Message Not Received: Why Business Communication Is Broken and How to Fix It

PART IIDIDN’T YOU GET THAT MEMO?Why We Don’t Communicate Good at Work

The lines between work and leisure have been blurring for years. As Justine Sacco learned the hard way, in many instances they have already been obliterated. Technology is no doubt culpable for a great deal of this erosion, but make no mistake: It’s a convenient scapegoat. As mentioned in Chapter 2, no one compels us to live in our inboxes.

What if we used new, truly collaborative applications to work smarter, not just harder? What if we drew lines and actually enforced them? What if e-mail wasn’t the default mode of business communication? And what if we spoke simpler and without jargon?

Let these questions serve as the starting point for Part II. The next few chapters examine what we say at work, how we say it, and the effects of poor business communication:

• Chapter 3: What We Say: Examining Words at Work
• Chapter 4: How We Say It: E-Mail Is Dead. Long Live E-Mail!
• Chapter 5: Why Bad Communication Is Bad Business: The Uni- ntended Consequences of Mixed and Missed Messages