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Top tips from Mesmo Consultancy (and Associates) on how to save time and improve business and personal performance by ‘Taking Control of your Inbox’ and using proper business email etiquette.
Email etiquette – is it right to reprimand your future daughter in-law by email as in the latest email media disaster? In my opinion no on two accounts.
First, it was the wrong communications channel. Such messages should always be communicated by talking (whether they relate either to personal or work matters). Once you put something like this in an email and hit send you put down a marker which cannot be erased. Barriers are created and the tone of the relationship set. There is no such thing as ‘recalling’ an email because even if it was sent back the chances are the recipient read it before it was returned. This was very poor email etiquette.
Second, to me the content was rude, arrogant and dismissive. All of which creates as the media said the image of a ‘mother in-law from hell’. Is that how she wanted to be portrayed?
This underscores just how quickly and easily such emails go viral and create an email disaster. If the future mother in-law really could not bring herself to speak to her future daughter in-law an alternative would be a letter. This would not have gone viral quite so easily.
There is now a follow-up story which suggests it was all a publicity stunt to promote their business. However, this too represents appalling behaviour and creates a very unprofessional image. Furthermore such email hoaxes just drive up the email carbon footprint.
Good email etiquette is one of the keys to relationships between both individuals and businesses.
In my opinion this was the wrong use of email on all accounts. What’s your opinion?
Tags: email best practice, email etiquette, email management
Email charters can help reduce overload. Recently Chris Anderson TED curator created an email charter which has had a mixed reception see for example Lucy Kellaway in the Financial Times. There are parts of Chris’s charter I really like such as ‘short or slow is not rude’ and ‘tighten the thread’. The disparity might be due to different cultures.
Over many years we have developed an email charter which has indeed saved people many hours across Europe and the UK. For those with whom we have never had the plesure of working with, here is my Nine Ps of Email Best Practice. It was first published in Managing in the Email Office and forms the basis of my latest book Brilliant Email.
Of course to make an email charter really work assumes that those with whom you work also adopt the charter and change their email behaviour. Next week I will blog some ways we have used here at Mesmo Consultancy to help organisations change their email culture.
Meanwhile for more tips and hints how they help reduce email overload follow this weeks Tweets and make sure you sign up for our e-briefing of monthly tips and hints.
Tags: email best practice, email charter, email overload
Last week I had the honour of working with WaterAid whose mission is to provide clean water. We often stress about how much email we receive. Indeed the daily volume is around two million emails per second and an average of 70 every day per person. The more you send the more you receive.
Compare this to those who do not have access to clean water. One in eight people lack access to clean water, around 884 million people. Water related diseases kill 4,000 children every day.
For me this set today’s self-induced disease of email overload in context. The next time you are about to hit send stop and ask yourself these two questions. Why am I sending this email? How will it help the recipient do their job? For many of us it is all too easy to hit send when a little restraint will reveal that often it is our own ego which is the primary benefiary of sending the email!
Many people ask me how can they help their colleagues change their email behaviour and become more responsible, for example talking first and emailing second, minimising the number of people on the distribution list etc.
Here is a suggestion. £2 a day can provide someone with clean water for life. Set an email limit on how many times a person can email you during a day (eg five times) for a month. When people exceed the limit fine them say 20p for each email over the limit. With the total money collected to go to WaterAid you will be very suprised at just how many people you can help during the month. You will be saving yourself and your colleagues time and at the same time providing someone with clean water.
Good luck.
Email overload eats into our day and uses time which we could devote to other activities. At a networking meeting today I asked several senior business executives what they would do with an extra hour a day. Here are there responses:
What would you do with an extra hour a day? That is what you can easily save yourself if you take control of your inbox rather than letting it control you and your day!
This weeks tips have focused on how to reduce the number of rounds of email ping-pong as a way of saving time see http://twitter.com/emaildoctor
Tags: email addiction, email best practice, email overload
Brilliant email etiquette implies that we acknowledge emails within an acceptable time frame (at least those which need an answer). For those emails which you know a substantive and proper reply is needed than plan the necessary work into your work schedule. They key is to manage their expectation whilst not putting undue pressure on yourself. Decide when you can reasonably make a proper reply and let the recipient know.
Simply tell them when you will reply but don’t add a line saying ‘ is this OK’. First, this leaves the door open for the sender to change your priorities. They will soon say if it’s not OK. Second, its asking for at least another round of unnecessary email ping-pong as the sender says ‘OK’ and you feel compelled to email back again.
Once you’ve acknowledged the email and planned when to deal with it make sure you keep track of the actions you need to take and also the email itself. You gaol should be to handle each email once and not have to keep looking for those ones which still need attention.
Implement a process which enable you to find it easily. For example, file it, place it in a pending folder or create a task from it. Choose a way which suites your way of working and managing your day.
Tags: email best practice, email etiquette, email overload