You will be able to decide whether a message should be an email, a chat, a call or a meeting.
The thread started with a simple question about the delivery schedule for a client in Jurong. Twenty-three messages later, four people have given four slightly different answers, someone has replied to the wrong message, and the original question still hasn't been settled. A five-minute call at message three would have done it.
Most of us default to whatever channel we're already in. If the last message came by chat, we reply by chat, and the channel ends up choosing itself. A better habit is to choose the channel deliberately, based on what the message needs to do.
Writing is good at three things. It records decisions so people can find them later. It lets people respond in their own time, which matters when they're in different meetings or time zones. And it gives the reader a chance to think before answering, which helps with anything involving numbers or details.
Talking, whether on a call, a video meeting or face to face, is good at different things. It carries tone, so nuance and feeling get through. It's fast for back and forth, so a problem with many moving parts gets solved in minutes. And it handles disagreement better, because people soften quickly when they can hear each other.
A rough guide follows from that:
Email: decisions, approvals, anything formal, anything with attachments, and anything people outside the team need to see. Chat: quick questions with short answers, coordination during the day, and updates the team needs right now. A call: anything with nuance, a disagreement, a problem with many moving parts, or brainstorming. A meeting: when several people need to discuss and decide together. Module 6 covers running one.
The guide bends. A quick question to a colleague in Manila may be better as a chat than a call because of the time difference. What matters is that you make the choice on purpose.
Here is a simple trigger: if a chat thread has gone back and forth three times without getting closer to an answer, stop typing and suggest a short call.
You can recognise these threads easily. Each reply raises a new question. People start quoting earlier messages to correct them. Someone writes "what I meant was". The tone gets shorter with each round.
The switch is easy to make. "This might be quicker to talk through. Do you have five minutes now, or at 3pm?" Most people are relieved. If they're in a meeting or in another country, propose a time rather than leaving it open.
Some messages should never arrive only in writing. Bad news, criticism of someone's work, a decision that affects someone personally, and anything you're angry about should go by voice first, followed by a written summary.
The reason is the one from lesson 2.3, Why your message sounded ruder than you meant. Text strips out tone, and these are exactly the messages where tone matters most. A written criticism gets read and reread, often late at night, and each reading makes it harsher. The same point said on a call, with a tone that shows you're on their side, is far easier to hear.
Imagine a nurse manager at a public hospital who needs to tell a staff nurse that she has been moved off the night shift she asked for. A WhatsApp message saying "Your request was not approved due to staffing needs" is accurate, and it will feel cold. A two-minute conversation at the start of the shift, explaining why and what might be possible next month, followed by a short written confirmation, lands very differently.
Anger is the other case. If a message makes you angry, don't reply in writing until you've cooled down. If you do need to reply quickly, keep it to facts and a time to talk.
Talk has one big weakness: it leaves no record. Two people come off the same call with different memories of what was agreed, and a week later nobody can prove which is right.
So after any call that decided something, send a short written recap, by email or chat, within the hour if you can. Two lines are usually enough.
"Thanks for the call, Darren. To confirm: we'll move the Jurong delivery to Thursday 10am, and you'll tell the client by today 5pm. I'll update the dispatch schedule."
The recap does three things. It catches misunderstandings while they're cheap to fix, because if Darren remembers it differently he'll say so now. It gives anyone who wasn't on the call the outcome. And it creates the record that writing is good at, so a decision made by voice can still be found later.
The person who writes the recap also gets to frame it, which is a small advantage worth taking.
Most people find they use one channel for nearly everything: chat for the person who lives on chat, email for the person who lives in Outlook. The habit isn't wrong so much as unexamined. The activity below asks you to look back over your recent conversations and see where your default helped and where a different channel would have saved time or feelings.
List your last ten work conversations, mark the channel you used for each, and note which would have suited a different channel.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).