In my quest to model good reading behavior, I often check out books to peruse while my kids read. Recently I picked up Send: Why People Email so Badly and How to Do It Better. I admit I was wondering what a book could teach me about e-mail, but it turned out to be very useful. For starters, I can articulate what bothers me about a poorly crafted e-mail.
This book lays out things that many of us learned through mistakes. For instance, while it is ok to mention details of your recent rubber-ducky induced plumbing disaster to your close colleague, if that same information is forwarded to your Dean, it feels embarrassing.
The book also provides clear guidance on some trickier things – like when to ‘BCC’ someone and why to ‘CC’ someone rather than including him/her in the ‘To’ box. (Hint: if you don’t need a reply, the CC box is appropriate.)
It also includes some nice tips for getting what you want out of e-mails, especially how to break up long e-mails and provide the reader with clear action steps for responding. (Hint: Include bulleted action steps early with a date for response.) This information is critical in an age when we often ask people for favors online and need a prompt response to keep a grant or publication moving forward.
Other tips I found helpful was clear subject lines with keywords to allow for later searching, as well as updating the subject line when the conversation switches to a new topic. We have all had the experience of trying to find an e-mail months later, and these simple steps can retrieve items quickly using the search function.
As someone who thinks a well-crafted e-mail could be used to save an hour-long meeting, this book is a must read for a more productive day and a functional outbox. The book has short chapters and several nice tables to break up the text and summarize key points. By the end, you’ll be primed to update subject headings frequently and craft tightly-worded, functional e-mails that will be safe when forwarded along to the rest of the universe.
Guilmartin suggests that we get “curious, not furious,” leading to a culture of learning, resolution and improvement instead of the negative withdrawal, polarization and paralysis we often experience at work when people become angry.
My favorite book so far is Hardwiring Excellence. Look past the boring cover and the outdated title. (Do we even use wires anymore?) Inside is some great, easy-to-use advice. It uses stories and examples to make the point, and the fairly short chapters mean you can take it in small chunks. I won’t spoil the book for you, but it gives you concrete steps for forming and growing positive relationships with members of your team or area of interest. These are simple to implement steps that you can use right now without purchasing a thing or getting another app on your phone.
In this business classic, authors Teresa Amabile, Baker Foundation Professor at Harvard Business School, and Stephen Kramer, a developmental psychologist and author of several Harvard Business Review articles, build their system on the principle that “[b]ecause they spend so much of their lives working, people deserve the dignity of having positive lives at work.” Their findings, drawn from thousands of daily work diaries at companies of various sizes and industries, indicate that daily progress does more than anything else to influence “inner work life.” (Don’t scoff at the emphasis on feelings. The authors explain in footnoted detail exactly why, on a neurobiological level, emotions are vital to good decision-making.)
So you’re not a dancer. You’re not a musician. You’re not an artist or a poet. Why read this book? Because you have ideas: ideas for new population studies, new treatments for disease, and new ways to look at data. And this book will give you the habits that beget more good ideas and allow you to take advantage of them when they show up. For creativity, as choreographer and author Twyla Tharp stresses, is not an inborn characteristic nor merely the odd bolt of inspiration; it is a collection of patterns and practices that allow anyone to create—as long as they’re willing to put in the work.
For fifteen years prior to this book’s publication, author Roger Martin studied successful leaders, interviewing more than fifty of them for up to eight hours at a time, trying to find a pattern to their success. The pattern he discovered was what he calls “integrative thinking.” Such thinkers have the predisposition and capacity to hold two diametrically opposing ideas in their heads. And then, without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other, they’re able to produce a synthesis that is superior to either opposing idea.
Did you know that speakers who frequently pause for short periods are more persuasive than those who don’t? Or that not lingering on a date that’s going well can make a new relationship stronger? What about the fact that taking some time before apologizing causes the wronged person to view the apology as more sincere
