Erica Dhawan: Master Your Digital Body Language

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Jun 28, 2021

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ANECDOTE

Erica's Early Communication Journey

Erica Dhawan grew up as a shy immigrant with accented English, studying body language carefully to understand people.
Her early experiences inspired her to become a communication expert focused on building trust through body language.

ADVICE

Master Email Digital Body Language

Read emails carefully; writing clearly is the new empathy and clarity reduces misinterpretation.
Use clear subject lines, appropriate CC/To usage, and format emails with bullet points and bold headings.

ADVICE

Avoid Anxiety in Emails

Avoid four common anxiety-causing email habits: brevity, passive aggressiveness, slow/no responses, and sudden formality changes.
Follow up for clarity, stay calm with passive aggressiveness, respond promptly or acknowledge delay, and assume good intent with formality shifts.

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Did you know that 50% of the time the tone over email, Slack, and text is misunderstood? This is because in the digital world, the cues we would usually send with our bodies are missing—facial expressions, gestures, vocal tone—and that can cause a lot of misunderstandings. And this is why Erica Dhawan, the author of Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection, No Matter the Distance https://read.macmillan.com/lp/digital-body-language-audiobook/ [1] believes that "reading carefully is the new listening and writing clearly is the new empathy."

In today's episode, Erica will help you become aware of the signals you might be sending with your digital body without knowing it, and teach you how to reduce anxiety and frustration—both for yourself and others. She will also share ideas on what to do in order to avoid groupthink cultures in digital spaces and create psychological safety so that everyone can feel free to express themselves.

Books recommended by Erica:

Rituals Roadmap: The Human Way to Transform Everyday Routines Into Workplace Magic, by Erica Keswin
Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere, by Tsedal Neeley
Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual, by Luvvie Ajayi Jones

Book recommended by Caitlin:

The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything, by Stephen M.R. Covey

Try Blinkist for free for 14 days by going to https://www.blinkist.com/simplify [2], tapping on Try Blinkist at the top right, and entering the code DIGITAL.

Let us know what you thought of this episode, or just come say hi on Twitter! Find Caitlin at @caitlinschiller https://twitter.com/caitlinschiller [3], Ben at @bsto https://twitter.com/bsto [4]

Simplify is produced by Caitlin Schiller, Ben Schuman-Stoler and Marta Medvešek, and our wonderful co-host today was Deborah Caulet, Blinkist’s Head of People Development. Big thanks to Luiza S. Carvalho for audio engineering chops and Odysseas Constantinou for music.

[1]: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/digital-body-language-audiobook/
[2]: https://www.blinkist.com/simplify
[3]: https://twitter.com/caitlinschiller
[4]: https://twitter.com/bsto