January 24, 2019
Compose thyself
Sent by Jonathan Stark on January 24th, 2019
There was a thread today in TPS that I thought was wonderful. It was about what to do when you receive challenging feedback.
For example, let’s say a client sends you a terse email about:
- A software feature that you are late delivering
- Your design revision that was despised by the board
- A headline you wrote that is tanking sales
What would you do? Fire off a hasty reply in anger? Get defensive? Try to shift the blame?
The consensus (me included) was that it’s virtually always best to wait before replying in situations like this. Double check that you read the message right. Give it time to sink in. Try to understand where they’re coming from. Sleep on it. Then compose a reasonable reply that is not emotionally driven.
In short:
First compose yourself, then compose your reply.
Yours,
—J