Trevor Quinn-Thomas considers the negative side to e-mail and suggests a number of ways to use the facility more effectively
I remember when e-mail first arrived. It was so exciting to look at my inbox and to find that I had mail. All the computers in the office were hooked up to it and you could receive mail from the person sitting opposite or from someone on the other side of the office. I imagined that it would completely remove the need to talk to people ever again.
At home I could mail friends and relatives across the world and keep in touch with people I had not seen for a while. But then what happened? Very quickly people were e-mailing things that could have easily been said. Communication started to go downhill.
Messages and documents went back and forth with amendments and comments that created more e-mails and issues with document version control. Copies were sent to all and sundry.
Time wasting
Three years ago it was not unusual for me to receive 40-50 e-mails a day while I worked for one of the high-street banks. Some of you will undoubtedly receive even more than that.
Dealing with this volume of mail is probably neither an efficient use of time nor an effective way of communicating with colleagues. It is an even poorer substitute for real management skills and personal interventions.
I remember receiving piles of e-mails in the summer from strangers in the organisation to tell me they were going on holiday and other such junk.
So, e-mail arrived and began to do a great job of undermining the effectiveness of business. Stealing time and misdirecting effort.
Of course there are enormous benefits in being able to get information out there so easily. But what about the pitfalls?
Misuse
The sheer volume of e-mails that we send and receive is the real problem. I’m sure you can think of a colleague who sends you numerous e-mails when one carefully considered message would have sufficed.
Over-communication is another issue. You are copied into mail that is really nothing to do with you. Sometimes this is to do with enabling the sender to feel that they have ‘covered themselves’ by notifying everyone they can think of.
This type of misuse does nothing to foster a sense of responsibility. E-mails are often distributed around a team when actually a quick catch-up meeting or a team tele-conference would have been more appropriate.
Misinterpretation
As a means of communication, e-mail is similar to text messaging or instant messaging. In the absence of any sense of feelings or emotions, it is easy to misinterpret the meaning behind the message.
These mails are often sent in haste, are not checked for meaning and often say things that would have been better kept to yourself. Send in haste, regret at leisure.
You are responsible for the impact of your communication. Think carefully about the message you wish to deliver and whether e-mail is in fact the right medium to use.
Deletion
The fact that a message has been sent doesn’t mean that it has been read by the person at the other end. I receive many e-mails from people without read receipts on them. I can of course choose not to send a read receipt anyway. So how do you know that the message has been received?
Partially read mail is also an issue. The receiver begins to read but decides early on that the mail does not apply to them and files or deletes the message. Is the message critical? Do you need to ensure that everyone has read it carefully? If so – is e-mail the right medium?
Security
When we send e-mail we assume our messages are secure. Unfortunately, mail can be intercepted and read by others. This is a serious concern if it is being sent outside of the company network.
You may want to think carefully about data protection principles and whether you would be happy with the message being read by an anonymous third-party.
E-mail tips
In our work to encourage firms and individuals to communicate more effectively with each other, we came up with some tried and tested e-mail tips for one group of building society managers:
Step one
Look back over the last month and review the number of e-mails you were sent. Note who they were from and what they were about.
Step two
Classify the e-mails into sender groups and subjects, for example, e-mail from your team and e-mail from regular customers or suppliers. Are the senders in your office or from outside? Are people sending you the same types of requests? Are there commonly repeated subjects?
Step three
Restrict the number of e-mails that your team are allowed to send you each day. This will encourage them to think more carefully about what they send. Set sometime aside for a weekly tele-conference to discuss issues that need to be communicated to the whole team.
Step four
Make a decision to e-mail your colleagues once a day only. Keep a record of the things you need to discuss with them through the day to allow you to send a single e-mail instead of many.
Small steps: think more carefully about the mail you send; limit the numbers of mails you receive from others; and allocate 20 minutes for a tele-conference catch-up.
Major benefits: less time wasted; better communication; and less message duplication.
Time is the only thing that you have a limited supply of – use it wisely.
Trevor Quinn-Thomas is director of The Coaching Platform.co.uk
