Throughout my 30 years in the workforce, I’ve seen a tremendous change in how colleagues communicate, from the channels to the style to the substance. In my first few jobs, there was no email. Business communication was handled primarily through carefully edited written memos which were copied and distributed to each person’s mailslot. Unlike so much of today’s instant, disposable communication, business communication had a formality to it; thoughts and recommendations were “on the record” and thus we communicated judiciously.

Email and other digital channels sped up work communication to what now seems like a constant state of urgency. And as communication has gotten faster, it’s become easier to make mistakes. We all know what we shouldn’t do when communicating with colleagues (or the boss), but a hot moment of frustration or a hurried message from a tiny phone screen quickly can lead to professional embarrassment. Here are some of the communication blunders I’ve made — and how to learn from them so you don’t make them, too.

EMAIL:

A perfect stage for public embarrassment ?

Mistakes I’ve made:

• Covering too complex a topic
• Having too many people in the cc line
• The unnecessary reply all
• Replying when I didn’t need to in an attempt to be seen
• Taking too casual of a tone
• Sloppy proofreading (which can make a message be taken less seriously)

And of all the mistakes I have made on email, the worst have been:

• Writing something I shouldn’t have that could be forwarded
• Sending a message about someone to that person accidentally

I can still feel the embarrassment from decades ago as I write this!

The remedy:

Overall, view email as your permanent record — this is how you can show up as your best self, so use it that way. And remember, showing up as your best self may mean not responding at all.

For the mistakes that cross into personal embarrassment, the most important remedy is an immediate one: make one apology to those who deserve one. Even if there are multiple people on the email, a reply-all apology can actually make the situation worse by further calling attention to the issue. A one-on-one apology is more sincere; it allows you to personalize the apology while making amends (and avoiding another public embarrassment). The unexpected gift is that most people are forgiving — and may even admit they’ve done it themselves, inviting a closer bond as a result.

DIRECT MESSAGING:

Death by a thousand pings☠️

Mistakes I’ve made:

• Pinging someone repeatedly when I haven’t heard from them, frustrating everyone
• Giving direction or trying to solve a problem that requires nuance or context
• Engaging in a long back and forth that should have been taken offline
• Making important decisions that would be almost impossible to find for future reference
• Making mistakes because I was moving too fast and found a channel that indulged speed

Messaging on the phone seems to accelerate the compulsion to reply, and when done on the go with a tiny screen and even tinier keyboard, I double my chances of making a mistake.

The remedy:

Stop — or, at the very least, slow down. Sending DMs is like eating potato chips; you can just keep going without thinking about if you’re getting what you need and if a different strategy is needed. But what struck me as I was getting pinged to death one day and feeling a duty to answer each message is that, by the end of the day, I hadn’t gotten anything done that I needed to do.

I realized then I do the same to others. I was certainly meeting my needs when sending frequent DMs, but at what cost to my colleagues? My goal is to get the work done in the best way possible; that means being flexible about how I communicate with others and respecting their time.

VIDEO CALLS:

Watch yourself, but don’t look at yourself ?

Mistakes I’ve made:

• Spending time looking at myself — my hair, my wrinkles, bad lighting — and missing important information
• Not looking at myself — anyone who knows me knows I do not have a poker face, so the upside of glancing at myself quickly is to check my reactions
• Feeling obligated to participate in Zoom chat as a way to look engaged, when I’m really just adding to the noise
• Talking too much or interrupting others. The challenge of Zoom is that you feel like you’re in a room with others, but it’s easy to miss non-verbal cues about when someone is done speaking or trying to interject

The remedy:

I check myself in the mirror before I get on the call so I feel presentable and turn my self-view off in smaller calls. (I leave it on in larger calls so I can check my reactions.) I now default to putting myself on mute so I have to consciously unmute before speaking. That creates a slight delay that might make me think twice about chiming in and gives someone else a chance to step into the conversation.

PHONE:

Your last resort could be your best ??

Mistakes I’ve made:

• My biggest mistake with the phone is avoiding it. I have hesitated because calling someone feels like the most personal, intimate way to communicate. And because of that, I worry it might make the connection awkward or uncomfortable. Thus the telephone often gets relegated to the last resort.

The remedy:

Get over it and start dialing. (Or text or DM them that you’d like to hop on the phone.) It’s fast, it’s personal, and it allows for candor, discussion, and nuance. And best of all, it strengthens relationships and alignment, which means one phone call can make work easier for the entire team. And that will make for a happier, better communicating team on the whole.