Discover What Your Emails Reveal About You
4 October 2010
Read by 1547 persons
Style, vocabulary, presentation... your messages speak volumes about your personality. To communicate effectively, start by understanding how your correspondents perceive you.
A manager sends about 50 emails a day, according to the American research firm Radicati Group. This gives many opportunities for personality traits to show in the smallest electronic message; word choice, style, tone, and even the font speak volumes about us. A certain boldness will charm one person but offend another whose temperament is more conformist. To be sure you are understood, start by identifying your profile. Then follow our advice to refine your style depending on the recipient.
A warm and casual tone? You are affectionate.
Your fuel? Other people. You want your emails to show your friendly side and your desire to help the recipient. You often call them by their first name, preceded by "dear." Before getting to the point, you ask how they are and mention a past shared moment, like lunch.
Our advice. Some people criticize you for being too familiar, not getting to the point quickly enough, or even lacking professionalism. Don't censor yourself, but avoid ending your messages with "hugs"! Trust your intuition to keep it simple with those you sense hate mixing feelings and work.
Incisive and concise sentences? You are a director.
What matters to you are values. You express your opinions peremptorily and sometimes forget to listen to others. You judge very quickly (and often correctly), but you are not without a certain rigidity. These personality traits are expressed in your emails, which are distinguished by their directive tone and frequent injunctions like "it is necessary that" or "you must." You do not hesitate to emphasize certain words by writing them in bold, red, or capitals, and you only respond to emails if they seem legitimate to you. You easily appear authoritarian to those around you, even stressful, like that manager of a large textile group who could not help but highlight the important points in each of his emails. This had the effect of upsetting his store managers.
Our advice. Not hesitating to bluntly say what you think, you risk hurting your correspondents. With you, the tone rises quickly, often leading to delicate conflict situations. A solution: reread yourself to be sure not to offend.
A humorous and nonconformist style? You are a rebel.
For you, life is a game and work is no exception to this rule. Original font, bright color choices, profusion of smileys: your emails reveal your imagination. And the style is similar: no polite formulas, definitely banal in your eyes, but a very sure penchant for humor and irony. Your taste for provocation has, moreover, alienated more than one person. You tend to write as you speak and do not hesitate to use familiar expressions, such as "it's cool," "it's rolling." You answer... when you feel like it.
Our advice. If you know your correspondent well and you are on the same wavelength, no problem. But beware: other profiles may judge that you lack seriousness. So save your (excellent) jokes for your friends and absolutely avoid sending them to a client you have only met once.
Factual and very detailed content? You are a hard worker.
Always seeking efficiency, you tend to skip polite formulas to get straight to the facts. As for mentioning personal subjects, trying a witty remark or letting a hint of empathy show, you don't even think about it. On the other hand, you overuse hyphens, numbers, and time indications. You never forget to answer, but sometimes take time to write a comprehensive email, approximation being your nemesis. The terrible "could do better" must not have often appeared on your school reports! Your goal? Perfection, and you spare no effort to achieve it.
Our advice. Therefore, try to be more concise and not overwhelm the recipient with a flood of technical terms. Also, try to soften your image by instilling a little humanity into your emails.
Quick and enthusiastic exchanges? You are a seducer.
When you communicate, you tend, even unconsciously, to manipulate your interlocutors. For example, you will congratulate a colleague on a file, asking him in a post-scriptum if he can do you a "small" favor. Your taste for speed sometimes leads you to neglect spelling and to write in text language, which can annoy, or even discredit you with certain profiles.
For you, it's action that counts. Things have to go fast. You are decidedly closer to a Bernard Tapie than to a quantum physics researcher! Your desire to take on challenges makes you a leader. This desire to never be bored goes hand in hand with a tendency to think first of your own interest. A personality trait that leads to great successes, especially in commercial functions.
Our advice. While knowing how to sell yourself is a great quality, try not to overdo it. Your correspondent might find you pretentious, suspicious, or doubtful of the beautiful results you claim.
A bad tendency to reply too late? You are a dreamer
Communication is not your forte and you hate exposing yourself. You prefer to work solo on your projects, away from any agitation. Needless to say, you sometimes take time to respond to a request. The interlocutors who make you react are the most direct. The clarity of their requests or injunctions - "Hello, please return file X by tomorrow at 9 am" - forces you to leave your inner world. Those who send you less direct messages risk you simply forgetting them!
Our advice. Some will then judge you to be unreliable. To avoid misunderstandings, try to answer immediately. Your schedule doesn't allow it or you don't have all the information? Deploy the heavy artillery and arm yourself with Post-it notes and alarms to avoid any fatal oversight.
Rules of courtesy on BlackBerry
Be careful not to have too nervous a thumb. Of course, the mention "sent from my..." should make your correspondent more lenient on the form of the message. This is no reason to neglect it entirely. Here are three rules to observe in all circumstances.
Make sure you remain understandable: your correspondent is not necessarily a pro of text language.
Proofread and check spelling: writing from a phone does not exempt you from this mark of respect.
Conclude with "sincerely": the formula has the merit of being short.
Published October 4, 2010
Posted online October 4, 2010
capital.fr
A manager sends about 50 emails a day, according to the American research firm Radicati Group. This gives many opportunities for personality traits to show in the smallest electronic message; word choice, style, tone, and even the font speak volumes about us. A certain boldness will charm one person but offend another whose temperament is more conformist. To be sure you are understood, start by identifying your profile. Then follow our advice to refine your style depending on the recipient.
A warm and casual tone? You are affectionate.
Your fuel? Other people. You want your emails to show your friendly side and your desire to help the recipient. You often call them by their first name, preceded by "dear." Before getting to the point, you ask how they are and mention a past shared moment, like lunch.
Our advice. Some people criticize you for being too familiar, not getting to the point quickly enough, or even lacking professionalism. Don't censor yourself, but avoid ending your messages with "hugs"! Trust your intuition to keep it simple with those you sense hate mixing feelings and work.
Incisive and concise sentences? You are a director.
What matters to you are values. You express your opinions peremptorily and sometimes forget to listen to others. You judge very quickly (and often correctly), but you are not without a certain rigidity. These personality traits are expressed in your emails, which are distinguished by their directive tone and frequent injunctions like "it is necessary that" or "you must." You do not hesitate to emphasize certain words by writing them in bold, red, or capitals, and you only respond to emails if they seem legitimate to you. You easily appear authoritarian to those around you, even stressful, like that manager of a large textile group who could not help but highlight the important points in each of his emails. This had the effect of upsetting his store managers.
Our advice. Not hesitating to bluntly say what you think, you risk hurting your correspondents. With you, the tone rises quickly, often leading to delicate conflict situations. A solution: reread yourself to be sure not to offend.
A humorous and nonconformist style? You are a rebel.
For you, life is a game and work is no exception to this rule. Original font, bright color choices, profusion of smileys: your emails reveal your imagination. And the style is similar: no polite formulas, definitely banal in your eyes, but a very sure penchant for humor and irony. Your taste for provocation has, moreover, alienated more than one person. You tend to write as you speak and do not hesitate to use familiar expressions, such as "it's cool," "it's rolling." You answer... when you feel like it.
Our advice. If you know your correspondent well and you are on the same wavelength, no problem. But beware: other profiles may judge that you lack seriousness. So save your (excellent) jokes for your friends and absolutely avoid sending them to a client you have only met once.
Factual and very detailed content? You are a hard worker.
Always seeking efficiency, you tend to skip polite formulas to get straight to the facts. As for mentioning personal subjects, trying a witty remark or letting a hint of empathy show, you don't even think about it. On the other hand, you overuse hyphens, numbers, and time indications. You never forget to answer, but sometimes take time to write a comprehensive email, approximation being your nemesis. The terrible "could do better" must not have often appeared on your school reports! Your goal? Perfection, and you spare no effort to achieve it.
Our advice. Therefore, try to be more concise and not overwhelm the recipient with a flood of technical terms. Also, try to soften your image by instilling a little humanity into your emails.
Quick and enthusiastic exchanges? You are a seducer.
When you communicate, you tend, even unconsciously, to manipulate your interlocutors. For example, you will congratulate a colleague on a file, asking him in a post-scriptum if he can do you a "small" favor. Your taste for speed sometimes leads you to neglect spelling and to write in text language, which can annoy, or even discredit you with certain profiles.
For you, it's action that counts. Things have to go fast. You are decidedly closer to a Bernard Tapie than to a quantum physics researcher! Your desire to take on challenges makes you a leader. This desire to never be bored goes hand in hand with a tendency to think first of your own interest. A personality trait that leads to great successes, especially in commercial functions.
Our advice. While knowing how to sell yourself is a great quality, try not to overdo it. Your correspondent might find you pretentious, suspicious, or doubtful of the beautiful results you claim.
A bad tendency to reply too late? You are a dreamer
Communication is not your forte and you hate exposing yourself. You prefer to work solo on your projects, away from any agitation. Needless to say, you sometimes take time to respond to a request. The interlocutors who make you react are the most direct. The clarity of their requests or injunctions - "Hello, please return file X by tomorrow at 9 am" - forces you to leave your inner world. Those who send you less direct messages risk you simply forgetting them!
Our advice. Some will then judge you to be unreliable. To avoid misunderstandings, try to answer immediately. Your schedule doesn't allow it or you don't have all the information? Deploy the heavy artillery and arm yourself with Post-it notes and alarms to avoid any fatal oversight.
Rules of courtesy on BlackBerry
Be careful not to have too nervous a thumb. Of course, the mention "sent from my..." should make your correspondent more lenient on the form of the message. This is no reason to neglect it entirely. Here are three rules to observe in all circumstances.
Make sure you remain understandable: your correspondent is not necessarily a pro of text language.
Proofread and check spelling: writing from a phone does not exempt you from this mark of respect.
Conclude with "sincerely": the formula has the merit of being short.
Published October 4, 2010
Posted online October 4, 2010
capital.fr
