How can you use email to handle difficult conversations with coworkers?

1 Know when to use email

Email is not always the best medium for difficult conversations. Some situations may require a phone call, a video chat, or a face-to-face meeting to convey your tone, emotions, and intentions more clearly. Email can be useful when you need to document your communication, share information or resources, or follow up on a previous discussion. However, email can also be misinterpreted, ignored, or delayed, which can worsen the situation. Before you send an email, ask yourself: Is this urgent? Is this sensitive? Is this complex? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, you may want to consider another mode of communication.

3 Use a respectful tone

When communicating via email, one of the biggest challenges is conveying your tone. Without the cues of voice, facial expression, and body language, it can be difficult to ensure that your message is interpreted correctly. To avoid this, use a respectful tone that shows empathy, appreciation, and professionalism. This can be achieved by using polite and appropriate greetings and closings, addressing your coworker by their preferred name and title, using positive and constructive language, avoiding sarcasm or criticism that may be offensive or hurtful, expressing your feelings and opinions with "I" statements instead of "you" statements, acknowledging your coworker's perspective and feelings, apologizing if you made a mistake or caused harm, and thanking them for their cooperation and feedback.

4 Be clear and concise

To ensure clarity and conciseness in email communication, it is important to use a descriptive and specific subject line, short and simple sentences and paragraphs, and bullet points or numbered lists to organize your points. Additionally, transition words and phrases can help to connect your ideas while bold, italic, and underline can be used to highlight key words or phrases. Furthermore, correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation should be used as well as a clear and direct call to action. Lastly, any relevant documents or resources should be attached or linked.

5 Review and revise your email

Before you hit send, it is important to review and revise your email carefully. Read your email aloud or use a text-to-speech tool to check for tone, clarity, and conciseness. Consider how the recipient of your email might react to it and ask yourself if it is respectful, clear, relevant, accurate, timely, and responsive. If you are not sure about your email, it can be helpful to get feedback from a trusted colleague or friend. Moreover, if you are feeling angry, anxious, or frustrated, it may be best to wait before sending the email in order to avoid sending something you may regret later.

6 Follow up and follow through

After sending your email, don't forget to follow up and follow through. Depending on the situation, you may want to confirm that your coworker received and understood your email, ask for their response or feedback, schedule a video chat or meeting to discuss further, update them on the progress or outcome of the issue, thank them for their collaboration and support, apologize or make amends if necessary, and resolve any remaining conflicts or concerns. Doing so can help build trust, rapport, and respect with your coworker and also prevent or resolve any misunderstandings or mistakes that can arise from email communication.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?