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Image: Illustration: Freepik
Early on in my career, I was focused on being efficient. I wanted to be productive. I wanted to make an impact. And I thought I had mastered the email game in corporate America. Respond quickly; copy in your boss and others so they know what you’re doing; hold onto emails for documentation and forward them when people get confused.
“You send too many emails,” my boss said, exasperated, in one of our performance reviews. “From the feedback from your peers, you email a lot. And it’s overwhelming the teams.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be emailing each other?” I asked, confused.
“You’re supposed to be communicating. Not everything needs to be an email.”
My boss was right. Somewhere along the way, I embraced email, became obsessed with email, and treated email like it was my job to email, rather than realising that email was simply a tool to help me do my job better.
Years later, I’m now sure my coworkers used to dread seeing my name in their inboxes. Over time, they likely just glossed over my name, filing it away in a folder they would never open again.
So if you suspect your coworkers might be consistently eye-rolling when your email hits their inboxes, here are three ways to course-correct this behaviour.
Early on in my career, I was anxious about inconveniencing colleagues in person. I didn’t want to take up or waste their time. I defaulted to email as my primary form of communication—but didn’t realise that by sending so many emails, I was inconveniencing them (and damaging my reputation as a manager in the workplace).
I encourage all of us to pause and ask, “Do I really need to send this email?” I’ve been guilty of wanting to empty my inbox, to just get that response or task or request into someone else’s inbox as quickly as possible. If you feel similarly tempted, ask yourself if you can:
By skipping that email, you are strengthening the way you communicate with your peers. When you can touch base in person, or over video or audio, also make sure you are efficient and brief.
Recently, I opened my inbox to find more than 50 responses to a reply-all chain that had spiralled out of control. I scrolled through the “congrats”, “great news” and “well deserved”, and “amazing work” and on and on, waiting for a breakthrough response or something I might need to know. I deleted it after the 20th message. I didn’t need to read the rest of the responses.
It can be easy to reply to all and pile onto the email chain gone wild. So step away from the keyboard. Instead, ask:
Remember, every email we send is adding to other people’s inboxes, and in turn, we can expect emails back. So if you want to manage the flow of email, send fewer emails.
Many organisations still rely on email as a primary form of communication. When you do need to send one, make sure it’s concise and appropriate
I’ve been guilty of emailing at midnight. I wanted to get through a project, working fast and furiously and firing off emails to get what I needed done. I never stopped to think about how it would make my coworkers feel to see a barrage of messages from me if they happened to be up that late at night. What I was doing wasn’t urgent and worthy of midnight emails: I was just selling lots and lots of consumer products. By consistently acting like everything was urgent, when I really did need my coworkers’ help, it was even harder to get them to respond.
Understanding how we can better work with our coworkers starts with how we communicate. Remember to skip that email when you can and have a quick conversation. Don’t add “reply all” to the email madness. And if you must, just wait to send it. Unless it’s a real-life emergency, that late-night note can wait.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mita Mallick is a workplace strategist and the author of The Devil Emails at Midnight: What Good Leaders Can Learn from Bad Bosses.
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