so long, 'I hope you're well'
Elizabeth (Liz) Gulliver
Our business is your people. We elevate employee experience and drive retention & performance.
On a work call this week, we spent the first few minutes commiserating over endless inboxes. Completely strangers, we all jumped in with horror stories, and then someone chimed in “I wish we could just drop the whole ‘I hope you’re well’ line and jump straight to business.” Someone else added “and all the ‘great to e-meet you!’ chatter.”
On the one hand, I get it. I write and receive what seems like a bottomless pit of emails. I often want to jump straight to ‘what do you need/what are you asking for?’. On the other hand, what’s that say about work culture overall if we want to go from “hope you’re well” to “I’m still waiting on those numbers”?
It’s true, Zoom calls would be shorter if we cut the social chatting and started with “Hi, I’m Liz and here’s what I need” instead of “Hi, I’m Liz, where are you calling in from today?” But if I did that, I probably wouldn’t have learned that one of the people I spoke with this week was in Destin visiting her brother at the Eglin Air Force Base. Or that another was just a week back from their honeymoon.
Chatting - over email, Zoom, and in person - is how we get to know the people we interact with. We got really good at doing it in person. We mastered the awkward elevator comments, the coffee pot banter, the hallway hellos. Now we’ve got to master it in new mediums.
The irony is, by complaining about the dreaded email greeting, we were doing exactly what it’s designed to help us do: connecting. Still, it's probably time to ditch “hope you’re well”. It's more a reflex than a thought - and at worse feels hollow. So what do we do instead?
Recently, I’ve been trying a tip from one of our Kunik experts: to build connections, get personal. My three favorite ideas he shared were:
- For an ‘out-of-office’, share where you’re going and ask for recs. It engages people and you might get some good tips (bonus, add a photo!)
- Add personal details - for example, if you’re rescheduling because something personal came up, let them know - it’s more real and being vulnerable encourages empathy
- Add a funny link. Post a photo. Share a podcast. Whatever feels right. It might feel weird, but you’ll be surprised how connected it makes people feel
Truthfully, all of these felt awkward at first. But the more I use them, the more surprised I am by the responses I get.
When we took the kids to Mexico City for a long weekend recently, I added it to my out-of-office and was greeted with both great recommendations and other travel stories (and I added photos when people asked about the trip!). When I’ve needed to reschedule or push a call because of my IVF/Fertility appointments, I’ve openly shared that and have been stunned by the personal stories and support I’ve received.
I recently had someone reply to my “Hope you had a great weekend” email starter with “I did! I spent it finishing this book, you might like it” - I hardly know the person and wasn’t expecting that at all, but I added the book to my list and instantly felt just a bit more real connection to them.
Of course these won’t fit every moment, but instead of ditching greetings altogether, try building connections with some new greetings. Let me know how it goes!
Advocate for financial education, literacy, and independence. Advisory solutions and problem solving for businesses; risk management, business planning, building brand equity, capital raising and more.
2yWe are human beings not robots - yes, sometimes you need to just get to 'tachlis' but ppl want to work with, for, and around other human beings...this is a small indicator of that...great piece, have a great weekend.
Author (CavanKerry Press, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers), Founder (The SELF Project), Teacher (Memoir, Parenting, Grief/Rage Rituals), Consultant (SEL, Adolescent Brain and Social Development, Grief/Rage)
2yI love asking what is the most fun everyone has had in the last week, or what's something they're looking forward to. It reminds everyone that we are all 3-dimensional human beings, not just folks who showed up for this work at this moment. And I understand that schedules are tight, but building in 15-20 minutes to check in at the beginning of a Zoom call and another 5 minutes at the end to make sure everyone feels like they understand what was discussed and whether or not they have action items to follow up on (and how) is a big deal.
I enable corporate teams to cultivate strong leadership and boost productivity💡Trained teams globally🌍Unlock peak performance through human behavior & communication strategies🚀
2yThe question 'how are you doing?' is a very powerful question that is underestimated and as you said it is more of reflex. We ask it without the real intent to listen and understand. One way to make it authentic for a person, is to think about how does that question help me (as much as it is about the other person). As a human behavioral consultant (DISC), I would lead with understanding my personality style here as well as the other person's style. For example, the person that said can we just "get down to business", is probably a D (dominant) personality style. This style is very goal and outcome oriented. They have things to do & places to get & have no time to chat UNLESS it is helping them reach their goals. If they understand that about themselves and they understand the people in the room, they will know who need that social time. When they allow that to happen, they'll observe that the other person is much more receptive and productive for the rest of the conversation. Which means, it helps them achieve their goals faster. Self-awareness & team-awareness is at the core Elizabeth Gulliver When I work with teams, they are amazed at the differences and how other thinks, process information & want to be communicated to.