Email Etiquette

It's been a while since my last corporate stint, but I still shudder when I remember the sheer number of emails that would bombard my inbox every day. From time to time, I would use a day or two of my holidays just wading through the mess, and bring it down to ( what I considered ) an acceptable number of unread emails.

But to no avail, the very next day when I was back in office and flitting seamlessly from meeting to meeting there would be a small mountain of emails quickly piling up in my absence. A week, and all the hard work would come to naught and I would once again have 1000+ unread emails in my inbox.

A familiar story ? Right.....

Last week I was running a 2 day training program for employees of an ISP on Zoom and while the content covered topics like empathy, conflict management and executive presence one of the participants asked me if I could say something on emails.

So during the lunch break of the second day I opened a blank slide and typed out the slide you see above. This slide summed up the Do's and Don'ts as I see it.

When sharing it with the participants, I told them a lot of anecdotes to illustrate the many bullet points, which is not possible to do in a short article that I am attempting to write.

So let me pick up just a few to mention here. The 1st thing to remember is that email is rarely the most appropriate means of communicating with other people. Speaking face to face or over the phone beats it hands down and is rarely misunderstood as much as the written word. Which is why I advocate that one writes as you speak : use simple words and short sentences and keep the whole missive short and to the point. If you have multiple points, your audience will overlook most of them anyway and only take home what is convenient.

Next, make your subject line catchy. It should appeal to your audience and arouse their curiosity, drawing them in to read it. Too often the subject is inconspicuous and marking it important doesn't really make much of a difference. You will be surprised how little most people care about what you consider important.

Moving over to the Don't side of the slide; the most important one is to only include those in cc who need to do something in response to your email. To often I have read through long and rambling emails covering acres of ground only to be left wondering in the end why on earth did the writer copy me. Senior leadership forms impressions about you based on the personal interactions they have with you, not by reading your (often ) boring emails. Spare them the torture, and they will think better of you !

The reason why I advocate the spoken word over writing is that what we write often gets misconstrued. Most email wars begin with a misunderstanding, with the one who considers himself or herself slighted shooting of a caustic reply. Reading it may make your blood boil, but do not reciprocate in kind. Instead walk across to the other person and sort out the misunderstanding. It will save plenty of time in the long run and will not spoil relationships. I have experienced that people are more willing to forgive and forget angry words spoken in the heat of the moment rather than the harsh written word which tend sear their very soul leaving them bitter enemies for life.

Go through these simple pointers again, and memorise them if you must. Stick with the Do's and watch out for the Don'ts and you should be fine.

P.S. > And do read through what you write once before you hit send. I have a typo in point 5, which I just noticed today. Good luck !!!!