Pick Up the Phone

This essay was written for the Makers of Sport® newsletter in September 2015. Monday Musings and Weekend Reads were the written editions of the newsletter that accompanied the podcast; the archived email is on Mailchimp. The newsletter's links and announcements are trimmed here.

I have had numerous debates, disagreements and occasional arguments throughout my professional career. Most were in my younger years when controversy could have been avoided due to my hard-headedness as a creative person and an ENFP. During those initial years after graduating college, I had a hard time separating personal feelings from objective points of disagreement about business subject matter. Oftentimes, I chose to respond to misinterpreted emails with immediate feelings of anger and defense rather than picking up the phone or visiting the emailer and having a discussion physically instead of digitally. Carrying out debates or disagreements over email, text and especially social media tends to pour gasoline on the flames of already potentially hostile messaging.

In today’s era of digital communication, we have often lost the ability to communicate our disagreements with a human being over the phone or in person rather than through the written form. There is nothing wrong with disagreements or debate. In fact, it is healthy for an organization. Otherwise why would you want to work for a company where 100% of the people believed the exact same things, had the same personalities and professional qualities, hence never challenging your growth? Being different is a beautiful thing about being human. But, we must know how to have these disagreements in a way that does not create havoc culturally or in the relationships at stake.

Steve Jobs was by no means known as a great arguer and could be very hostile, but he did nail one thing, he hired people at Apple that were smarter than him so they could tell him and his people what to do, not the other way around. This is often misinterpreted in the field of sports. Designers and creative people such as writers, animators or other service providers (much to our own chagrin) are often hired by marketing or sales departments to do what they say according to an internal sales strategy that has been developed or some subjective opinion from an owner, AD or other manager. We are often seen as a set of digital hands to execute the important people’s ideas. I believe this to be wrong-headed thinking as design should be a strategic asset integrated right from the beginning as some of the most success companies of the Silicon Valley have discovered and been implementing. YouTube, Airbnb and Pinterest just to name a few were founded by designers.

That topic aside, this hiring mentality (specifically in the sports industry) already provides hostile territory for conversation as we as creatives tend to get very attached to our work and when it gets critiqued by a marketing staff, athletic directors or other stakeholders, we can take it too personal and come off as petty, hostile and possess bad attitudes reflecting a (in most cases) false inability to work with others.

I’ve had to learn from my mistakes over the years on how to handle my own professional disagreements; to walk away from potentially misinterpreted tone of email and wait 24 hours to respond. Or in some cases, to pick up the phone and call the person I disagree with or feel attacked by.

Written communication can often be misinterpreted. Perhaps a person is being short in their communication because they are very busy. It doesn’t mean they are being rude or are angry. In a recent instance with a client who felt they weren’t being communicated with well enough and kept up to date with project happenings, I received an email that I could have easily fired off an angry response to; instead, I picked up the phone, called them and had a great conversation learning that not only was person very busy, but that they were dealing with a bunch of alumni who were pushing back on some other projects she was working on as an athletic director of a university. As soon as I called, she apologized for coming off as a bit too rude in her email before I even got into the conversation. My tone of voice on the phone did not present a defensive, argumentative person so it allowed her to put her defenses down and be more human. Imagine how that would have gone if I didn’t take a minute, breathe, have some patience and pursue the conversation with that phone call rather than being an angry keyboard warrior.

By no means am I perfect however. I have not nailed down this science perfectly and still let emotions get the best of me occasionally. Just recently I had a client relationship go awry because of an email conversation that should have been handled in the same manner as the one discussed above. The particular person was a new contact for said client and didn't have the experience of working with me and my sometimes sarcastic tone of voice. Their lack of thick skin (which honestly is surprising to me from someone working in the sports industry) did not take kindly to a disagreement we had in which I made some statements that could have been better been construed over the phone, so, they preferred to sever the relationship as they preferred less debate and a "yes person" over quality work. Luckily for me and my business, I didn't hang my hat on that revenue but, we live and we learn. And you will too.

So when in doubt, always pick up the phone and talk through disagreements verbally so that others can gauge the temperature of your mood. It’s much easier to disagree passionately and have a productive conversation in person or over the phone where you can use your body language and/or tone of voice to convey you are not being vitriolic in your disagreements rather than written communication where tone can be misconstrued.

Next time, have some patience, take a step back, wait 24 hours and give the person a call. In the words of Herm Edwards, “don’t press send”.

Have a good week.

Your pal,

Adam