Email Wrangling: Tips from 2012

For those that have known me for some time, you would have noticed that I tend to format my emails in a particular way. Just recently one of my connections shared a HBR article (from 2016) about creating precision emails.

It reminded me of some material I blogged about back in February 2012. So I thought I would dust it off and see if it still made sense today. :)

Of course, these days we have multiple channels with which we can broadcast / narrowcast information, but it seems that we still cannot get away from the humble electronic mail. The problem of course is that our poor old biological systems are not really wired to process information without context. This is fine for works of fiction, where your imagination can build the framework within which a story is told (and why the movie is “never as good as the book”), but can be terrible when trying to process communication in email!

Language is a funny thing: Speaking is only part of the series of messages that we are processing. We’re also hearing the tone of voice and body language. In an email, we don’t have access to these contextual elements: Our brains use our own context to fill in the gaps – sometimes, we misinterpret the language because we cannot see the body language or hear the tone of voice.

... And that’s how flamewars begin.

So, I hope some of my old tips from 2012 are useful to us today:

General Tips

Here are some other general tips you may also find useful:

1. Write your email in reverse order: When writing emails; especially more formal ones including important updates or information, I have found that I tend to draft, review and correct a few times before sending. By writing your content first, then your subject and finally the addressees, it forces you to consider carefully an appropriate subject line and who the recipients will be. I encourage you to try this approach a few times for yourself. It's not a hard and fast rule, but I personally find it effective in ensuring my messages are appropriate and informative.
2. Treat others as you would want yourself to be treated. Value your recipients time. Mutual respect goes a long way to changing email behaviour for the better. 
3. Sometimes it can be easier and less distracting to actually turn your email off for blocks of time. Depending on your role, this may not always be an option but it is the best way to remove the risk of distraction from the current task.
4. NEVER say anything in an email that you would not feel comfortable saying to the recipient in person. Be respectful and professional.
5. BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) has its place for things like mass-mail outs. I have also seen it used to inform technical staff of customer correspondence (though I prefer an [FYI] / NNTR combo myself). BCC is also very dangerous. Never place anything in a BCC email that you would not be comfortable being read by other parties. 

Email Charter (https://emailcharter.org/)

If your Inbox is out of control, one of the best places to start is by reading the email charter. If we improve our own habits, we can encourage others to do the same. The Email Charter is simple and easy to follow, and a great place to start.

Subject Says it all:

[ACTION] Summary - Help your readers by giving clear and concise subject lines. This allows the reader to classify and prioritise their emails. Treat everyone's time as a precious commodity and respect it. There is nothing worse than sifting through fifty "RE: " mails only to discover only one was relevant to you. Here are some examples:

[FYI ONLY] Customer XYZ - Agreed Meeting Outcomes

In this example, you are giving a clear indicator to the recipient that this is for their information only and that no actions are required on their part. They can safely read though the content at a later time, and deal with higher priority tasks. You could also simply use [FYI].

[RESPONSE REQ'D] Customer XYZ - Questions regarding planned site visit agenda

The sender is asking the recipient for a response to the questions the customer has regarding their visit. In this example the recipient knows that they have to respond to the sender.

[ACTION REQ'D] Prepare Meeting Agenda for Customer XYZ visit

Rather than just a response, the sender is expecting a task to be performed

[RESPONSE] RE: Customer XYZ - Questions regarding planned site visit agenda

The sender of this message is responding to a request from the recipient

NNTR - No Need To Respond: Putting this in the subject or body of the email tells the recipient that they do not have to send a reply.

<eom> - End of Message: Putting this on the subject line tells the recipient that there is no content to the message, that the subject line has all the content. An example may be "[FYI] Sick, will not be in today. <eom>"

Sucked into the Vortex: The CC Black hole.

CC'ing other mail recipients can be a useful tool, but care must be given. CC works just like gravity: the more people are Carbon-Copied, the more likelihood that more and more people will be drawn into it. This can be very dangerous.

I once worked with a person that had a bad habit of mailing everyone about the smallest of problems. This person did this one particular morning to another person in the team. It related to a very minor issue that could be resolved in less than half an hour. Over the day a procession of different departmental managers visited, called or emailed this person to see "what's going on?". The person then had to tell each manager that everything was fine and that the issue was resolved.

Nothing cripples productivity like Carbon-Copy. If no care is taken, as in the example above, the sender can effectively waste the time of many individuals. For a business, the monetary loss of time can add up very quickly. If you find yourself in this situation and you are the addressee, some of the following may help to refocus the conversation and to prevent other people from wasting their time:

The above is gently telling the people included in the list that action has been taken and that there is a plan to achieve the desired outcome. You are also telling everyone how updates on the outcome will be provided to relevant people and giving the option to contact you directly if necessary. Sometimes, it may be necessary to be more direct and state that the email is dealing with the details of a particular issue and so should continue directly with person X and Y. Remember:

1. State clearly the current status of the work and who is involved.
2. State clearly that an update will be provided, and to whom once the work is concluded. 
3. Provide the option for further discussion via one-on-one.
4. The most important thing to remember is to be in control of the situation. There is nothing as unsettling as the feeling that something is out of control. As a manager, if something appears at risk or uncertain, your desire for information will lead you to contact the relevant people. If this occurs as a side-effect of a CC singularity, it can result in micromanagement, redundancy and time wasted.

Stay On Target! Multiple "In Trays"

As much as humans (and in particular my lovely wife) don't want to admit it, we're not actually good at multitasking. Chopping and changing (Context Switching) from one task to another can have massive effects on one's productivity. In order to be productive, we require focus. For most of us, a new email in our inbox can prove quite distracting. 

I was once given some very wise advice: If one particular area is bombarding you with a constant stream of emails, redirect these emails into another folder that you check once or twice a day. 

The rationale behind this approach is to provide focus on these tasks as a single block of work, thereby reducing the time required to switch from one task to another thereby improving productivity.

Of course, this is not a hard and fast rule. If something requires your urgent attention, you should provide a little flexibility (if everything ends up being urgent, then that's another discussion…) ;-)

In my situation, I move particular types of email into separate folders/labels skipping the Inbox. I then have a regular time blocked to review these mails. As part of my review, I classify, prioritise and respond. This method, gives you certainty around the planning of your day, the time to deal with the correspondence that you need to, and removes the distraction of unread mail in your inbox.

Formatting

Formatting alone may not provide clear intention. If you are quoting something, or a verbatim copy of what you have been sent, either "quote" and attribute:

Bill said "This is a great idea";

Or, if you are copying pasting from another source consider using one of these:

1. COPY OF INVITATION FOLLOWS:
2. TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:

It's very hard to provide intended meaning in an email unless it is quite clearly spelled out. We have to be far more explicit and verbose in what we say in email because we don't have inflection, body language and sometimes: Lack of formatting!

And remember: If all else fails. give the gift of a smiley! 

:-)