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Wednesday 22 February 2012 17:12 GMT
I had an interesting conversation last week with a management consultant in the UK about email. We started musing, as everyone tends to do, on the evils of email as a communication medium. It’s actually not difficult to build up a list of complaints: yes, we get too many emails, especially those CC’d messages sent to us totally unnecessarily. Most are poorly written, irritate us and waste our time as we try to clarify what the writer actually wants, or we have to explain that the writer shouldn't be asking for that in the first place. And then there’s the insane manager who mails people at four o’clock in the morning, and during the weekend, putting pressure on staff to sacrifice their work-life balance for the corporate good.
There’s actually something quite satisfying about complaining about the failings of others. But then it struck me – well, what are other people saying about my emails? What do our emails really say about us? Do they represent us well? Do they compromise our reputation? Actually, do we ever take time to think about our emailing practice?
Think about what you write and why you write. Is it essentially informational, task-based and, in reality, pretty self-oriented - you send when you need something? And when asking for information, which influencing strategies do you typically use to encourage people to provide the data: is it simply an implicit appeal to professionalism, a use of logical explanation, an emotional appeal, a threat of sanction, or the building of a new relationship? How often do you spontaneously email to offer support or to enquire about someone’s well-being?
How effective are your emails? Do you ever analyse the replies that come back? How many times do you get what you want first time? How many requests for clarification do you get? How many refusals? How often do you get no response and have to re-send the email? And what does that actually mean? Are you confusing, irritating, pressuring or simply using the wrong channel? When was the last time you sat down and analysed an email trail and took a critical look at what you wrote? And a final question, how much time of your own and others’ time have you wasted by not doing so.
Of course, I’m asking lots of questions with the horrible realisation that I have never actually sat down and reflected about my own email practice in any systematic way which has led to a significant improvement in the way I do things. And I am pretty sure my colleagues haven’t. Have you? Do you? Does anyone?
If you have any tips and tricks for email writing, send your ideas to bob.dignen@york-associates.co.uk. We'll select and publish the top ten tips, with a free copy of our very own Communicating internationally in English going to the person offering the top tip!
I had an interesting conversation last week with a management consultant in the UK about email. We started musing, as everyone tends to do, on the evils of email as a communication medium. It’s actually not difficult to build up a list of complaints: yes, we get too many emails, especially those CC’d messages sent to us totally unnecessarily. Most are poorly written, irritate us and waste our time as we try to clarify what the writer actually wants, or we have to explain that the writer shouldn't be asking for that in the first place. And then there’s the insane manager who mails people at four o’clock in the morning, and during the weekend, putting pressure on staff to sacrifice their work-life balance for the corporate good.
There’s actually something quite satisfying about complaining about the failings of others. But then it struck me – well, what are other people saying about my emails? What do our emails really say about us? Do they represent us well? Do they compromise our reputation? Actually, do we ever take time to think about our emailing practice?
Think about what you write and why you write. Is it essentially informational, task-based and, in reality, pretty self-oriented - you send when you need something? And when asking for information, which influencing strategies do you typically use to encourage people to provide the data: is it simply an implicit appeal to professionalism, a use of logical explanation, an emotional appeal, a threat of sanction, or the building of a new relationship? How often do you spontaneously email to offer support or to enquire about someone’s well-being?
How effective are your emails? Do you ever analyse the replies that come back? How many times do you get what you want first time? How many requests for clarification do you get? How many refusals? How often do you get no response and have to re-send the email? And what does that actually mean? Are you confusing, irritating, pressuring or simply using the wrong channel? When was the last time you sat down and analysed an email trail and took a critical look at what you wrote? And a final question, how much time of your own and others’ time have you wasted by not doing so.
Of course, I’m asking lots of questions with the horrible realisation that I have never actually sat down and reflected about my own email practice in any systematic way which has led to a significant improvement in the way I do things. And I am pretty sure my colleagues haven’t. Have you? Do you? Does anyone?
If you have any tips and tricks for email writing, send your ideas to bob.dignen@york-associates.co.uk. We'll select and publish the top ten tips, with a free copy of our very own Communicating internationally in English going to the person offering the top tip!
