Overuse of Email -
and the Effect on Your Team
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"He's always
locked in his office sending emails."
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"I never see her face to
face."
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"I get a dozen emails from him every day but
only see him at the monthly
meeting."
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"My boss told off for asking her a question -
she said I should have put it in an email. She only
sits at the next desk."
These are comments I've heard people make about
their line managers who, in their opinion, make far too
much use of email.
But
why not? Email is cheap, quick, convenient and there is
always a permanent record of the instruction or
conversation.
We
all know that email lacks two important elements of
communication - body language and tone of voice - which
can communicate much more than the written word. As a
result, the tone of the email can sometimes be misread
and the meaning misinterpreted. But is this the only
drawback of emails?
We
fed back to one of our clients feedback from her team
that they felt she was overusing email as a way of
avoiding face-to-face communication. She admitted that a
natural shyness had meant that she felt more at ease
with email communication as it gave her a way of
"hiding" from people.
In
one-to-one coaching, she agreed to change her style. She
committed to reducing the number of emails sent to her
team and stepping out of her office and having more face
to face conversations with her people.
When we followed up with her she reported that
although the face-to-face communication took more time
than emails, the benefits more than repaid her efforts.
One thing she mentioned was that by spending more
face-to-face time with team members she was able to
pre-empt problems: her team members would open up to her
more about issues before they became significant
allowing her to make changes that would actually save
time and effort in the future.
Next time you email a member of your team, think
- could this be an opportunity for a
one-to-one?
