Cutting E-mail Down to Size

E-mailing can be a great time saver, but knowing when not to e-mail is crucial.

A man walking down the street passes a hardware store advertising a sale on chain saws. "This saw can cut 700 trees in 7 hours," proclaims the poster in the display window. Intrigued, the man checks out the deal and decides to buy one. The next day, he returns to the store, saw in hand, and asks to see the manager. "I want a refund," he demands. "This thing didn't even come close to chopping down the 700 trees your ad said it would." "Well," the manager replies, "let's test it out back." The manager finds a large log and positions it for cutting. He yanks the saw's starter cord and smiles as the device lets out a great roar. "Hey! What's that noise?" asks the customer. The E-mail Buzz The point of telling that tale: Technology's worthless unless you know how to use it. Which brings me to the bilateral boon and bane of contemporary business: e-mail. ADVANCE magazines rely on e-mail for near-instantaneous contact with the outside world -- authors, advisors, potential sources and reviewers -- as well as nonstop communication with countless internal contacts who transform our content into published form each month. Nonetheless, one can certainly get too much of a good thing. Each passing day seems to require an ever-increasing amount of time devoted to e-mail maintenance -- weeding out the good from the spam. In fact, according to leadership consultant Deborah Clifford, whose Simsbury, Conn.-based company, Inspired People, works with managers of Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, not-for-profits and small businesses, "[Research] statistics and anecdotal experience from my own clients show that when it comes to e-mail communication, the odds are in favor of being misunderstood. Yet it's standard procedure in today's business environment for people to e-mail a coworker in the next cubicle, even when they can hear [that person] settling into their chair." Do's and Don'ts Even in the virtual business world of today, Clifford emphasized that e-mail has boundaries. "Building strong relationships with others is one of the keys to workplace success," Clifford noted. She said it's fine to use e-mail for many things: eliminating telephone tag (e.g., finding mutually agreeable dates to meet); confirming meetings; sending pre- and post-meeting documents such as agendas, summaries and action items; making requests for information; forwarding articles or other important or interesting e-mail messages; providing status updates on projects; and collaborating on preparation of papers or reports. However, workers should not engage in the following all-too-common e-mail business practices: E-mailing colleagues with whom you have an issue instead of confronting them personally. The risk, Clifford noted, is that you will more than likely be misunderstood. "It is most important to allow the person with whom you have issues to respond in person so you can make sure you understand their thoughts and feelings on the issue . . . 'Hit-and-run' e-mails are unfair, unkind and disrespectful." E-mailing bad news to avoid conflict situations. Never send bad news via e-mail, Clifford stressed. "The conflict you wish to avoid will likely increase exponentially if you use e-mail to communicate the bad news. The news will very likely cause anger or disappointment, which is a sure way to guarantee that the e-mail will be copied and forwarded to multiple colleagues as the individual receiving it struggles to understand it and get support to assuage their feelings. Talk in person or, at the very least, phone the individual. Listen carefully, offer your support and be there to gauge the reaction to the news," she explained. E-mailing simply because you are "too busy." If the communication should be a dialog, then do not use e-mail -- talk. Clifford added, "The bottom line here is that if you put your time and effort into quality interactions, you will most likely get quality outcomes." Frank Irving is editor of ADVANCE for Health Information Executives. He can be reached at firving@merion.com.