Electronic communication is tricky, to say the least!

A number of my text messages have been “read wrong” by the recipient, due to punctuation, or lack thereof, and emojis (believe it or not). It is definitely my recommendation that for personal or sensitive topics, make a phone call or have a face-to-face conversation!

“It’s not about WHAT you say, but HOW you say it”.

For people that know me, I tend to go above and beyond to be nice, typically throwing an “LOL” or a smile face emoji when texting, to ensure that the reader will understand good intent. There are those times when I am busy and unable to make sure that my tone is positive, and might end my message with only a period symbol (which is not like me). At times this has been read wrong as if I have an attitude or tone in my voice, which sets off the reader’s response to be the same. It creates a miscommunication and wastes time on conversation explaining that there was never any ill-intent to begin with.

For example- Same response, different punctuation: Someone sends me a text asking how I’m doing, I can reply with “I’m good 😊”, or “I’m good.”. The latter seems to be short and not willing to keep the conversation going. The first response shows positive energy and happiness to respond to the question. Both set the tone for the reader’s response (or ghosting).

I can’t blame someone for responding to my text message based off of the way I punctuate or don’t punctuate my message. However, if it is someone I am close with, I’d expect them to understand that I won’t always respond cheerfully, and if they feel like I have an attitude, that they should call me so we can figure it out before it becomes a larger issue.

All in all, I try my best to send my messages to accurately reflect my feelings/tone/mood. Professionally speaking, I always try to have a positive tone and make sure to end my message with a “Thank you!”. If I am unable to do so, I will definitely give the reader a call to settle any misunderstanding!

I ran my most recent WordPress blog, Communication Skills of a Person With a High EQ, through the Text Readability Consensus Calculator (link to my results is here – https://readabilityformulas.com/freetests/six-readability-formulas.php).

My results are as follows; Grade Level is 10, Reading Level is “fairly difficult to read”, and Reader’s Age is 14-15 years old (9th-10th graders).

Per the FOG Index Calculator, “The ideal score for readability with the Fog index is 7 or 8. Anything above 12 is too hard for most people to read”. My results were on the higher side at a 10. According to the book I am studying for Business Communications, it is recommended that sentences be under 20 words, and paragraphs between 40-80 words. My first full paragraph I have 10 sentences which consisted of well over 80 words.

Another factor that the FOG Index doesn’t take into account is the use of multi syllabic words, which I use in my text. One of the flaws in this system is “it discounts that not all multi-syllabic words are difficult”.

I could improve my post by using less words per sentence and also breaking up my paragraphs.

I do agree with the concept of the FOG Index, but it is not perfect. I also believe that the ‘difficulty’ of reading/writing should reflect the target audience and concept of the writing. I am personally going to be more aware of the fact the being short, sweet and to the point is almost always best for writing emails and blogs!

This movie I chose as an example is “The Other Guys”.

These two detectives are at their office and share a work space. Mark Wahlberg’s character is clearly annoyed at Will Farrell’s characters humming. Wahlberg demeans Farrell in multiple ways by insulting his character, his job responsibilities and calling him names. Wahlberg then walks away and quickly storms back to advise Farrell that he wanted to talk behind his back, but chose not too (not sure if he was trying to apologize in a rude way because of his guilty conscience, or because he was just so upset he wanted to continue giving Farrell a hard time). Farrell remained calm until the second time Wahlberg started the argument; Farrell then gave Wahlberg a taste of his own medicine and basically shut Wahlberg up.

Wahlberg did NOT display effective principles for communicating at all. He displayed a judgmental stance the entire time. He was frustrated and lashed out at Farrell from the beginning. He could have asked him nicely if he could stop humming, and maybe explained that it was distracting (although he was only playing Solitaire). Wahlberg called Farrell a “moron” and blatantly told him that he didn’t like him. He didn’t respect personal space because he was extremely close to Farrell, egging him on to get a reaction. He threatened him and made analogies describing that if they were in the wild he would attack Farrell.

Farrell on the other hand was completely opposite. He was very calm and respectful (up until the end). He took most of what Farrell dished out and was in control of his emotions (very self aware).

One strategy that Wahlberg could have used would be to initiate the conversation in an effect way (as stated earlier). Although, Farrell was willing and did in fact stop humming, that wasn’t enough for Wahlberg as he was already annoyed. Wahlberg could learn to practice self awareness.

Another strategy he could have used would have been to avoid exaggeration. Once he started to exaggerate and create stories is the point where Farrell couldn’t keep his composure any longer. All in all, I believe Wahlberg hit every negative aspect/behavior of difficult conversations, aside from physical assault. His character would benefit from taking a professional communication or organizational behavior class!

EQ = Emotional Intelligence

Four Main Factors of EQ: Self-management, empathy, relationship management and self-awareness.

My current boss has high emotional intelligence. I will use the name “Mary” for anonymity. Mary demonstrates empathy on a daily basis. She is patient, understanding, listens and helps her employees whenever they need it. Mary is the assistant director for the entire hospital and is in charge of many employees, is on-call basically seven-days a week and constantly has meetings. I have never once witnessed her “losing it”, or not allowing time for one of her employees or any patients. She can sense when someone else is stressed out and always offers to help with a solution. She is also interested in helping her employees (such as myself), learn and train as much as possible to be able to add to our resumes and move-up within the organization. Mary also demonstrates relationship-management on a daily basis. She knows how to communicate well with her peers and is able to use a flexible approach depending on their communication style. She is able to reflect on each individual to ensure the best work environment possible.

One example of a challenging interpersonal situation that Mary had to deal with was when two other employees sharing an office next to hers, started arguing. The argument was built up tension between the two which I believe is because they have extremely different communication styles. These two do the same job and need to work together on projects. The argument was because Employee One had asked for help, figured out how to solve the problem on her own, and then advised Employee Two to “forget it”. Employee Two did not like the “forget it” response and took it as being disrespectful due to their past history of not getting along. Employee Two then responded with a passive-aggressive come-back and it went back and forth from there. The two continued to get louder and louder until Employee One walked away from her desk.

Mary was advised of the situation and immediately stepped in to help resolve the issue as much as possible. She spoke with both employees individually and understands that Employee Two is a very “nervous” person. She gets defensive very quickly and works better on her own and not in a group. In the past, before Employee One started working, she was in the office by herself. With that being said, it was agreed that Employee One would move for now to a separate office space. Mary spoke with their direct boss in the department and they are going to continue to work with each other and have weekly meetings with their direct supervisor to help with communication.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/27/us/victims-helicopter-crash-kobe-bryant/index.html

Reading all of the articles, watching the news and scrolling through social media yesterday and this morning has been rough. As most of the country and even the world knows, Kobe Bryant and eight others were killed in a helicopter accident yesterday, Sunday January 26th, 2020. What makes it even more difficult for me and many people who do not personally any of the victims, is imagining the immense suffering, pain and sadness felt by their families because not only did adults lose their lives, but multiple children who did not get the chance to live fully. As a mother of a fifteen and soon-to-be thirteen year-old, I was brought to tears. The article above is the most recent one posted just this morning by Christina Maxouris and Artemis Moshtaghian for CNN.

The purpose of today’s blog is for me to analyze the article according to the FAIR structure: Facts, Access, Impacts and Respect.

Facts: The communication is indeed factual, the victims identified have been confirmed by their family members. Some information is purposely left out of the article because all of the facts are not available at this time, such as why the helicopter went down. There were multiple articles/news videos posted yesterday before all of the facts were available and it was extremely strenuous for the public and I am sure for the victim’s families even more so. Some articles posted that there were five victims on the plane (even though there nine), that all four of Kobe Bryant’s daughters were on the helicopter (just the eldest daughter was present, Gianna, 13), and even stated other celebrities were aboard which was false. So it was expected to finally read a factually piece of content in regards to such a terrible tragedy.

Access: Motives are clear within this article and the source of the information has been identified. I am sure that there will multiple follow-up articles to this one as more information becomes available.

Impacts: Reading anything of this caliber of information and tragedy will always be difficult for most people. I believe the authors of this article wrote thoughtfully and also made sure to recognize the other victims who were not as well know as Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna. All in all, this article was very touching and carefully written as not to offend anyone.

Respect: As noted under the “Impacts” section, the authors made sure to separate each of the victims according to how much confirmed information they had available. They did not only focus on the celebrity (Kobe Bryant). This shows respect for all of the other families who are also grieving and affected by this tragedy.

Headline of the article: “Young athletes, a baseball coach and mothers. What we know about the others on board the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant”. This headline is a good attention statement because readers will know exactly what information this article is pertaining to.

The article concludes with a sense of closure as far as knowing exactly who all of the victims were, but I do not believe a full closure is available until there is more information available after the crash is completely investigated. The article left off with a quote from Kobe Bryant to Lebron James on Twitter congratulating him for passing his record for third-highest scorer in NBA history. I think that was tasteful, positive and relevant to the topic.

The main points are presented in sections per victim/family. There are quoted confirmations from family members of each victim to support the information.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.