BE CONNECTED NEWSLETTER · 2 November 2026 · EP25 Godfrey Frederick
We don’t do carefully worded emails
Why picking up the phone matters more, not less, now that AI writes our emails.
We don’t do carefully worded emails. Just pick up the phone, have a conversation.
Godfrey Frederick, BSE
That’s Godfrey Frederick, Director of National Strategic Partnerships at BSE and co-founder of Tree of Knowledge, on this week’s podcast. He told us he’s walked into the office to find three or four people huddled around a screen, drafting the perfect email. His response: stop. Call them. In his experience, almost every one of those issues is sorted in a three-minute conversation.
It’s a simple idea, and one we hear a lot. When we run communication sessions with teams, “just pick up the phone” is often the change people say made the biggest difference.
Why email goes wrong
Written words lose the things that make a message land: tone, warmth, the pause before “but”. As Godfrey puts it, with email “there’s no meaning, there’s no sort of physicality to it, you can’t feel that so it can come across the wrong way.”
A perfectly neutral sentence can read as a criticism. A short reply can read as annoyed. And once someone feels they’re in a fight, the next email gets longer and more careful, and the problem gets bigger.
AI makes this better and worse
Let’s be clear: AI is a great help with writing. It can tidy a messy draft, make a point clearer, or take the heat out of a reply written at 6pm on a Friday. We use it, and we’d encourage most teams to.
But it creates two new problems.
First, it makes writing so easy that we send more of it. More emails, more messages, more threads to keep up with.
Second, a polished email can feel like the job is done when it isn’t. A well-written message is not the same as a well-handled relationship.
The better AI gets at writing, the more a real conversation stands out.
Write, call or visit?
Not everything needs a phone call. A simple rule of thumb we use:
- Write when it’s a fact, a confirmation or something that needs a record.
- Call when there’s tone involved, when something’s gone wrong, when it’s urgent, or when an email thread has gone back and forth more than twice.
- Go and see them when the relationship itself is at stake: a new client, a project in trouble, bad news, or trust that needs repairing.
And then do what Godfrey does: “You always back that up after with an email about what you’ve spoken about.” Talk first, then write it down.
Why this matters for your team
Many people now starting their careers grew up texting, not calling. Godfrey said it plainly: “Sometimes I worry that people might hide behind a keyboard or a text.”
That isn’t a criticism of graduates. It’s a skill nobody has taught them yet. If junior staff only ever watch seniors write emails, that’s what they’ll learn to do. If they hear seniors calling clients, sorting problems and building relationships, they’ll learn that instead.
Five things to try this month
- Set a three-email rule. If a thread has gone back and forth three times, someone picks up the phone.
- Model it. Leaders make calls where juniors can hear them, then talk through how it went.
- Bring juniors along. Take an early-career person to a client meeting or site visit each month.
- Use AI for the follow-up, not the conversation. Have the chat, then use AI to write the clear summary email afterwards.
- Ask in your one-on-ones: “Who do you need to talk to this week, rather than email?”
Our take
AI will keep making us better writers. That’s a good thing. But clients choose, stay with and recommend the people they trust, and trust is still built voice to voice and face to face. Godfrey summed it up: “it is the best form of communication.”
So this week, before you hit send on that carefully worded email, try picking up the phone.
Brought to you by Build Px. Helping built-environment teams with the people side of the work, from communication and relationships to leadership. If that’s on your list, we’d love a chat.