Email is easy and fast. It’s also incomplete and leaves room for plenty of unanswered questions and misunderstanding. A couple of times recently, I’ve experienced the conflict that goes with deciding how to follow up with people.
In one instance, I had submitted an application to a speaker’s bureau. Weeks later, I had heard nothing from them. After a short, typical conversation in my head about not being good enough to belong to this bureau, I decided to end the masochism and pick up the phone. As it turned out, the president of the company had begun the review process of my application, but had not yet completed it. Our conversation was upbeat and encouraging, and so very simple.
Another time, I was struggling with content for an upcoming presentation on leadership and management for lawyers. When I realized I would not be the best choice to address certain aspects of management because I have never run a law firm, I faced the same method-of-contact dilemma. Email surely would have been easier. I could have backed out of the session gracefully and left the relationship intact. But I really wanted to address the leadership issue in law firms, so I picked up the phone and had a conversation with my contact. In the course of the conversation, we realized the conference attendees would benefit from a team teaching format that involved a managing partner and me working together. Our conversation created a better program that would not have been possible by email.
No doubt: it’s much easier to send an email than to have to deal with a conversation. But it’s in those very conversations – those dialogues – that some of our best outcomes can occur.
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