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With so many services, from email to your office IM, to social media, you have many inbox(s), and the underlying assumption is that any message would be answered quickly. Academics refer to this phenomenon as telepressure. A great way to counteract telepressure is by introducing a communications ladder.

FACTS:

  • Humans are hardwired for communication. We feel the need to respond to messages quickly.

  • Your inbox(s) are a major source of distraction, attention residue, and cognitive fatigue.

  • The more Inbox(s), the more stressful they are to manage.

  • A communications ladder ends your anxiety over both unread and unanswered messages, as expectations are set (for both reading and responding).

  • You have a communications ladder anyway, it is just implicit (and full of assumptions). Making it explicit benefits both parties and leads to effective collaboration.

The communications ladder informs people about:

  1. The best vehicle to contact you for a given level or urgency.

  2. The response time to expect.

 

For example, you might tell people to email you for non-urgent matters, text you for things that need to be handled today, or call you for urgent stuff. That way, you know that a text can be answered later, but a call is truly urgent.

Clarity trumps responsiveness. What people really want is clarity of when and how to get in touch with you. They no longer need to wonder about whether you’ve seen their message, whether you’re working on it, etc.

 

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Introducing the communication ladder requires little effort, but it provides great benefits. It stops:

  • Attention Residue

  • Cognitive Exhaustion

  • Delays on projects and initiatives

  • Frustrations over-communications (including nagging, guessing how to contact you, guessing when a task might be done, if you are working on it, etc.)

  • The “Urgency Trap”.

 

The communications ladder enables you:

These days, many people think it’s rude to make a phone call. Everyone has their communications style. If styles conflic, you can work out an easy solution.

 

For example, when I started working with a designer for a book, they would send me emails with various design ideas. These emails were well-intentioned, but they were also distracting and exhausting, because until I responded, the project was stalled. This added a lot of overhead to keeping this project moving forward.

 

Instead, we worked out a reoccurring bi-weekly schedule for screen sharing sessions. Instead of a ping-pong email exchange, we were able to work together in real time and cover several designs in a session. We also set up a “Bat-phone” messenger line for genuine emergencies. For example, “I can’t make the meeting.”, “Can you publish this by Friday?”, etc., to make my various deadlines.

SOLUTIONS:

  1. Write a 3-line communications preferences statement (or borrow from me).

  2. Put it under your email signature, so it will make its way to the people you message.

  3. Communicate it to your staff, associates, family, and friends.

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“Communication is the real work of leadership.”

- Nitin Nohria, Dean of Harvard Business School

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