Did you get that email? Follow up with EVERYONE!

So I was in a meeting today and got a phone call from someone in the music business that I needed to take the phone call from.  I wasn’t quite sure it was this Very Important Person, but the area code matched.  It was nearing my time to present in the meeting and I had to make a difficult decision.  This was a person that knows everyone, has been in the business forever, and is actively helping bands move forward.

You _always_ take this call, if humanly possible.

Grabbed my phone and iPad and stepped out of the meeting room.

”Hello, Just a Dude here.”

”Hey, Just a Dude, how are things going?  Did you see the Official Black Coffee show the other night.  How did they do?”

We chatted more for awhile, I, describing how well the young band did at a recent Battle of the Bands competition sponsored by the local hard rock radio station.  Great live show, awesome sound, fantastic look.  They were hitting on all cylinders.

Then Very Important Person said, “Well, what’s going on with the boys band?  Are they playing shows?  I never got any dates from you.  I want to see them play.”

Hmmm, that’s odd, I thought.  My last recollection was that I sent an email confirming that Very Important Person would tell me information that he wanted from me.  So I said, “I can send that information to you right away. So sorry for the miscommunication.”

We exchanged good byes and I returned to my meeting.

During lunch later that day, I was able to send out what Very Important Person was looking for.  I sent it with an apology and was very polite as I reviewed the email, if I do say so myself.

Bullet dodged!

Or so I thought.

Later, I decided to call Very Important Person to confirm receipt of the email.  As he looked through his email while on the phone, and not finding, I started thinking maybe we had a problem here.

”What is your email address that you use?  Here is the email addresses I sent it to.”

”Oh, no, that doesn’t work.  Don’t you have the one from my card?”, he said. “Of course you don’t, I don’t put my email on my card.”

And there you go . . . one of the classic communication problems reveals itself again.

From WikiPedia

In 1960, David Berlo expanded the linear transmission model ^[3] with the Sender-Message-Channel-Receiver(SMCR) Model of Communication. ^[4] Later, Wilbur Schramm introduced a model that identified multiple variables in communication which includes the transmitter, encoding, media, decoding, and receiver. ^[5]

Or in other words …

Really?

Yes, really.  I fell victim to one of the oldest communication problems.  I sent a message and assumed the receiver got it.  Never mind the intent of the message.

 

 

I had assumed the Very Important Person just had moved on.  I had failed to perform basic follow up out of some presumed respect and awe for this person’s position.

Could have easily been remedied by another follow up email.

Should have tried again.

I had a good chuckle/ah ha moment out of it, because in the past I’ve made a very large point in correcting people in meetings when they say, “Well, I sent such and such in an email, they should have known about this issue.”  Never mind, that said issue was buried in a wall of text, or maybe the email was never read anyways.

Today was not fatal and was a good reminder that just because you communicated something, doesn’t mean it was received.

Email, phone, in-person, letter.  It’s always good to verify.

Enjoy!

-Just a Dude