Canadian Government Executive - Volume 27 - Issue 05

September/October 2021 // Canadian Government Executive / 27 flect your own style. Some people just use their name, other people might add in the words sincerely or respectfully. If it’s a new rela- tionship, she suggests following the formality level of the person who has more power. If it’s a longtime trusted relationship and the formality changes suddenly or gradually, ask yourself why or con- sider checking in with the other correspondent. If it’s a longtime relationship with an obvious power differential and the formality changes, take the lead of the more powerful person, mirroring the change. Punctuation and symbols are the new measure of emotions. Ex- clamation marks, which have traditionally been used sparingly in written communication, have become widespread and she encour- ages that trend. Traditionally they were used to indicate urgency, excitement, and emphasis. “Today, exclamation points, arranged throughout texts and emails, convey friendliness. They have be- come so obligatory to emails that you risk coming off as brusque or cold if you fail to use them. An exclamation point at the end of an email’s opening sentence establishes a heartfelt sentiment that resonates through the rest of the message,” she says. Women use a lot more exclamation points than men, apparently replacing the nods, smiles, and laughs of female friendship. But she warns against getting carried away. Exclamation marks can be inter- preted as shouting!!!! Using more than one can get tricky. Emojis are essential – an array of little faces are available with a wide emotional range to replace what’s lost when we move from face-to-face conversation to written communication. “Today for even the most skilled communicator, emojis have become an es- sential shortcut,” she writes. At the same time, don’t use them to replace words, only to ac- centuate what is said. Adapt their use to your audience. Remember they can be misunderstood. A four-person team she was on for an international research project had had one woman who responded to a colleague’s ideas every time with a smiley face emoji. The per- son receiving those emojis began to wonder if the sender was being sarcastic. Dhawan notes that young women need to be careful be- cause overuse of emojis can imply incompetence at work, according to one study. So use emojis – but think before you do. Question marks also need to be treated with care. A question supplemented by three question marks – or more – conveys urgen- cy, impatience, and possible panic. In general, the more question marks in a message the more intense the emotion likely is behind the question. Using ALL CAPS can have a similar impact. Limit it to urgent situ- ations with your team. Otherwise, you will be assumed to be yelling. WEB https://canadiangovernmentexecutive.ca/author/harvey-schachter/ Timing is the new measure of respect in a digital writing world. “In a digitally reliant world, the slights pause between messages takes on an almost operatic meaning,” she warns. Of course, the reality is that a non-immediate answer to an email or text usually just means the other person got tied up or their bat- tery died. Research indicates it takes 90 minutes for the average per- son to reply to an email and 90 seconds for the average person to respond to a text message. Each communications medium carries its own expectations on timing so keep those guidelines in mind, particularly during business hours, or you’ll be considered rude. When phone calls aren’t scheduled in advance, she recommends placing them at 20 minutes after the hour or 10 minutes before the hour, when the recipients are usually finished with conversations that started at the hour or half-hour. Weekdays during normal hours, particularly mornings, are the best times to send an email that will get a reply. On weekends or afternoons expect shorter re- plies. She urges you to add profile pictures to your emails on Outlook or on Zoom. Keep them clear, professional, and warm. But use them, because they convey more of who you are. And that’s vital, in an era when digital body language builds trust and connection. Harvey Schachter is a writer, specializing in management and business issues. He writes three weekly columns for the Globe andMail and The Leader’s Bookshelf column for Canadian Government Executive, and a regular column and features for Kingston Life magazine. Harvey was editor of the 2004 book Memos to the Prime Minister: What Canada Can Be in the 21st Century. He was the ghostwriter on The Three Pillars of Public Management by Ole Ingstrup and Paul Crookall, and editor of Getting Clients, Keeping Clients by Dan Richards. THE LEADER’S BOOKSHELF “Research indicates it takes 90 minutes for the average person to reply to an email and 90 seconds for the average person to respond to a text message. Each com- munications medium carries its own expectations on timing so keep those guide- lines in mind, particularly during business hours, or you’ll be considered rude.”