altered. They apply the same view to personality, the combination of preferences, attitudes, and inclinations that we develop early in life that remain constant. Psychologists have found no relationship between IQ and EQ, or between personality and EQ; although, according to Bradberry and Greaves, one can leverage their personality traits when developing EQ.

Daniel Goleman found that IQ is a factor for 20% of a person’s success in life. He showed how it can predict things like academic success and job types.  He presented the idea that emotional intelligence is another factor that predicts, in part, the other 80% of our success in life. It is not known what percentage, out of the mysterious 80%, EQ accounts for, but Bradberry and Greaves found that 90% of high performers have high EQ scores and that people with high EQ scores annually earn $29,000 than those with lower scores. Statistically significant evidence has shown that EQ has a significant influence on our lives, including our decision-making and our relationships.

Goleman, and Bradberry and Greaves built their theories upon works from the twentieth century. Wayne Payne’s 1985 doctoral thesis titled “A study of Emotion: Developing Emotional Intelligence” is cited by several resources as the first usage of the term “emotional intelligence.” However, many sources, including a Wikipedia article, give that honor to  Leuner , who used it in an German publication in 1966. In 1990, the first work on the theory to garner broad attention is the article titled, “Emotional Intelligence,” written by Peter Salovey and John Mayer. Salovey and Mayer were the first to propose that EQ was scientifically measurable, similar to IQ. In 1995, Daniel Goleman's bestseller,  “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ,” was brought to the masses in an October, 1995 TIME Magazine article, “What’s your EQ?”


Listen to Goleman speak about EQ in this brief interview:

In the decades since Goleman's first book was published, he's written several more and other authors have followed his lead. Numerous training programs and consulting practices have also been developed around emotional intelligence assessments and training. While some of those companies market their EQ tools as the single most critical factor in your success, the truth is that EQ is one of many factors and is only a portion of the 80% not accounted for by IQ. Still, statics that proving EQ’s implications on our success have led educational institutions, corporations, and individuals to invest in these services.

Survey results

In a survey conducted for this study, 68.4% of respondents indicated that English as a second language and grammar, punctuation, and spelling are not the dominant factors that erode email’s effectiveness as a communications tool. The tone of the message was blamed by 84.2% of respondents as being significantly to somewhat damaging. (Full survey results)

Respondents agree overwhelmingly that face-to-face is the best form of communication with phone communications as the second best option. There is hope for email; respondents rated text messaging and printed material, not email, as the worst communications tools, and nearly half rated email as okay, while only a quarter rated email as poor. Meanwhile, nearly half the respondents rated email as only generally effective, and close to 40% rated it as effective for specific purposes only.

These are interesting findings when you consider that nearly 83% of respondents spend between one and five hours a day in email and another 12% spend more than five hours. The volume of email was also notable: 42% of respondents read/write between 30-60 emails daily, 26% read/write between 10-30, and 26% read/write more than 60 a day. These findings indicate we're investing a significant portion of our valuable time with a communications tool we don’t feel is consistently effective and often does damage to our projects and relationships.

Close to all respondents (94.7%) cited confusing information in emails as the predominant contributor to the ineffectiveness of email followed closely by volume of email (92.1%) and insufficient information in individual messages (90.8%). 80.2% cited length of individual messages as damaging, and over half cited English as a second language (67.1%) and poor spelling, grammar, and punctuation (64.5%) as culprits. Close to half (44.7%) indicated that the reader's mood is the least damaging, and only 19.7% indicated length of individual emails as the least significant factor effecting email’s effectiveness.

Another indication of hope is that a few respondents provided additional feedback noting that email has also left them happy and occasionally amused, as well as satisfied at having conveyed their message effectively. Yet, not one person indicated that email has never left them feeling confused, only 1.3% said that email never leaves them feeling frustrated or angry, and less than 4% said that email never leaves them feeling worried. Additionally, 71% said that email occasionally leaves them feeling confused and 69.7% said it occasionally leaves them feeling frustrated. (One respondent even indicated that it has, albeit rarely, left them feeling enraged.)

Nearly 96% of survey participants indicated that the emails they write enable activities and decisions, and 93.4% indicated that they take care and proofread their emails. 93.4% also believe their emails generate quick responses with useful information. 77.6% claim to have only rarely or never written an email they regret, and 64.5% report that they’ve never composed a new email message or a response when they were angry or upset. Only half of the participants had experienced wishing they had read an email message more thoroughly before writing a response, and 81.6% claimed that their emails don’t generate more questions than answers.

With such strong agreement that emails have significant inclinations towards ineffectiveness,  these evaluations of ourselves as senders makes one wonder exactly who is sending all this damaging email? (Which explains this week’s national holiday of the month: National Blame it on somebody else day.)

Perhaps our EQ is inhibiting our perception of ourselves as email users, and we don’t realize we are the ones wielding those poison pens (tablets, Blackberries, iPhones…)?

Full survey results

Poor grammar, faulty punctuation, and atrocious spelling are often blamed when email fails. But more often email fails because senders and readers don't properly perceive their own or each other's emotions. Good writing is important; misplaced commas have led to lawsuits and misspellings have caused boardroom blushes. But grammatically accurate, correctly spelled, and perfectly punctuated emails derail projects, cause team strife, and reduce profits every day.

Sure, miscommunications happen in face-to-face and verbal communications too, but proximity to the event gives each participant a chance to continually reevaluate the situation change their message as the communications proceed. The distance between participants in space and time and the absence of visual and audible cues between parties make email more likely to leave one of the parties unsatisfied with the exchange. When people communicate in person or over the phone, parties tend to take turns speaking. While they are listening, they consider the tone, body language, word choice and other feedback to formulate what they'll say next. There is no feedback and there are no pauses to give an email writer the opportunity to reflect on the message or reader. 

Other written forms of communication could present a similar challenge. But a key difference is that letters and memos written longhand, with typewriters, or with word processors took longer to compose, giving the writer more time to change his or her feelings about what they are writing or their word choices, often times deciding to abandon the written form in favor of a conversation of meeting. There is also a perceived urgency with email that didn't exist with those other forms. That false sense of urgency causes the writer to take less time crafting or proof reading the message, and gives less consideration to choice of words or the reader's perspective. 

Emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) is the measure of a person's ability to correctly perceive one's own and other people's emotions, and control one's emotional responses. Email is a dangerous tool in the hands of a writer with less-than-perfect EQ; it can ruin reputations, end careers, and destroy relationships. “Not in the Mood” will help email users understand the relationship between EIQ and email effectiveness and the potential effects of low email quality on workplace productivity and profits. Perspectives from experts, prior studies, survey results, and interviews will describe the problem from the email user community's own perspective. Tools which may help alleviate the problem will be suggested along with suggestions of some practical methods by which the email writer can overcome low EIQ inclinations and  become a more adept email communicator.