JOURNAL REPORTS: LEADERSHIP

She’s Not Mad. She’s Just Not Using

Exclamation Points.
A Journal editor tries living without the upbeat punctuation in email for a month. It isn’t easy!

By Nikki Waller
Oct. 23, 2018 12 05 a.m. ET

A young employee on my team hit three big goals in one afternoon last month. “Wow,” I, her
boss, wrote. “Well done. Really great work.”

Did I really think so? And, without a “Wow!!!” or a “Great job!!” did she feel that she in fact did a
great job?

WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE

This article is part of a Wall Street Journal special report on women, men and work based
on a study by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co.

Complete coverage
The Link Between #MeToo and the Workplace Gender Gap
Sheryl Sandberg on What Companies Need to Do to Close the Gender Gap
A Pay Gap Among Entrepreneurs
The Price of Being a Minority of One
McKinsey Leaders on Ending ‘Onliness”
On Twitter, use #WSJWomenIn
Read the full study and methodology from LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Co.
Exclamation points aren’t just an accepted part of business these days, they’re expected. The
emotional fabric softener of workplace interactions, they brighten the tone of exchanges and
round the edges of tough requests. They also take up a lot of head space for their users. Few
topics elicit more passionate debate than how, why or when to use that perky punctuation—or
what it means when someone leaves them out.

Just ask women bosses, for whom routine emails can become complex calculations about
warmth, likability and authority. Better to conclude an email with “Thanks!”? Or will “Thanks.”
suffice? No human is that excited in real life, but it can be easier to write “Looking forward to
getting that spreadsheet!” rather than risk sounding cold or unfriendly.

As a boss and a journalist who has covered workplace and management issues, I’d often
wondered what life might be like without exclamation points. So in September, I cut them out,
going on a self-imposed fast from Labor Day until Oct. 1.

It was not a complete success!

Finding new ways to convey enthusiasm and warmth in email took time and resulted in some
cringeworthy workarounds. My emails on one early-September day concluded variously with
“Thanks, Kim,” “Thx,” “THANKS” and, once, heartbreakingly, “Grazie x1000.” Ellipses were
deployed…suggesting I could not tidily complete a thought…. I tried using Gmail’s gumdrop-
shaped emoji; did I want my professional aura to be an affable gumdrop?

Slip-ups were inevitable (“Hi, Mom!”). I broke fast on purpose a couple of times, thanking a
fellow parent for hosting an all-day playdate on a school holiday, and assuring the host to
whose dinner party I was running late that I was “Two minutes away!!”

I told some co-workers about the fasting plan—one was writing an article for the Journal’s
front page about our collective addiction to exclamation-point use. Another said she put several
in a recent email, worrying that she wouldn’t sound positive enough to the recipient. She asked
me, “Why do we overthink?”

The answer: Because we have to. Male bosses who write in blunt, terse prose aren’t noticed
much. Plenty of management research has shown, though, that women bosses tread a thin line.
Too few softeners like exclamation points, and they’re viewed as hard and unfeeling; too many,
and they lack gravitas.

“Most of us are reading and rereading what we type to ensure we’re expressing the right tone,”
says Amy Bohutinsky, the chief operating officer of digital real-estate company Zillow Group
and a booster of exclamation points—in moderation. She limits herself to one or two per
paragraph of email. “That feels authentic for me,” she says.
 Not using exclamation points felt somewhat less than authentic for me. I’m enthusiastic by
nature, and when some long-running projects hit rough patches during the month, I
suspected warmer, more chirpy messages would have lightened up some requests. Then
again, I liked not having to apologize for asking people to get things done. When a new
manager joined a team that works closely with mine, I worried my pleasant though clipped
emails gave the impression that I was clinically depressed or at best in need of coffee.

A couple of other women joined me in going exclamation-free and learned quickly what
employees expect of women bosses.

Feedback was immediate for one, a communications executive at a large San Francisco tech
company. “Good job. You managed that well,” she wrote to one staffer who had deftly
handled a tricky matter. The woman’s instant reply: “Are you mad at me?”

When the executive told another direct report about the punctuation fast, that person said,
“You think you’re one of those people who’s so positive that they have to give up
exclamation points?” Ouch.

Perhaps her male colleagues wondered, but only women admitted to feeling discomfited by
her tone, a reaction that echoes the work of Georgetown University linguist Deborah
Tannen. Ms. Tannen has found that women (and men) expect emphasis and enthusiasm
from other women, frequently in the form of exclamations or all-caps type.

Going without felt great, even freeing, at times. I stopped short of boss email—immediate,
terse replies lacking context or punctuation, usually sent to underlings—but it was nice to
be just another manager, making sure work gets done.

For women bosses sending routine emails, exclamation points are part of a complex calculation about warmth, likability and
authority. PHOTO: MIKEL JASO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

SECRETS OF WEALTHY WOMEN PODCAST
Lean In President: New Details on Gender Gap
Maybe it even made me a better manager. I ended
emails with questions for recipients to make clear I
was interested in them, and I cheated with
exclamations in disguise (“What would we do
without you?”).

For the new staffer on my team, sending kudos without exclamation points prompted me to
walk to her desk and praise her work—hardly revolutionary, but effective. Other times, I ditched
email for that classic-but-ignored piece of office technology, the telephone.

Still, I was nagged by the sense that my tone was off-putting, despite my workarounds. That
came into sharp relief at midmonth when our babysitter nearly quit, thinking she was about to
be fired.

“It was the exclamation points!” I hissed to my husband after a long clear-the-air meeting.

Life got easier when October arrived. Replying to emails with “Thanks!” was sweet relief. And
so long as email dominates our work communication, I’ll deploy a “Great!” or “Way to go!” as
needed, because tone matters. Leaders can deflate or empower someone in a sentence or two.
As Ms. Bohutinsky notes, the best leaders are clear communicators. “For women, being clued
into that is a leadership asset.”

Ms. Waller is The Wall Street Journal’s editor of live journalism and special content. Email her
at nikki.waller@wsj.com.

Appeared in the October 23, 2018, print edition as 'I’m Not Mad. I’m Just Not Using Exclamation
Points..'

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