BizConnect, the ins and outs of emails

My latest contribution on BizConnect regarding email etiquette, click here to read it.

A plain and simple equation

Integrity Matters

What does integrity mean? My latest Leadership Magazine piece focuses on it:

What exactly does it mean to be ethical; and how does it impact your reputation? It’s all about doing the right thing, right? All and sundry claim to have integrity and say how important it is to them. Taking a look at recent social media debacles, the most recent being that of Ntokozo Qwabe and Judge Mabel Jansen; it is quite clear that ’integrity’ and ’reputation’ are very often just paid lip service and sadly losing their zeal to overuse.

Everyone knows and says that these things are important to them and it sounds great to use them in conversation. However, if you have to tell someone that you have integrity, are trustworthy and are ethical, then there’s a strong chance that you are not. For example, what images are conjured up when you hear someone say, “Trust me…”.  Why would you have to tell someone that you are ethical and trustworthy? Surely they should experience this through your behaviour and the interactions they have with you and your business.

It’s all about leading by example; this may seem fairly obvious; unfortunately there are still too many examples of companies and individuals getting it wrong. What and how you or your employees engage and conduct yourselves will ultimately impact the business’ reputation, regardless of whether you are posting something on Facebook or Twitter in your personal capacity or as the Managing Director of your company. The public generally and even those closely associated to the company, don’t differentiate between the company and the individual.

Businesses and reputations grow by association; like-minded people and companies attract like-minded individuals and other companies to do business with. There is thus an integral connection between the organisation’s brand and reputation and your own; the two can’t be separated.

Someone once explained moral fibre to me as the way you act when no one else is around. People who are on the same ethical page have a built-in radar for what is right and what is wrong, and use that to make sensible daily business decisions. This then contributes to a strong reputational foundation. Having a solid, moral building block in place, allows you to then focus on other areas of the business.

Who determines the moral compass? There are no hard and fast rules, it is about how you conduct yourself in terms of what is right and wrong, what is decent, what is good, what is honest and what is honourable. Rotary’s four way test ethos is a good measure that can be used as a guiding principle across the board; everything that Rotarians say, do and think relates to these four questions: Is it the truth? It is fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

What I like about it, is that it is four relatively easy questions that you can ask yourself when you are faced with a problem; and it is not linked to a specific religion, culture or creed. These principles have been developed over the years to provide Rotarians across the world with a strong common purpose and direction. They serve as a foundation for our relationships with each other and the actions we take in the world.

It is said that organisations with an ethical decision-maker are more effective and more productive. The leader of the business needs to lead by example. How can the leader be taken seriously or respected if their moral fibre is questionable? As much as we look after and foster the reputation of our clients, we have to be merciless when it comes to protecting our own. If we associate ourselves with people and companies with questionable values, our own values will be brought into disrepute, damaging our reputation. As Warren Buffet famously said, "We can afford to lose money — even a lot of money. But we can't afford to lose reputation — even a shred of reputation.”

Ethical behaviour needs to be ingrained at a strategy level and in all the dealings and interactions of the business, it shouldn’t be just something that sounds good in a public relations and marketing exercise.

In Alice Schroeder’s, The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life, reference is made to Peter Kiewit who said, “A reputation is like fine china, expensive to acquire and easily broken.” In making ethical decisions, therefore, “If you’re not sure if something is right or wrong, consider whether you’d want it reported in the morning paper.”

In the Corporate Reputation Review[1] it says that throughout the world, the media keep a wary eye on corporate behaviour and zoom in sharply on suspected organisational misdeeds. The television news’ guillotine and the Internet are ever ready to defame organisational leaders who are accused of unethical behaviour. Don’t we know it! The media will sniff out any and all corporate misdemeanours; after all, scandal and drama are what sells. 

Also, through the media customers are provided with information that enables them to make purchasing choices based not only on traditional parameters, such as price and functionality, but also on matters such as how and where products and services are produced and the reputation of the producer. People want to do business with businesses that are socially and ethically responsible as well as environmentally conscious. This is a clear message that comes out very strongly from all the reputation research projects that we have conducted to date.

Being unethical is business suicide and a death knell for your reputation. Your business may no longer be around, but your name will still be associated with unethical practices so it will be very difficult to get others to affiliate with you in the future.

Things to remember

·         If you have to tell people that you are ethical and have integrity, are you really?

·         Moral fibre is how you act when no one else is around;

·         If you’re not sure whether something is right or wrong, consider whether you’d want it reported in the morning paper;

·         If in doubt, use Rotary’s four way test to help you make a decision;

·         Having a solid, moral building block in place, allows you to then focus on other areas of the business;

·         It is important that your personal and business values be aligned and reflected in all areas of your life;

·         Reputation and integrity are more than just buzzwords to be used in PR and marketing campaigns.

To continue the reputation management conversation, join Regine on Twitter @ReputationIsKey or Facebook www.facebook.com/yourreputationmatters.

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[1] Pruzan, P. 2001. Corporate reputation: Image and identity. Corporate Reputation Review, 4(1):50-64.

Afrikaans is !Nxa

The other day I had quite an interesting encounter with someone. Twice during our time together they indicated in all seriousness, that they ‘used to be Afrikaans.” I  found this to be quite a bizarre statement. Yes, Afrikaans people have done and can do incredibly stupid and questionable things; with that said, show me a nation / culture / demographic that hasn’t and don’t. I then started wondering how do you disown your heritage? Is it possible? Surely it is part of who you are?

I am very grateful to my Mom for sending me to an English nursery school (Rachel Spero, yes, a Jewish one!), and then to Arcadia Primary where I learnt to speak English. On my own accord I nagged my Mom to send me to Pretoria High School for Girls.

My mom got a lot of flack from some of her ‘friends’ who said that she was going to confuse me and I wouldn’t understand my culture by sending me to an English school. Thankfully, my mom did not heed their concerns, and was comfortable with this risk of exposing her daughter to English folk.

Even though my schooling was in English, I was very much raised Afrikaans. I proudly have my grandmother’s names, can cook a mean, “rys, vleis en aartappels,” and really find no other language quite as expressive!

It’s about being true to yourself. How authentic are you if you do not embrace and make peace with who you are?

I sometimes listen to RSG to listen to the language spoken without it being mixed with too much English, a trend that I am sadly quite guilty of too. The other day they shared this poem:

Fake it 'til you make it

Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are 
Amy Cuddy | TED Talks

Really worth investing 20 minutes of your time to have a look at this video.

To emoticon or not to emoticon...

Do you find yourself sending business mails late at night? You may want to reconsider your email habits after reading my latest Leadership Magazine contribution on page 92.

To emoticon or not to emoticon...

You’ve really built a solid relationship with your client, supplier, employee [insert key stakeholder that forms part of your business here], they have become one of your closest confidants, so there is no harm in ending off your e-mail with some hugs and kisses at the end of it; not to mention the array of emoticons at our disposal to really express yourselves in a written message! Right? When it comes to business e-mail protocols this is a big no, no. Regardless of how close you are with your business contacts, keep it professional.

E-mail etiquette could prevent awkward misinterpretations of e-mails, not avoiding common mistakes could have a detrimental impact on you and your company’s reputation.

Sending e-mails have become such an integral part of our daily lives that we very often dart off an e-mail without actually considering what we’re sending to whom. Here are a couple of e-mail etiquette tips to be considered:

Timing – Until about a year ago I quite happily sent e-mails late at night, or super early in the morning. I also checked mails just before putting off the bedside lamp for the evening and felt rather proud of myself for being so on the ball with my quick response rate. I stopped checking mail before going to bed when I received really bad personal news via an e-mail one evening. There was nothing that I could do about the situation; however I had a really bad night’s rest, which then meant I was not on my A-game the next day. What sealed the deal for me was receiving an incredibly unpleasant e-mail sent at about one o’clock in the morning, which was clearly sent by someone who was overtired. This made me realise that sending out e-mails late at night, or in the wee hours of the morning sends many negative messages. I am not convinced that anyone is productive after 19:00 at night after a long day in the office, let alone after twelve at night. It is important to have a balance in your life and use office hours to conduct business. My team and I now have a rule that we don’t sent e-mails after 19:00 at night or before 07:00 in the morning, we respect each other times, and those that we are sending mails to. 

Check your spelling and grammar – spelling and grammar gremlins happen, however many of them could have been avoided with a quick ‘once over’ before the mail was sent. In the last week I received two e-mails from totally different people, who have fairly senior positions in their respective organisations. The emails were riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes. This definitely dented my perception of them. Respect the person that you are sending an email to by re-reading it before sending it; the recipient may not necessarily have the time or inclination to unscramble your incoherent sentence structure. 

Length – steer away from very lengthy e-mails. There will be times that you may need to write longer e-mails, especially when confirming details and the e-mail will be used to keep an audit trail of a conversation or project. However, more often than not, the content of an email can be reduced significantly. When an e-mail is too long, it takes time to read through it and to respond to it, which then causes other emails to heap up and before you know it you have a cluttered Inbox.  Cut to the chase, let the recipient know exactly what you need from them and by when, this will also help them to prioritise accordingly.

Subject lines – it really helps if you can provide as much detail of what the email is about in the subject line. This will also allow the recipient of the mail to know whether it is urgent and requires a response immediately or if reading it can wait until later in the day. We’ve started implementing [eom] and [nntr] in our subject lines for internal mails. We try as far as possible to reduce our emails to a couple of words in the subject line; eom denotes that it is the ‘end of message’, then the other person knows that they don’t need to open the email. Ending with [nntr] means that there is ‘no need to respond.’ Very often we feel compelled to respond to every single mail, which also clogs up Inbox space.

CC carefully – sometimes we feel it necessary to copy numerous people into a mail for various reasons. If you are copying someone in for their reference, or to be aware what’s going on, let them know; if you’re going to CC 20 people into a mail, and each one of them want to reply or acknowledge your mail then you’re going to have a pretty full Inbox. Also there is the problem that crops up when people accidentally hit the ‘reply all’ button, then all and sundry will get see all the replies. Again this overloads your Inbox unnecessarily. 

Add the recipients last and make sure that it is addressed to the correct people. Few things are as cringe-worthy as accidentally sending an e-mail to the wrong recipient and knowing that there is just no way of retrieving it. By adding the recipients last you have a chance to go over the content of the mail, grammar and spelling one last time before hitting the send button.

Turn your emails around quickly - our American ECCO partner prides themselves in a three-hour turnaround time on e-mails. Realistically, I think 24 hours is good, and this is what we aim for. Reading through the email etiquette literature, it says that you should reply to all emails that you have been sent. Even if you are only copied in it, or if the email was not intended for you, you should reply and indicate that the mail was sent to you in error. Also, know when to draw the line to replying; acknowledge the mail but avoid then a to and fro of “great” and “thank you” mails. The important part is to reply to emails. Instead of checking mail throughout the day, what I’ve found works quite well is to allocate specific timeslots to checking email. This increases your productivity for getting down to doing actual work and avoiding distractions.

Make it easy for people to find your contact details – especially if the thread of the mail is getting quite long, it’s incredibly frustrating to trawl through the whole mail to try and track down a contact number.

Tips for e-mail etiquette:

• Avoid sending emails after 19:00 or before 07:00;
• Check your grammar and spelling before sending an e-mail;
• Avoid lengthy e-mails, get to the crux of your message quickly and let the recipient know what you require them to do by when;
• Creatively use subject lines to save time;
• Carefully consider who needs to be CC’d into an email and make sure that you are sending the mail to the right person;
• Acknowledge all the e-mails that you receive;
• Make it easy for people to find your contact details.

To continue the reputation management conversation, join Regine on Twitter @ReputationIsKey or Facebook www.facebook.com/yourreputationmatters.

Do you have a reputation management question? Ask the specialist – send your question through to Regine and it may be answered in the next edition: regine@reputationmatters.co.za.

http://www.businessinsider.com/email-etiquette-rules-every-professional-needs-to-know-2016-1

http://emailcharter.org/

A couple of tips when it comes to networking

Here's a link to my latest contribution on Standard Bank's BizConnect; this month I focused on networking. Click here to read the article.

What do you do or avoid during networking sessions?