How to Write Professional and Effective Emails

How to Write Professional and Effective EmailsHow to Write Professional and Effective Emails6Email is considered to be a hybrid type of communication, a blend of a casual conversation with the structure of a formal written letter, so it calls for a particular hybrid writing style that incorporates both types of communication. Consider this- if you were styling your writing styles, a formal written letter would be wearing a dress or a suit, your casual conversation would prefer to hang out inworkout clothes, and your email would be sporting business casual dress. A little casual, definitely friendly, and always professional.Taking a moment to set the tone can be the fruchtwein imperative aspect of constructing your email. We have received countless reports from CEO Sara Sutton about job candidates immediately jumping into their story of why they would make the best employee without so much as a simple one-liner introduction. Without taking the time to set the tone with a cordial gree ting and explanation as to why youre writing, email can come across as a very unprofessional way to make a first impression.Sara recommends four tips for effective emails to help ensure that yours are improving, and not detracting from, your chances at scoring your next job.Always fill in the subject lineUsing an informative header will be much appreciated by your busy recipient to gauge the importance of the email. Use something more specific than Hello so that your reader knows what youre writing about without needing to read the whole email.Greet your recipientHowever brief it may be, take a few words or sentences to set up your email with a legitimate greeting. It is advisable to make your point in the opening section of your email as well. Most readers wont sincerely read an email all the way through, so cut to the chase as soon as possible.Use a friendly tone throughoutRegardless of the nature of the email, maintaining a professional and light tone will always aid in your favo r. The entire email will be better received, and your chances of getting what you want if youre making a request are greater. Remember that your tone cannot be easily determined from an email, so avoid using all capitals, and dont forget your please and thank yous.End with a pleasant closingAs obvious as this may seem, a lot of professionals these days simply ignore the importance of a closing line or signature box. You dont have to compose a long, drawn-out farewell, but do thank them for their time, wish them well, or tell them you hope to hear from them soon. Including your contact information will be helpful in fostering future communications.If you follow these tips from CEO for effective emails, your messages will be well received and regarded, and that alone can take you a long way in your search for a job or in your career development.Readers, what are your favorite tips for effective emails? Share them by leaving a comment

Why agreeing to disagree is a bad management tactic

Why agreeing to disagree is a bad management tacticWhy agreeing to disagree is a bad management tacticWhen you decide to play referee with your teams disagreement, one of the worst things you can end the argument with is agreeing to disagree.Agreeing to disagree is a tactic used by bosses when they want to compromise on conflict, afraid of upsetting their employees. Bosses who do this see themselves as neutral peacemakers.Instead of siding definitively with one side over another, they split their decision into two unappetizing slices with a non-committal answer. Everyone gets to go off the hook and continue thinking exactly as they had before the argument.But a new argument by Ajay Shrivastava, chief product officer and chief technology officer at Knowlarity, finds this to be a more toxic approach to building productive teams.He finds it solves nothing and creates more problems. Agreeing to disagree often means trying tokeep egos intact, even at the cost of whats best for the company or team, he writes. Whats more, it preserves the status quo even after everyones supposedly moved on, people will continue to try to convince one another of their own opposing views.Instead of agreeing to disagree, try disagree, then commitBeing a good leader means learning to embrace tensions. The most productive teams are the ones that engage in healthy spars. One study found that teams that debated regularly had a 22% better shot at developing new ideas than yes-teams that always agreed.When you are a good leader, you know that agreeing to disagree is not enough to move goals forward. You have to make hard choices and stick to them. To move past the wishy-washy answer of agreeing to disagree, you need to balance healthy debate with the knowledge that you are the final decision-maker. That way, your team can have ownership of an idea, while still understanding that they will have to be aligned with a common goal.Shrivastava calls this healthier approach, disagree, then commit. In cases when disagreements remain at the end of the debateand chances are they willleaders need to be tie-breakers, making a decision that aligns with the organizations best interests, and framing their choice precisely that way,Shrivastava writes. They encouragefeedback in private (not public) conversations and iterate as needed. But they dont open up the floor to another team brainstorm midway through. At this stage, the leader is responsible to make sure progress is being made.To respect your employees time, a leader needs to make final decisions on how to act, with or without a desired consensus after a brainstorm. The commitment ultimately helps your team, even if it comes with bruised egos. Once your employees are aligned on a decision, you decrease the energy lost to infighting and brainstorming. Now, your team can focus on what matters - executing that decision into a reality.

New Google shortcuts to make your workflow easier

New Google shortcuts to make your workflow easierNew Google shortcuts to make your workflow easierIf you, like me, have witnessed a family member take a painfully-long time to type and find a folder online, you know that browser shortcuts can give you back minutes of your life lost to searching your jumbled memory for clues. You can waste time searching for that copy feature, or you can hit Ctrl+C. You can make bookmarks of your most-visited websites like an organized person, or you can type the link out each time. Both solutions will get you to your destination, but the latter can gift you back a little mora time to yourself.As part of this quest to save you a little more time, Google has introduced new browser shortcuts for users ofG Suite apps to get you to your destination a little bit quicker than before.How you can instantly create a Google DocBefore the Google update, you had to click on new to open a new document, slide, sheet, or form on Google. Now, you can skip these steps and type out a written shortcut directly on any browser.Writing doc.new, docs.new, or document.new will open a new Google Document. Sheets will open when you type out sheet.new, sheets.new, or spreadsheet.new. Forms will open with form.new or forms.new.Slides will open with slide.new, slides.new, deck.new, or presentation.new.New sites will open up with site.new, sites.new, or website.new.A browser shortcut will not be the cure-all to getting you organized, but it is a step towards a more structured workflow. Once you spend less time doing busy work, you can spend more time on your actual work.