Throughout my professional years, I have found myself in working situations where the majority of the people that I interact with are not in the same office as me. I imagine several of you have experienced a work relationship like this as well. Satellite environments have made me a huge proponent of closed loop communication.
Steve Adubato describes the impact of this tool in an article entitled Great Communicators Close The Loop. Proactively closing the conversation eliminates confusion as to what the next steps are for each party. While I know some people hate to receive “Thank you.” emails, I am not one of those. Those simple emails say so much. I read those two words as, “I received the document that you have provided, and it fulfills my needs perfectly. I will contact you back should I need anything further.”
When I receive no communication back, I am left in a state of confusion. Did my file go through? Are they too busy to respond? Is that all they needed?
Sometimes I imagine how this interaction would play out in person:
Christine: “Hi John. Here is the file you requested. Please let me know if you need anything further.”
John: (Grabs paper and walks away without responding)
Not an entirely beneficial exchange, but I know we all witness these types of passive conversations daily via email.
Steve also describes the importance of proactive communication. Don’t always force people to remind you that they are waiting on a deliverable. Bringing the topic up, explaining your work to date, and acknowledging a completion date all provide confirmation that you are hard at work on their task. People like to feel that their work is important to you, and these simple behaviors will reinforce that feeling.
Am I the only one that saves “Thank you.” emails as a sign of confirmed receipt? Do you all find yourselves frequently in email limbo, wondering if your document was received or if anything further is required of you?
Christine,
Do you find the response rate to your communications to differ based on the age/generation of the other party?
As young professionals, we are much more connected via communication vehicles than any previous generation. We’re accustom to instant communication via text messages, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
I agree with you, when you send off an email or instant message and there is a lack of a timely response from coworkers, it is worrisome because it is counter to all of our other daily communications.
Andrew –
The response rates run the entire range of all demographics.
I’m not sure where the lack of response initiates. I know we are all extremely busy, but a task on my plate is not completed until the receiver deems it satisfactory. Until I have acknowledgement of that, it still looms.
I completely agree with you. Our standards are set a little higher since we have access to modes of communication that provide instantaneous results. However, we are the future executives of the professional world, so maybe we can implement a new standard moving forward?
I love this point Christine! I completely agree with the need to close the communication loop although I know that I’m guilty of not doing this myself sometimes. I really enjoyed reading Steve Adubato’s article.
It reminded me of another interesting article encouraging us not to use our inboxes as to do lists. When I’m guilty of not closing the loop, it is often because I’m leaving an email thread as ‘unread’ in my inbox so that I remember to do something related to that information. What I *should* be doing is responding to say “I’ve got this info and I’ll update you when I’ve done ‘x.'”
Another aspect of the article that resonated with me is the frustration of sometimes feeling like you have to push your team members or direct reports to close the loop on things themselves. Sometimes I wonder if by proactively following up with them, I’m training them to not proactively follow up with me. I’m not sure if that’s a real thing or not, but I’ve been trying to end weekly meetings with my direct reports with specific directions along the lines of ‘please let me know when you’ve accomplished ‘x’ so that we can do ‘y.'” I think it’s helping?
Christine, I feel as though I am somewhere in between on this matter. Sometimes I send a “Thank You”, sometimes no response at all. I find that I tend to send a “Thank You” when a matter is fairly important so that I make sure to close the loop. I’d say I am about 50/50 on whether I prefer a “Thank You” back or not.
Thank you for this. Always close the feedback loop.
I work in a company where everyone telecommutes 100% (and it’s not sales) so managing projects can be tricky if you don’t have constant communication. If I send a particularly important email where I can’t be the one to drop the ball by letting the other forget, I’ll even send an IM (yes, we use it) to confirm receipt or simply say “I’m sending you X and I’m hoping for it to be completed by the end of the day tomorrow.”
Additionally, on a really hectic workday when I see some emails have piled up in my inbox, I go through each and every message and make sure I see a little left-facing purple arrow that reminds me that I sent a response to that email.
I think this is a huge problem for a lot of businesses. In my industry, we are constantly on deadline — so a lot of the time the information we get in emails has an immediate impact. For instance, let’s say I get some guidance on how to spell a guest’s name. If I am in a rush and don’t see that email —
If I don’t see that email — that To me, sending a “thank you” or some kind acknowledgement should just be common courtesy. Plus, it avoids But it also eliminates the stress of wondering whether someone received the information — or
I think this is a huge problem for a lot of businesses. I know in Outlook you can ask to send “read” receipts when an email is opened, but that doesn’t guarantee a person has actually seen it.
For instance, we are constantly on deadline at CNN — and we are often use “toplines” (think instant message) or email to communicate critical information. So let’s say my producer sends out guidance on how to spell a guest’s name. If I acknowledge the email, that means I’ve seen the correct spelling and made the appropriate changes. Also, my producer doesn’t have to check behind me to make sure I’ve fixed the guest’s name. Taking 5-10 seconds to reply to an email saves both me and my producer a lot of time and worry about errors making it on-air. And quite frankly, it’s just courteous.
It’s just never a good idea to assume someone received an important email. Because we all know what happens when we assume…
Thanks for bringing this up, Christine. I never really thought about the importance of “closing the loop.” I think it has a greater impact on the individuals that you have very little communication with or are in the early stages of building that business relationship.
However, as a contract negotiator, I have noticed that it is almost essential to close the loop with your external customers (no matter the level of relationship). As you mentioned, a simple “thank you” can help close that loop and let them know that you received their correspondence and will be working on their issue in due time.
Hey Christine, great topic and question. I land somewhere in the middle on the “Thank you” form of closing the loop…
While I think confirmation and status updates are important, for me a simple “Thank you” email usually quickly ends up in the trash folder. In my work, I’m sending out many mass communication emails (50-250 recipients) to our field and more often than not a thank you email is “replied to all” and really confirms nothing other than the individual was at their desk on email when I sent out an announcement. In those cases and many others, it’s easy to get swamped with emails that have very little value. Additionally, I find we end up using email as a “cheap” form of communication rather than engaging in substantive dialogue.
On the other hand, receiving an email like you and Matt and a few others described which reads “Thanks, I’ll review and let you know of any revisions by EOD” or “Got it, great work – the client should be pleased with your analysis” provides much more value and direction. If you can close the loop by providing a timeline or constructive feedback, I’ve found it much more helpful and much less likely to end up in my trash folder.
One practice that has helped me in the past is writing in the email (either in the email subject or body) what kind of feedback or confirmation I’m looking for. For instance, in a general announcement I may write “no reply necessary” at the end of the email. Or where I do need confirmation or follow-up, write “response needed by EOD” or “confirmation requested” in the subject line so the recipient knows what I need and how best to respond. This can also cut down on the “reply all” emails that we love so much.
Thanks for bringing up this topic Christine!