Goldman Sachs chooses voice!

With International bank, Goldman Sachs, being investigated by authorities in the US and UK regarding allegations of fraud (http://bit.ly/9eQplB), I was interested in reading the approach Lloyd Blankfein, CEO, took recently to ‘rally the troops’ in preparation for another week’s trading on the financial markets:

Rather than send an email out to his workforce, a personal voicemail was instead broadcast to his staff. From reading the transcripts, it is clear that the message was sent to reassure, inspire and, in Blankfein’s own words, “to re-affirm everything that defines Goldman Sachs.”

The use of voice over the written form literally speaks volumes. We are still driven by impulses to speak; all modes of communication have their uses yet voice is still one of the clearest, if not the clearest from that we have.  Tenses, tones or meanings cannot be misconstrued when spoken as they can in emails, and the personal approach was clearly the best one to take, particularly in light of the sensitive situation Goldman Sachs is facing.

Voicemail has its many critics, yet the ability to outreach vital messages to staff can only be positive. At HulloMail, we believe that in today’s fast-paced world, the ability to send instant messages to one or multiple recipients suits the way in which we like to communicate: clearly, quickly and without fuss.   And, without the need of having to physically call the person or people.

Voice will continue to be very important and voice messaging will enter the realm of simplicity that text and email has had - e.g the ability to send voice messages, which can be received via mobile handsets, email or the web; this will begin to become a new part of our arsenal of communication.”