“Pick up the danged phone!”
– admonishment from one of my mentors
Full disclosure: I fully understand and appreciate that this blog about “e-mail as Satan’s spawn” is being delivered by e-mail to regular subscribers. Irony. Yep…
E-mail is Satan’s spawn. At least when it takes the place of voice-on-voice or, better yet, face-to-face communication.
A few years back, I was checking in at a remote office location. As I walked among the team, one guy was instant-messaging a teammate in the cubicle next to him. I wasn’t creeping him, looking over his shoulder, either! I said, “Hey, Rob, what’re you up to today?” He said, “Just IM-ing Daniel…”
It would be difficult to function without electronic communication. That said, e-mail has been the second-biggest time suck of my career, even though I admittedly sometimes fall into its trap despite my best intentions!
Here’s one fix: Use the subject line as the message.
“Action: Please call Paula by noon tomorrow…” followed by two or three bullet points in the body of the message. “Tell her thank you for the business. Remind her about the customer reception on Friday. Ask her for any feedback she has on our engagement.”
“Awareness: My report will be delayed until noon tomorrow…” followed by a reason (or, in this case, excuse…) “My flight was delayed and my laptop battery died” or “my dog has the flu,” or “I’m dopey and didn’t prioritize it well enough…”
“Preparation Required: Please read this report and come prepared to challenge the concept…” A great way to frame a meeting agenda, and if no one needs to prepare for the meeting, cancel the “steenking meeting,” lest we get on the subject of the biggest time suck of my career; meetings with no meaning.
“As You Requested: The answers to your three questions from this morning…”
And so on…
When we use the subject line as 80% of the message 80% of the time, we’ll have ample opportunity to focus on how to fix the whole “meetings with no meaning” problem.
A great topic for tomorrow…
Kelly Betts says
This is something you taught me very early on in our time together. If we could get everyone accustomed to treating subject lines in this manner the workplace could run so much more efficiently. Make it a habit!
Steve Heston says
Heck, I learned more from you than I ever taught! Thanks for joining the conversation. Most of our challenges have pretty simple solutions. This one, and the one featured in tomorrow’s post have been “Top 5” for me, for sure. You’re a Difference Maker! Thanks!