A Workplace Without Email

Posted on April 18, 2012 in Consulting

Electronic mail is a remarkable tool unfortunately often misused in the workplace. While it is terrific for setting appointments and exchange of documents, it is a poor choice for many other workplace communications.  Valuable lessons can be discovered in how email should be limited to its best usage and discouraged where it is problematic by pausing to think how the modern workplace would be superior without email.

People would talk to each other if email was unavailable.

Consider this common scenario that highlights the problem of email in the workplace.  A supervisor who dislikes confrontation mistakenly thinks that he can avoid a potentially difficult conversation with an employee by sending an email that attempts to address the issue. The employee misconstrues the meaning of the email because context and tone are impossible to convey in email.  The situation turns nasty as the employee and boss battle in a never ending exchange of email.  Each tries to explain the tone and meaning of the email rather than sit and discuss the problem.  Neither side wants to stop the email exchange believing that the winner of an email battle is the last to click “send.”   

The lesson is simple: the email exchange that started as a means of avoiding face to face dialogue can be more time consuming and distracting than setting time aside for a meeting.  A face to face communication – followed with a memorandum signed by employer and employee — delivers the true message and provides for meaningful discussion. 

The take away is that important communications should be delivered in person and confirmed, where necessary, in writing. 

Colleagues would be more careful with their written words if email did not exist.

Many people appear to have an incurable need to respond quickly to email. Fast as a substitute for careful, deliberate thought leads to bad things. Quick replies are rarely responsive to the question presented. Speedy responses sometimes promote careless choice of words and sloppy writing. Poor writing, such as bad grammar and bad spelling, reflects negatively on the writer whether the audience is a colleague, vendor or customer. 

An easy fix to the need for speed (with email) is to acknowledge receipt of an email, if confirmation is needed, and commit to a reasonable deadline for a full, carefully thoughtful response.  Saving an email as a draft and reviewing it after time to reflect can be very useful as well.  This technique also helps avoid angry emails sent in hasty response.

Email is also not the best vehicle for communicating detailed or lengthy responses.  Employees should try avoiding long email by either talking through the matter with the intended recipient or drafting a memo.  The formality of a memo enhances the writer’s attention to detail and fosters careful thought. 

Most obviously, email should be used with great caution when the subject is a sensitive matter regarding employee issues.  Employers should train managers to keep email to human resource professionals to a minimum and to state facts and not opinions when addressing discipline and termination issues.  Many of the most damaging evidence in wrongful termination and discrimination suits comes for email that may have been sent with innocent intentions but conveys an unclear meaning or opinion that later is turned as evidence in litigation. 

Employees could focus on their work if email did not dominate the workplace.

I have always wondered how much time is lost flip flopping between working on a project and checking email. I suffer from this problem.  My focus is lost when I am waiting for an important email and simultaneously trying to work on a project.  

In a prior newsletter, I recommended the book The Power of Full Engagement.  The authors discuss how email has the impact of distracting people from producing their best quality work.  The writers tell an antidote from Robert Iger, Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company, about how he tries to avoid email whenever he focuses on getting work done.

 I have since adopted the routine of turning off my monitor while on phone calls to circumvent inevitable distractions.  I turned off the alerts for arriving email to stop the desire to check every email as soon as it arrives.  Instead, I try and read email at set times throughout the day. 

I hope you found this blog helpful and encourage you to share it with others.  I welcome your thoughts and feedback on this topic or any other topic you would like to see me write about.


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