When I was a ham radio operator, I could communicate with far away hobbyists using either Voice transmission or Morse Code. You’d think Voice would be the faster means of conversation; after all, the spoken word is faster than the dots and dashes of even the fastest telegraph operator. And yet both modes had their charm – and both took about the same time, because with Morse, we’d use abbreviations and keep the conversation focused and terse in a way not necessary with the luxury of voice. Thus, the question of which mode is faster was far from settled…
The same situation exists when we compare Voice telephony and Email. This was made clear to me during a lecture on Information Overload that I gave this week. I was discussing the interesting experiments done with “No Email Day” in various companies – encouraging people to use face to face or telephony instead of email during the chosen weekday. One attendee raised her hand and asked whether this would not add to the overload, because people would engage in lengthy conversations instead of brief emails. Her thought was of shooting off a short email and forgetting it, whereas a conversation might drag on much longer.
This struck me as interesting, because I often teach the opposite lesson – that a short phone call can often resolve an issue that could degenerate into an endless ping-pong of emails; that is, voice can be faster, not slower. The scenario here is that people engage in a lengthy exchange of emails until someone picks up the phone, and puts an end to whatever is causing the thread to continue. Direct synchronous conversation, with its much richer spectrum of nuances, can remove ambiguity, clear away misunderstandings, and force people to get down to making a decision on the spot.
So – which is faster? Obviously, it varies – depending on the context and on people’s habits. Perhaps the bottom line is that what matters is not the medium, but the people – those who are focused and effective will know how to apply any medium for rapid achievement of the desired results at work.
Outside work, by contrast, I definitely recommend conversation, preferably over a good cup of coffee…
Hi Nathan,
catching up with your old blog posts, and this topic is a pet peeve of mine, so I just *had* to leave a quick comment, even if the post is “old” 🙂
Sometimes voice is faster, sometimes email is faster – as you say, it varies.
However, what does *not* vary is the fact that the phone is more INTRUSIVE than email – with email *I* decide when I have time to respond, but with voice *you* decide (unless I’m able to shut off the phone – in that case I’m not disturbed, but your message is also lost).
For “serious” knowledge workers (who needs extended periods of concentration), email should be the option of choice, and you can then decide if you need to continue the conversation using voice, a meeting or more emails.
Having a “No Email Day” is terrible for people who needs to be “in the flow” to get work done (but a “No meetings day” is much better 🙂 ).
(and as a bonus comment to an even earlier blog post; I agree 100% that *all* knowledge workers should learn to touch-type 🙂 )
Good analysis, Atle… but then, for people who need to be in the flow, there is the complementary practice of “Quiet Time”, where neither phone nor email are accepted. I guess it varies, person to person and time to time, and the answer is no doubt a balanced mix of the various approaches.