One of the critical roles of a project manager and the key to project success is ensuring effective communication (Laureate Education, 2009), otherwise put as “sharing the right messages with the right people in a timely manner” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, & Kramer, 2008, p. 357). Unfortunately, effective communication, in general, is challenging since the way we choose to communication a message (i.e. media and methods) can change the meaning and the interpretation on the part of the receiver. The following accounts my personal interpretations of the same message in three different modalities: written text, audio, and video.
Written Text (Email)
Many of the factors of this written text make the tone empathetic, positive, and almost apologetic. Jane gives Mark the benefit of the doubt that he may have been in a meeting all day, concisely explains why the report is so important to her because she may miss her deadline, gives Mark multiple options to fulfill her request, and offer a conciliatory salutation to close the email.
Audio (Voicemail)
While my interpretation as the receiver of this message was mostly the same from text to audio, I did detect slightly more of an abrupt or worried when Jane was saying how she needed an ETA. With an audio message, the communication is lacking the body language factor, which can make it difficult to interpret the meaning of certain tones of voice.
Video (Face to Face)
The interpretation of the meaning of the video face-to-face message was even more positive than the written text email and certainly taken better than the audio voicemail message. In the face-to-face interaction, I felt like I would have been able to ask Jane questions, which alleviated some of the pressure her request put on me. Also, I had the added benefit of body language, including facial expressions, which gave me another factor to base my interpretation on. Certainly, face-to-face communication conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message here best
While it is obviously impractical to expect to communicate every project message face-to-face, or even verbally for that matter, this activity shows there are potential consequences for not communicating with people directly. In the oft quoted study, Mehrabian (1971) revealed when people are discussing their feelings and attitudes and the receiver is unsure of the meaning, they gain 55% of the meaning from body language and 38% from tone of voice. Issues arise in audio-only and text-only communication because there is much more room for interpretation.
References
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Project management and instructional design [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Harold Stolovich.
Mehrabian, Albert (1971). Silent Messages (1st ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Instructional Design & Technology: Ringer 
Chris,
I also found the face-to-face conversation to be the best method of delivery as well as the most likely to influence the recipient in order to generate a response. According to Dr. Harold Stolovitch (Laureate Education, 2009) only 39% of a message is verbally delivered with the rest being conveyed in the form of tonality and body language both of which are difficult to convey in an e-mail or voicemail message.
The face-to face delivery of the message not only allows the recipient to see and hear the message being conveyed, but also permits the recipient to see and hear the message behind the message such as tone, facial expressions and body language as well.
Reference
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Project management and instructional design. [Narrated by Dr. Harold Stolovitch] United States.
Thanks for the reply, Keith. I like your phrase, “the message behind the message.” That verbiage really portraits the ideas of what you are missing what you do not have face-to-face communications. It is almost like tone and body language are what stand behind words to back them up and fill in the whole picture.
Chris.
I see the reasons for your conclusion on the face-to-face method of communication. I think that because we know from the audio message that it was an urgent need, it should be communicated face-to-face (Laureate Education, 2009).
My thought was that in the face-to-face communication, if we know it’s an urgent matter, then why didn’t she communicate that with her tone, body language etc.? It seemed very informal and relaxed.
Johanna
References
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Project management and instructional design. [Narrated by Dr. Harold Stolovitch] United States.