Whose Voice?

In these days of rapid-fire emails, an important question to ask yourself is when you read an email, whose voice do you read that email in?  In other words, are you reading it from the perspective of the person who sent it or as if you were the one who wrote it or as if it were written by a neutral third-party?  Which one it is?

If you are like most people, you probably don’t ask yourself these questions.  However, in doing so, you can gain some valuable insights that will allow you to gauge how empathetic you are being.  And empathy, as it is widely known, is key for effective communication.  For instance, if you read the email in your own voice, you may be inadvertently closing yourself off to the writer’s perspective.  If you read the email as if it was being narrated by a third party, you might gain some perspective, but will fall short when it comes to getting into the other persons shoes.  If read the email in the other persons voice, you begin to place yourself in their shoes, which provides you with greater insights into how that person is thinking or feeling than you might otherwise have, maximizing your capacity to empathize.

So the next email you read, take a moment, place yourself in that person’s shoes, and read it from their perspective.  You never know what insights this may provide.