More email rules
Since I've been on a tirade
lately about email, I thought I would add a few more rules to the mix.
No email between 9am and
4pm
Essentially, give people
an hour in the morning and an hour in the late afternoon to do their email.
During the day, they should be talking to people on the phone or face to
face; or doing other real work. If you reduce the time they have
to do email, you'll force them to be a little more careful about much email
they send out. For example, when I was a sales manager, I used to
get about 100 messages a day. I announced to my staff that I didn't
want to see any emails sent during the day. Without too much prodding
my volume decreased by at least 25%. I really don't think I missed
anything important except for the frequent "CYA" messages. And the
company I was at had a LOT of CYA messages. But that's another story.
No email conversations
If there are more than 2
cycles in an email exchange, stop and go talk to each other. You
obviously have a lot to talk about and email is taking too much time.
As I've said elsewhere, you don't get body language, tonal inflections
or facial expressions when you use email. If the communication is
complex (and it obviously is if you can't get everything worked out in
2 cycles), then maybe a face to face meeting is appropriate.
Bosses can't be bosses
Bosses are not allowed to
criticize, chastise or reprimand via email. If you don't have the
guts to do it in person, you don't deserve to be in management. I've
seen it written elsewhere that email allows more open and frank communications.
Sure, for the coward who can't look his or her employees in the eyes.
Reading an email at 5pm from your boss telling you that you really screwed
up can be extraordinarily crushing to that employee's morale. Particularly
if the boss went home 5 minutes ago and the poor soul has to wait until
tomorrow to find out what the problem is. Take an assertiveness course
or find something else to do. You can't hide behind the keyboard.
Bosses must limit directives
and orders
Major projects should be
assigned in person. This is all subject to your company culture and
type of business. But it's too easy to lose sight of the impact that
your instructions are having on your staff. Seeing those grimaces
across the conference table might not be the most pleasant part of being
a boss, but they provide you with feedback about the work load, type of
work and the difficulty of the task. If you don't want to deal with
those harsh realities, then maybe you should be doing something else. Use
email for follow up, detailed instructions, fine tuning, etc. But
assign work in person.
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