How Voice Notes Have Changed My Work-Life
We weren’t made to communicate via Slack messages and emails asynchronously. We were born to speak to each other, face to face.
The written word was invented in 3400 B.C., long after we humans began communicating with our voices. Communicating through writing can be extremely effective in some contexts, and in others, not so much. It’s quite easy for social cues, tone, and more to get lost in translation.
I work on a remote team of five full-time employees. I’ve never met any of them in person. I also have the pleasure of working with several freelancers, three of which I have now met in person, after months of working together online.
When I first started interviewing for my role at Groove, I sent Josh Greene, our CEO and Co-founder an audio note to thank him after our first conversation and follow up with some ideas. Josh responded to my email with a voice note asking if I somehow knew voice notes were his preferred method of communication — lucky coincidence!
Voice notes quickly became a way for the two of us to touch base and share thoughts and ideas more informally during the interview process and on our own time as things emerged. We didn’t have to wait until our next scheduled meeting to hear each other’s voices. It made the process so much more human. Josh recorded one when visiting family and said something along the lines of: “Hear that? I’m in London today at my parents’ and it’s pouring rain right now.” A year later, I still remember that comment.
It began with us simply attaching voice notes to emails, and then when I came onto the team, we moved to WhatsApp, and eventually Slack once they enabled their voice note feature (bonus, Slack also provides transcripts in real-time). Flock, a voice note app, captures my favorite benefit of this habit of ours well: “Voice Notes make business messaging more human, so you can say exactly what you mean in your own words — as if you were right there in person. Saying it with your voice makes it easier to convey emotional dialogue and clarify nuances.”
Our voice note habits have evolved over the last year. Our team records them to…
- Reduce the number of meetings we have. Communicating asynchronously with our voices when we can is important for a small team to keep things moving along, especially when we’re up to ten hours apart with time zones.
- Share thoughts when our brains are ready to think — sometimes our best thoughts come at different times of the day. Instead of needing to answer someone’s question in real-time like in person or on a call, we can give the question some space before sharing how we feel or what we think.
- Capture raw insights and dreams for the future of Groove. Crazy, big thinking, not-sure-if-this-will-work type thoughts are great as voice notes because you can hear someone articulate them while they’re fresh and hear the energy in their voice as they explain them.
- Share a thought on the fly. I don’t have my work email or Slack on my phone (gotta love boundaries!) but if I think of a good idea while I’m out and about, I’ll record it in voice memos on my phone and send it along when I’m next on my computer.
That being said, there are some things best shared as written messages. For example, action items, product ideas, step-by-step instructions, short notes you can easily communicate in a couple of sentences, or something that will need to be referred back to often. Plus, some people prefer to receive information in written form, in which case, it might be best to send them a message instead or record the voice note and send them the transcript.
For me, I’m all for connecting and communicating in ways that feel better and more human. I love using voice notes to authentically communicate with my distributed teammates. It’s made a huge difference in how connected I feel to my team that I have yet to meet “in real life”.
If you liked this article, check these out:
- Developing a Creativity Mindset
- An Insiders Perspective on the Best Places to Meet Other Community Leaders
- Start getting sh*t done the fun way at ➡️ Groove.ooo
