Email, the Avalanche of Crap, and the One Question You Should Ask Yourself Before Sending It

[WARNING: This week’s article contains swearing.?I left it in the story because I felt it was a key piece of the message.]???

Sh*t roles downhill.?I was reminded of that this past week, along with the role all of us can play in both starting and stopping it.?

I first learned the lesson at ROTC Advanced Camp in 1994, a 37-day course for want-to-be Army officers. Advanced Camp serves as the capstone for military training before senior year and commissioning.?It’s challenging and stressful, as our career choice is dependent upon our performance.?At one point late in the training, our company First Sergeant pulled me aside to have a “quiet conversation.” I was terrified, as being separated from the herd in the Army is to be easy prey for the wolves.?

The First Sergeant led me into a small office and closed the door.?I stood at the position of attention, fearing the worst.?He looked around as if others might bare witness and then put me “at ease.” After a few moments of scary silence, he began to speak, “You seem to have a brain on your shoulders, so before you go off and lead people, I need you to learn and remember this.”???

“Yes, Sergeant” was all I could muster.?

He looked me dead in the eye, his voice calm and measured.?“The Army is like one big mountain of sh*t.?Now it’s a huge mountain.?The Pentagon sits at the top, the lowly private at the bottom.?Somewhere up the mountain, an officer has an idea.?The idea is like a pebble.?A small pebble of sh*t.?Now the officer thinks it’s just a pebble, so he sends it aimlessly down the mountain.?But the mountain is tall, and its sides are steep.?The pebble picks up speed.?It runs into other pebbles, knocking them loose.?Those pebbles, in turn, gain speed and knock some rocks loose.?Those rocks in turn break loose boulders.?And by the time that singular small pebble of sh*t reaches the bottom of the mountain, it is no longer just a pebble. It is a big nasty avalanche of sh*t that completely buries the poor privates at the bottom.”?

By this point in the story, he was nose-to-nose with me, his finger pointing dead center of my chest.?In a low and measured tone for emphasis, he added, “Your job as an officer — no matter where you are on your climb up that mountain— when you see the avalanche of sh*t coming your way, is to stand up, to show some damn courage and take as much of that avalanche of sh*t as you can squarely in the chest. You must let it hit you and to absorb as much of it as you can.?If every officer in the chain of command does this, the avalanche never starts. The pebble remains a pebble, which can be easily picked up and carried by a private.”?

All of us who have ever worked for an organization of any size can relate.?We’ve all been washed over by mountains of crap.?But how many of us will own up to the pebbles we’ve kicked or avalanches we’ve let pass? More importantly, how do we stop it??

For me, it starts with empathy -- putting yourself in the shoes of the receiver. Before sending the email, text, or posting to Teams or Slack, ask yourself one critical question: Will the person or people who receive this react positively??If the answer is not “hell yes” do not send it.?If in doubt, wait it out. Find another way. Set up a meeting, set up a video chat or call.?Grab coffee.???

To truly answer the empathy question, you need to check your own mental state.?Are you upset, frustrated, worried, or stressed??Are you sending the missive in writing exactly because you are trying to get on with your night or avoid a potentially awkward face-to-face conversation??The higher your emotional state, the more likely you are to be kicking a pebble.?

We all struggle with it. Just the other night, I sent an ill-timed and poorly thought-out text to a colleague.?The voice inside my head tried to warn me, but I was worried and so I sent it.?This person is doing amazing work and building a strong team and I just “rewarded” them with a nice load of emotional crap late at night. It was just a pebble to me, but an avalanche of crap to them.?Ironically, it didn’t lessen my worry but increased it as I then stayed up worried about ruining their night. I need to be more careful about the pebbles I kick.?

An larger example also occurred last week. A supplier sent a letter to some customers explaining one of their suppliers had declared force majeure, leaving them potentially short of a key ingredient. Someone passed the pebble on and it eventually went public. While well intended (getting bad information out quickly is a good thing) and not intended for broad distribution, the letter lacked detail and failed to convey the supplier had a plan, thus sending many who read it into a panic. GreenPoint employees alone likely spent over 1000 collective hours trying to understand the situation and keep our customers calm. Multiply that across the entire supply chain and you have a well-intentioned pebble that resulted in an enormous avalanche of crap. I'm guessing the supplier would have done it differently had it thought more about the potential reaction before sending it. ?

As to the “Stand up and take it in the chest” advice from my First Sergeant, the answer is more complicated.?I am not advocating fighting everything that comes down the mountain.?As one commander reminded me, “You only get to fall on your sword once.”?I am also not saying leaders should simply carry the weight and do the work. Rather, it is far from it.?Leaders often carry too much weight as it is, trying to do too much themselves.?They fail to delegate, fail to empower their people, and then buckle under the stress of overwork while their people disengage from boredom or lack of trust.?

Your job is to (1) own the problem or the mission, and (2) be creative and collaborative in finding ways to solve the problem in a manner to benefit those under your care, or, at the very least, minimize their pain. When considering how to respond or react to something that has come down from above, you need to consider its potential impact on those below you, intended and unintended.?It’s a key part of servant leadership.?You need to anticipate their issues, gather their feedback, and find a way to achieve the goal while taking their needs into account.??

We’re all climbing the mountain, often more than one, both at work and at home. And we’re all in different stages of the climb. But no matter where we are, we need to be careful not to kick pebbles which can easily become boulders impacting others. And if we see the avalanche of crap coming our way, we need to have some courage, stand up and take as much of it as we can squarely in the chest.???

Onward!?

Jeff???

Jeff Blair is the President and CEO of GreenPoint Ag, a farmer-owned provider of plant nutrients, seed, crop protection and agronomic services across the southern US. He's a passionate student of leadership and loves sharing those lessons with others along his journey.