7 questions on your way to effective emails

Polish study: Any manager can improve in writing

 

 

 

 

Precise, clear, supportive and optimistic: that´s how emails in the working place are meant to be. And this is going to materialize even without any specific linguistic or writing talent, at least a new study from Poland is pointing at. Managers ought to raise the following 7 questions before sending their emails, though:

1. Why am I going to write instead of talking?
2. What sort of wording can I use to address the aim of my message right at the top?
3. Am I more interested to foreground that a task is to be done or that the relationship to the recipient/s is to be taken care of?
4. How is my working relationship to the recipient/s and how do I intend to strengthen or change it?
5. How may structure and messages contribute to the success of my email?
6. How explicitly and honestly do I want to deliver my goals?
7. What sort of politeness strategies and phrases of kindness can I use to accomplish my targets?

Molek-Kozakowska/Molek-Winiarska, “Managing in Writing: Recommendations from Textual Patterns in Managers´ Email Communication”, in: Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 2023 Sept; 86(3): 296-321.

From the practice:

These 7 questions are hillarious!

Being a former journalist I do know how exactly you have to weigh any single word to actually achieve what is to be accomplished. My technique to date: to put myself in the position of the recipient/s the moment he/she is opening and reading the emails and to feel as precisely as possible how this or that sentence will come across then. That applies particularly for the very beginning and the very end of my emails. Without any training and experience this procedure takes way too long.

That´s why, once again: these 7 questions are simply top and of big help!