Have you ever gotten an email that you had to spend more than thirty seconds analyzing to determine if it had a negative tone to it? Do you ever find yourself wondering whether to use that exclamation point or emoji? Does the “dot, dot dot” at the end of a sentence create more anxiety and questions than clarity? Have you worked from home in your Zoom shirt over the past year and a half trying to bridge the gap between former face-to-face interactions and purely digital ones? Do you wonder if technologically-fueled communication can be easier, less stressful, or more clearly delivered and interpreted? If so, Erica Dhawan’s DIGITAL BODY LANGUAGE is just the book for you.
Dhawan posits that body language has both a traditional and digital element. Those traditional elements include face-to-face eye rolls, smiles, shrugged shoulders, and a firm handshake. But what replaces eye contact or a nodding head when communication happens between individuals that may never actually meet in person? The answer? Your digital body language. Your use (or lack thereof) of emojis, salutations, and punctuation. Your response time, your brevity, and your word choices. Your regular use or utter avoidance of phone calls. DIGITAL BODY LANGUAGE demystifies how to use each of these cues to your advantage.
Approachable and informal, Erica Dhawan welcomes us into her world, and shares her sometimes hard-earned lessons in hopes that we may be able to avoid similar struggles ourselves. DIGITAL BODY LANGUAGE serves as a self-help book for professionals, but it is anything but dry, preachy, or unrelatable. Dhawan provides real-world examples that will have you laughing, cringing, or nodding your head in acknowledgment that you’ve been there yourself. Once you’re hooked and realizing you can and should improve your communication, and that you very likely have inadvertently blundered through very similar situations yourself, Dhawan lays out a framework that teaches you how to assess each unique communication challenge you’ll face and determine the best approach to yield your desired results. This framework is bolstered with a “do this, not that” style of practical tips that are easy to learn, remember, and apply.
Erica Dhawan’s DIGITAL BODY LANGUAGE is the communication primer that every employee that uses email, instant messenger, or video chat in their profession should read cover to cover, especially before embarking on a fully remote work journey. It’s guaranteed to save staff and leaders alike confusion, frustration, and wasted time that inevitably crop up when an intentional effort isn’t made to ensure critical messages are delivered in the right way in the right place at the right time.
From Erica Dhawan, co-author of Get Big Things Done, the definitive guide to communicating and connecting wherever you are.
Email replies that show up a week later. Video chats full of “oops sorry no you go” and “can you hear me?!” Ambiguous text-messages. Weird punctuation you can’t make heads or tails of. Is it any wonder communication takes us so much time and effort to figure out? How did we lose our innate capacity to understand each other?
Humans rely on body language to connect and build trust, but with most of our communication happening from behind a screen, traditional body language signals are no longer visible -- or are they? In Digital Body Language, Erica Dhawan, a go-to thought leader on collaboration and a passionate communication junkie, combines cutting edge research with engaging storytelling to decode the new signals and cues that have replaced traditional body language across genders, generations, and culture. In real life, we lean in, uncross our arms, smile, nod and make eye contact to show we listen and care. Online, reading carefully is the new listening. Writing clearly is the new empathy. And a phone or video call is worth a thousand emails.
Digital Body Language will turn your daily misunderstandings into a set of collectively understood laws that foster connection, no matter the distance. Dhawan investigates a wide array of exchanges—from large conferences and video meetings to daily emails, texts, IMs, and conference calls—and offers insights and solutions to build trust and clarity to anyone in our ever changing world.
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