Is email ruining your communications?

Welcome back to my latest newsletter, thank you so much for subscribing, it's great to see so many people onboard.

A welcome trip to London…

This week I’ve been lucky enough to pop down to London for two days. Like most trips, I try to mix a little business with some pleasure, and this time I was able to go and see one of my guitar heroes at the Royal Albert Hall, David Gilmour. What a show – it certainly didn’t disappoint! As some of you (of a certain age it seems) may understand, I’ve been super excited about this gig for a while – but what’s been really interesting is just how many people don’t even know who I’m talking about!

Anyway, enough of being old... while I was down in London, I managed to get some time with the wonderful Matt Gibbs who’s recently joined Comma Partners … It was great to meet up with Matt again, I can’t tell you how long it’s actually been since we last caught up – but it was great to talk all things communication and see how the market is now starting to pick up. Thanks for your time Matt – and let’s not leave it too long until our next meet up!

Is email ruining your communications?

Last week, I was in discussions with an organisation who were really struggling with the amount of email traffic that their teams received each day. This was an organisation that didn’t just have a central office, it also had many smaller hubs where time was tight, and people were busy. ?

I’d love to say this is uncommon, but it’s not…

While email is still a necessity (although this is starting to change for some), organisations still seem to over rely on email to share key information…

While it does have a place, it’s really dangerous to rely on email to ‘catch all’ and share key messages. People are struggling to keep up, and many choose to ignore and end up missing key information…

So how can you control email in your organisation? Here are a few thoughts...?

Create rules through listening:

We all love a rule don’t we? But by listening to when people want to receive email and work around them and create something that actually works for people.

I’ve found this works really well in organisations (especially those with operational teams), as everyone is clear on when you can (and can't) send messages.

This will vary from each organisation, but can be really useful so those who don’t spend their life in front of a computer know when emails are going to arrive.

Consolidate:

I’ve seen far too many organisations allowing emails to be sent out to everyone by anyone, at any time of the day (or night!). In my opinion, this is such a bad idea and needs to be stopped as soon as possible.

By consolidating key messages you can create one slightly larger bulletin or newsletter that includes everything that people need to know in one email…

This needs to be managed carefully (and notice how I stress the need to know bit). Some of this stuff, is just nice to know information that could be shared via another communication tool.

On this, don’t be afraid to challenge what needs to go out to people, sometimes the right decision is to reduce what’s being sent so people are not overwhelmed by the sheer number of messages and information they need to absorb (and is maybe something we’ll come back to in another newsletter).

Use other ways of communicating:

Do you really need to send an email?

This could turn into a bigger point here (and actually ties in nicely with my last newsletter on communication tools), try to think about how you can use other ways to share your message. I’m going to focus on sending an individual email, rather than a message to everyone in the organisation...

Dare to be different! Can you have a chat with someone, walk to someone’s desk, or drop them a text?

There are loads of ways to share your message or ask your question. Creating a personal link with someone will really help any future conversations and interactions that you may have. One of my old bosses called it ‘floorboards, not keyboards’ – they were right, I loved getting up and walking over to someone’s desk to get an answer to something rather than sending another email that would get lost.

While many people work in different locations, this doesn’t mean that email is always the answer. Where possible, build and create a relationship with someone (along with asking your question or getting your point across) Go on, do something crazy – pick up the phone!

A few watch outs:

You don’t need to cover your ass!

• Ah, the joy of the CC (or worse still BCC!), I get it, you want everyone to know about your thoughts or what you’ve done – but do you really need to tell everyone that you’ve completed that bit of work? If you can, try to reduce the number of names you are including in the email down rather than adding to it… ?

We all love to say thank you – but don’t feel you need to!

• Everyone loves a thank you email, but… A study by OVO (albeit back in 2019 so it’s a bit out of date) cited that if “every Brit sent one less thank you email a day, we’d save 16,433 tonnes of carbon a year – the same as 81,152 flights to Madrid” – ouch!

Final thought: is this about culture? ?

Ultimately, I believe that email is driven by the culture within the organisation… I also think it’s a historical thing. I’m really excited by organisations who are moving away from a reliance on email and thinking differently about how they communicate and share information with their teams. While it’s easier said than done, by focusing on small steps to reduce email traffic, organisations will see the benefits of getting more done and helping to reduce the mailbox overwhelm.

In other news: Time to renew your spark? ?

Over the last 20 years I’ve been lucky enough to work with so many different organisations, helping to build and develop internal communication strategies, lead on change programmes, M&A activity and create events that sparkle.

In the final quarter of the year, I’m launching a brand new product to help internal communication teams realise the potential that they have.

It’s called renew your spark and is a chance to press the pause button, create some time to think and review of current activities, plans and strategies (and also looks at communication tools too!).

If you'd like to know more about renew your spark (or any of my other programmes), please do get in touch.

Want to know more?

It’d be great to connect again! Maybe you’ve got a question or an idea, either way… let me know! ?

Link to my website: www.sparkconsultants.co.uk

My LinkedIn profile: David Barber

Thanks, and speak soon

Dave