Just Pick Up the Phone
Why so many messy situations could be avoided if we simply called instead of texted
A Weekend Getaway Disaster
My wife and I recently booked a weekend getaway with two other families. We rented a big home with a pool, and were looking forward to a great few days of vacation, when suddenly one of the families let us know we couldn’t make it.
We reached out to another family and invited them (and tried to make it sound like they were part of the initial invite). They told us that not only would they love to join, but they had a sibling with a large home and pool (that they usually exclusively rent out) we could probably stay at for free!
Oh man.
We had already paid for the rental home, and we couldn’t get it refunded (we checked).
As my wife and I sat there trying to craft the perfect text, I thought through a litany of business situations where I have had similar problems of trying to find the right way to communicate some bad news: Looping in an executive late. Missing a key date and needing to explain why. Needing to tell someone they’re falling behind on a project. The list goes on.
Early in my career I would have agonized over the perfect email, instant message (IM), or text. But I’ve since learned through experience it is always a million times better to just talk with them.
I suddenly told my wife “Let’s just give them a call.”
So we did. And guess what? It all worked out great. They were very understanding, excited for the home, and we started making plans for where we wanted to hike. Even the best-written text wouldn’t have had that outcome.
What’s funny in retrospect is that our first instinct usually isn’t to simply “pick up the phone”. We have become a culture obsessed with asynchronous and (fairly) non-personal communication (e.g texting or email). It’s almost as if we’re afraid to call. But we shouldn’t be.
The Best Crafted Email
Early in my career, when I worked at an advertising agency, we had a client whose performance was slipping. I had done all sorts of analysis, had a fancy report, and had drafted up (what I thought) was the best email I had ever written.
I proudly sent it to my boss to review before it was sent to the client. An hour later he called me into his office to discuss the slipping performance, looked at the report I’d sent, and then said:
“We’re not going to send this to the client. Let’s just give them a call.”
Once we got on the phone with the client, my boss simply explained the slipping performance, some things we were working on, and then had a brief discussion in which he/the client discussed some helpful solutions.
After that brief call I was baffled.
What about all of my analysis? That perfectly crafted email? All that time lost!
The lesson learned here was that the client didn’t need any of that. We were just one piece of a larger marketing puzzle, which was part of the company, and my boss just needed solutions, not an analysis and a fancy report. A call sufficed.
Jobs Theory
There is a business theory called Jobs Theory (popularized by former Harvard professor Clayton Christensen) that explains we “hire” products and services to do a specific job for us. For example, if I’m needing to plant a tree, I go to Home Depot to “hire” a shovel to dig the hole. I’m not buying the shovel, I’m “hiring” a solution.
While this sounds trivial, if I’m a shovel maker I should focus on the job customers are hiring my product to do – namely dig holes. If it doesn’t do that job really, really well then customers will find other solutions.
The same goes in business. We are hired to do certain jobs. It doesn’t matter how fancy of a job we do at it, or how helpful we are with other people’s jobs, at the end of the day we need to do our job.
Oftentimes our job can simply be done better with in-person interactions (ex: a phone call or a quick face-to-face meeting). There’s a shared empathy, brainstorming, solution-finding, and action that comes with meeting someone face to face..
Essentially remember the job you are hired to do, and then select the right tool to get it done. Sometimes that will be something like a text message or email. But oftentimes, an in-person conversation will do the job much more effectively.
Practical Advice to “Pick Up the Phone” More
It can be a little uncomfortable moving away from our standard tools (email + texting). While these are great tools for some jobs, they’re inadequate for others. If you’re uncertain about how to abandon your favorite tools, here are a few practical tips I’ve found useful.
- 15-minute meetings. Schedule a 15-minute discussion with your boss on a thorny issue you’re working through. Just add this to their calendar, and send them a note with why. This helps you spin less and get some helpful mentorship. I love when my coworkers do this, and I do the same.
- Have more effective 1:1s. Follow this guide first and foremost, and remember to use 1:1s effectively by having it be less of a status report and more of a collaborative discussion.
- Rule of a paragraph. If you find yourself writing a lengthy Slack/Teams/Email message longer than a paragraph, consider just calling that person or scheduling a quick meeting. While digital collaboration is fantastic, generally if you’re working through something complex enough to warrant more than a paragraph, a discussion would go better.
Conclusion
You may be thinking “this is all great, but my coworkers are hard to get a hold off, have full schedules, or my company culture doesn’t support this.”
That’s all great and may even be true. You can still pick up the phone. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how people react to this. My experience has been that others actually want to be talked to, even if they’re not used to it.
So next time you’re wrestling with composing the perfect text, just take a second to ask yourself if you all wouldn’t be better off if you just gave them a quick call.
