Shoes are to fashion what tone is to communication.
If I wore my little black dress with stilettos, I could go to a gala. The same dress with flip-flops would pass without notice at the beach. One element of the outfit sets the frame for everything else.
The same is true in communication. If you start an email with “Thanks homie” (a real example from a student), I don’t care what comes next, it won’t be perceived as professional. A string of emojis or text-friendly abbreviations may work for a friend but instantly makes the entire message too casual for an office setting.
Tone can be brilliantly illustrated through videos of labradors Olive and Mabel whose owner switched to YouTube commentary of the dogs while on pandemic-induced hiatus from his job as a Wimbledon announcer. He makes an everyday event into an internet sensation by just changing his inflection.
We spend a disproportionate amount of time laboring over the clothes, the words, or the subject matter and too often forget the smaller details that create the overall effect. It’s the tone that makes all the difference.
