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Using email to criticizeNever ever criticize someone via email. Email should be used to inform or ask questions. Never use it to critique someone's work or abilities. I was doing a talk last week about Dangerous Email and one of the attendees talked about how her husband had gotten a "nasty-gram" from his boss on Friday afternoon. It ruined her husband's whole weekend until he was able to ask about it on Monday morning. It turned out that the manager had only meant it to be a mild criticism. But since the message had been written bluntly in an email message, it had crushed the employee, and made him worry about what his boss really thought of him. When you write an email, particularly one that is critical, you have no opportunity to read your employee's body language and adjust the severity of the criticism. And your employee has no opportunity, other than via email (which is too slow), to really figure out where he stands. This philosophy also applies to critiques of others who do NOT work for you. But since you usually don't hold power over them, the impact of the message is only offensive and hurtful, as opposed to frightening and cruel. So in just about any situation, you should tread VERY carefully when you feel the need to pick on someone using email. Obviously, there are situations where chiding employees via email is appropriate. But I can't think of anything. If you can't do it face to face, then at least use the phone. If you're in charge, and the only way you can critique your employees is by sending out nasty-grams, then maybe you should think about another line of work.
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