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and thought before sending. Your professionalism is judged by how you present yourself and an e-mail is a document that can linger for a long time. As an expert witness, I can review hundreds of e-mails for a single case. It is often an informal e-mail to a board member or homeowner that ends up being a key piece of evidence. Solution: Develop a clear e-mail protocol that defines how to construct communications, and share that with your clients, staff or co-workers. Think carefully about who you include in the distribution of an e-mail message and create your content accordingly. If you are using e-mail to schedule meetings with multiple participants, look for other tools like Doodle (www.doodle.com) to avoid circular e-mails, and share reports using Dropbox (www.dropbox.com). Practice: Make sure you review your e-mail carefully before sending. Begin reducing the number of e-mails you send by using online tools for scheduling meetings or distributing reports. In addition, depending upon which state you reside in, there may be legal requirements for the board of directors to conduct meetings that are open to the members. Generally, the intent of these requirements is to allow homeowners to hear the board’s discussion, not just their decisions. The board should therefore refrain from debate and discussion via e-mail. Use conference calls, or “open” work sessions if additional debate outside of the official meeting is necessary.

tone and 7 percent is content. When you are attempting to communicate anything other than factual information, you have a 93 percent chance there will be a misunderstanding if you cannot see the facial expressions or hear the voice of the other person. While you may find it easier to express yourself on e-mail, rather than face-toface, you are more likely to experience negative results. Solution: Develop clear guidelines for the use of “internal” e-mail. Encourage regular face-to-face communication and train supervisors in the appropriate ways to provide feedback to team members. Practice: Make it a habit not to use e-mail to evaluate or criticize the actions of another. Conversely, if you receive an e-mail and you perceive that the sender is upset, pick up the phone or make an appointment to talk face-

to-face. Always make time for developing your professional relationships, which will help you in the event of a future misunderstanding.

Personal E-mail Habits
It has always been my philosophy that if I have wanted a situation to change, I first needed to look at my own behavior. This also was my approach in dealing with e-mail. The first step is to look at how you use e-mail throughout the day. E-mail is perfect example of “you reap what you sow.” In other words, if you send a lot of e-mail you will receive a lot of e-mail. Begin to evaluate your efficiency by the total amount of time it takes to accomplish a task. While it may appear that e-mail is the most efficient method, if you have a lengthy e-mail exchange, or there is a miscommunication, perhaps a phone call would be better, and ultimately more efficient. Only use e-mail when it is the best

Ask the professional

BERNIE GITLIN
Over 30 years experience insuring your needs

781-449-4440
FAX 781-449-9616 bgitlin@globins.com

Information, Not Relationships
In our embrace of e-mail technology, one of our greatest errors is that we began to use e-mail to replace the conversation. While information can be exchanged via e-mail, the other important contents of a conversation cannot. Research shows that 55 percent of a communication is visual, 38 percent is

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CONDO MEDIA • NOVEMBER 2011

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Condo Media - November 2011

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