Why conversations are better than messages

Too many bad situations this year could have been avoided with a real conversation. So I recently started talking to my teams about where messages fall short and why conversations are so helpful.

Messages are typically seen in e-mail, Slack and voicemail. Conversations are typically seen in person, Zoom/Skype and on the phone. But why is this a big deal? We‘re all busy and surely at least getting the message across is better than waiting forever for a conversation?

Actually no. That’s the ironic problem with a message. You don’t actually know if you’ve gotten it across.

We‘re indeed all busy and so just because you’ve typed out some words doesn’t mean someone has read it. It certainly doesn’t mean the right person has read it, and the most painful truth is even if they did read it, you don’t know if they understood it.

Without understanding there is no agreement or alignment. Without agreement or alignment there is no commitment or follow through. Without commitment or follow through there is no real progress. Without real progress you have problems and with problems eventually come difficult conversations.

So rather start with the conversation! Then use messages where they make most sense. Like sending a message saying XYZ is done :)

So when in doubt, talk don’t type.