Text communication

Unrelated to the main point: for about two weeks my health wasn't great, the pace and quality of daily life dropped, and I couldn't think — then after recovering, the urge to update the blog came back. When you're healthy, polishing and maintaining your thinking as much as you can really matters.

This time: text communication. Text communication is a very strict, delicate form of communication.

I like text communication, and I think you can share intent more accurately in text. I think most other people feel roughly the same.
In business too, text is without doubt one of the most important means.

But recently I ran into an unpleasant scene that's common in business.
We outsource some work to an external partner. Nobody in the company has met them in person, but they always support the work appropriately.
Then a member of our team had delegated a job — first, the way they delegated was vague, and from the wording you could also tell there wasn't much consideration for the other party.
In a bad sense, it felt like communication that treated the other side as nothing but a work vendor.
Even if that teammate meant no harm, with a vendor you've never met you can't expect a high-context relationship anyway.

I followed up separately with the partner myself, but I don't expect that teammate to improve going forward.
From experience, whether someone can communicate considerately in text is largely a matter of temperament. I don't want to pretentiously claim I'm considerate myself — but I think far too many people communicate with almost no care.

Just because they're a vendor, dumping work on them and leaving everything to them is vulgar, I think — and giving appropriate feedback on deliverables with gratitude is very important.
Of course you don't need to be overly deferential — but since it's text-only to begin with, you absolutely need to state premises carefully and accurately, add one-to-one comments about what you're assuming, and keep a sense of warmth in the text so the atmosphere stays easy to talk in. This isn't about writing skill.

In text communication, an attitude of consideration shows up clearly.

It's a cliché, but I like people who have kindness that thinks of the other person, and I strongly want to work with people like that.
Even if you can't do it yet — if you can align on that recognition, practice will fix the rest. People who don't even see it as a problem or mistake have no path to improve.

Whether human relationships in business should be dry is up to each person — but in text communication (and not only text, at this point), I want to keep an attitude of considering the people I deal with.