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By Laura Ricci To protect the guilty, I won't say where this advice came from, but it was published in a well respected magazine. In my opinion, advice like this gets organizations in trouble. Same kind of trouble some businesses found themselves when Voicemail first came on the market. Remember the firms who promptly fired their receptionist? They shuttled every call into Voicemail. Most offered little guidance. Unless you knew the extension of the person you were calling, you were doomed to an interminable wait in Voicemail hell.There was no way to get to a "real person" if you didn't fit into one of the options offered. The competition ate these firms for lunch. They knew it was a bad idea to use voicemail as a barrier to your customers. Customers go where they get what they need. Some firms discovered this too late. (c)2005 Laura Ricci Now there is a vaccum of knowledge about E-mail as a new tool. That vaccum brought out at least one consultant to espouse principles that, in my opinion, are damaging. Here are the "Dinosaur recommendations" from this particular consultant, and my explanation as to why you'll face extinction if adopted: Discourage E-mail traffic - "Proper etiquette also extends to his family, who should be discouraged from sending E-mail that's not appropriate or urgent.…reduce the volume of inessential daily E-mail. There is no more efficient way for communication to be transmitted than by E-mail. Since E-mail can be more quickly dispatched than personal visits, more completely answered than Voicemail, and more inexpensively replied than postal mail, why would you discourage it's use? If you purge the Human Moment from your E-mail traffic you buy yourself a much larger problem! Train your secretaries to screen and triage your E-mail. They can be taught to forward some mail to the appropriate person and to inform the sender politely to send the message elsewhere; this will help to train others on appropriate E-mail use and will help them realize that Steve should not be bothered with problems best handled by others. Instead, this will train everyone that Steve does not want to be bothered. The only way you'll have a relationship with Steve is to hang out at his office. You don't dare tread off the "strictly business" path in an e-mail, because the secretaries are reading everything. Very chilling atmosphere. The secretaries should also be taught to prioritize messages and to print out and hand deliver urgent and important missives. Few secretaries have the confidence to prioritize messages they don't fully understand. Steve will end up with most messages printed out and now instead of hitting the delete key he gets to lug the paper around until he can wade through it and then hit the wastebasket with the discards. But then again, if he is a senior executive or working for a firm getting ready for an IPO, he must seek out a paper shredder, or carry the wad back to his office for shredding. Convenient, no? (c)2005 Laura Ricci If his secretaries cannot provide sufficient assistance to triage his messages, then he needs higher level staff support. This person may be a well-qualified assistant or someone at Steve's level who can take on some of his workload. First, who has secretaries? Second, hire someone "at Steve's level"? There are no clones. Making these distinctions for an executive would take years of experience. The consultant suggests that if the secretary/assistant/peer can't do it, there is something wrong with them. Steve should limit the times at which he reads his E-mail. The first thing I agree with. E-mail allows you to be asynchronous. You can work with a team around the globe because it doesn't matter that it is 2 a.m. in London when you answer the E-mail. They will get your response in a few hours when they get into the office. The luxury of being able to set aside specific times for activities because you don't have to be available to answer the phone or attend meetings is magical. But you must master the medium by not opening the In box and letting it take over your workday. Make it clear to others that E-mail may not always be the best means of communicating with him. People will learn quickly not to send messages to Steve if he's not likely to respond. The consultant is correct. And if Steve wants to be out of touch with what is going on, this tactic will definitely get him there. If Steve wants to have folks start calling and stopping by instead of sending a quick note, this will do the trick! But wasn't the question how to get more done in less time? Nothing signals a desire to reduce communication better than a lack of response, or a delayed response, from one of the parties. Responses provoke messages. This is absolutely true. (And wasn't said by the Consultant I've been lambasting.) When folks send messages you want to discourage, slowing down your reaction time will discourage future messages. Another addressee will reply, or the sender will send a note to another person one level lower in the organization. When they get a response, they'll know who to query next time. No need for bloodshed, or missives to the misguided. |
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