Catie Holdridge
It’s easy to think of email as an electronic form chatting, but to do so can be dangerous.
For instance, you may say something in email that you would never put in a letter. Yet in law they may amount to the same thing. At the very least, email has a permanence that a chance remark made over a cup of coffee never would.
Email is also easy to misinterpret, lacking the visual clues (a smile, a wink) of face-to-face conversations. And you may never know if what you write provokes a strong emotional – and potentially damaging – response.
For this reason, email is best suited for simple communications, such as:
• scheduling meetings
• updates
• easy-to-solve problems
• minutes.
It is not suitable for:
• emotive issues
• complicated issues
• criticism.
Anything that is likely to get an emotive response is best done face-to-face (difficult though that may be), or at least with a memo or letter. Why? Well just imagine you’re giving someone bad news. The last thing you want to do is provoke them to blow their top in a counter email – or even to send an angry email to other people.
Cut the clutter
Most people complain of getting too many emails. But there are ways to cut down on the number of messages you and your colleagues receive.
Here are some tips:
• Distribute each message only to people who really must see it – avoid copying to other people ‘for information’.
• Unsubscribe to e-zines and email newsletters if you never read them. (NB. Don’t do this with spam – see below.)
• Set up filters to file or delete particular types of email automatically.
• Never reply to unsolicited spam to ask to be removed from a mailing list: many unscrupulous companies use this to verify email addresses – before spamming them even more.
• Never use email for complex issues – pick up the phone instead.
• Likewise, avoid emotive topics – like appraisals or requests for a pay rise. These are far better dealt with face-to-face.
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