How to Kill Internal Emails

About a year ago, I was sitting at a table getting ready for a lunch meeting.  I had a client coming to meet me, and as I was waiting I went through my email on my phone and did my best to get to a zero inbox.

I left the meeting and got back to my office about an hour and a half later, only to find that I had about 40 emails from people at my office.  At first glance I was thinking, did something blow up? Is there some urgent issue?

Well, in this case, it was a critical “reply-all” situation regarding an upcoming company party and potluck and I had the same look as that cat in the photo.  (For the reference, I really dislike potlucks of any type – and I especially dislike emails about potlucks).

I would love to think I’m alone in this battle of email, but I know I’m not.  When I mention “internal email” to any business leader, they give me a stressed out expression as if they’re looking at their inbox already. This is one of the reasons we had to find a different way to work internally, to find another way to communicate.

By 2018, it’s expected that businesses will be sending and receiving 139 billion emails. In 2016, each of us is expected to receive an average of 131 emails a day, with roughly 80 of those emails being legitimate messages that require a response.

The interesting part about this research is that it reveals the systemic problem with email. Although we receive 80 emails a day requiring a response, we only actually send about 40 emails a day.  Even if some of our emails don’t actually require a response, we’re still going into debt on email every day.

Fast forward to today.  It’s a Monday, which tends to be a busy email day for me, and I’ve only received seven internal emails. You may be wondering how this is possible. We’ve done this by implementing new tools that become our “email alternative” for internal communication.

The tool that has helped the most in email reduction has been Slack, but it didn’t work at first.  We first tried to roll out Slack a few months after it came out but had no luck.  We got pushback from our team who didn’t want to have to check yet another app, or just no interest.

So, to give you some practical advice, here’s how we successfully rolled out an internal email alternative:

1. It has to start from the top: the only way to successfully roll out any tool to replace the way you communicate internally is for all the top leaders to be on board.  You have to remember you’re not just switching technology tools, but you’re asking your team to make a cultural change in many regards.  Everyone at the top have to be the biggest advocates for changing the way you operate and communicate.
2. Give it two weeks: At our monthly company meeting we gave a brief demo of the tool, but there was not a whole lot of excitement. I asked our team to give it two solid weeks of use, and if they hated it we would kill it.  Within days our team loved the change and never looked back.
3. Give updates: Give updates on how much use your tool is getting.  This past week we had 3,937 messages for one week among just fewer than 40 people (which can also be seen as emails successfully dodged).
4. Make it a resource: We’ve made Slack our main internal communication tool, which means announcements, document releases, and even our leadership development all live in Slack.  Further, it’s driven up our collaboration substantially.  Now anyone that is stuck, or needs some historical knowledge just posts it, and within minutes there’s generally a helpful response.
5. Make it personal and fun: One of the things I love most about moving away from email is how much more likely people are to post something personal, or an update on a tough personal situation.  We’ve dedicated areas for our team to post things that they want to keep everyone in the know on, and seeing the company wide support is awesome.  And, of course, we have an area for funny (appropriate) videos, links and photos.

Let’s keep in mind, email isn’t going anywhere. It’s a staple of our everyday business tools. So, let’s make communication fun and effective. Don’t be afraid of email anymore but discover the value of collaborating outside of the inbox.

David Darmstandler is CEO of Datapath, an IT services company with headquarters in Modesto. You can reach him at [email protected]