Email - What is it Good For?

Email is pervasive!  I generally receive 50-100 emails per day, without factoring in spam.  When used well, email is a marvelous tool that facilitates communication that allows us to be in touch with many, many people in an easy, inexpensive way that moves information virtually instantly.  I even do some of my coaching with clients via email.   

But email can also be a source of MIS-communication.  The ultimate irony is that email is supposed to improve communication, but is sometimes used instead to avoid or obscure communication. 

I have had many conversations with both executive coaching clients and life coaching clients about this topic, and have had several requests to write an article on the subject.  Here are some guidelines distilled from the collective wisdom of these conversations. 

What email is good for:

1. Communicating non-emotional information.
2. Answering a question.
3. Attaching information, such as files, photos, etc. that can be reviewed at the leisure of the recipient.
4. Staying in touch with folks who are geographically distant in an inexpensive, chatty way.
5. Sharing information or thoughts with lots of people at once (groups).  Take Building Blocks, for example.
6. Getting information to others quickly (vs. mail).
7. Gives you a chance to plan your thoughts, perhaps express yourself better in writing.
8. Closing the gap between time zones – you can write and reply 24/7 without disturbing the recipient.
9. If carefully constructed, can diffuse a very emotional situation.
10. Time efficient way to manage communicating information.
11. Inclusiveness – easy to include everyone.

What email is NOT good for: 

1. “Hit and Run” communication – where you use email because it can be sent without hearing the recipient’s response, or allowing for dialogue.  Using email for blame, taking a shot, expressing anger or other volatile emotions is not a good idea.
2. When it’s used as a means to avoid conversation, dialogue and resolution. 
3. Public blaming/shaming.  This is a foul!  The person(s) blamed may not even know about the email, and is condemned by it without the opportunity for real-time explanation or defense.  “cc’ing the world” is an especially blatant offense.
4. When it’s used as a time efficient way to manage communication of emotion  without listening to the recipient.  It says “this is how much of my time you or this issue merits,” and it is very discounting.
5. Communicating information or questions that will take the recipient much longer to respond to than a quick conversation would (for instance, setting up a meeting where it might take 10 emails to find a date and a conversation could handle the question in less than a minute).
6. Communicating about a highly charged emotional topic.  There is too much room for misunderstanding, not being able to hear inflection, ask questions, clarify.  This kind of email can in fact be very damaging.
7. Acknowledgement that would be much more meaningful if done in person or over the phone.
8. “Howlers,” ala Harry Potter.

Etiquette >

1.   Not everyone has or uses the same tools – emoticons, bold, italic, etc.  If you follow the rules above, it shouldn’t be an issue.  Many of us use capitals for emphasis, which could be the email equivalent of yelling if it were an emotionally charged topic – so be careful to qualify statements that might be viewed as inflammatory.
2.   If you’re included in an email you don’t want, just take the 1 second needed to delete it.   Give the sender the benefit of the doubt.  Yes, spam is an annoyance, but most ISP’s and email programs  have spam filters and it’s just not worth getting worked up over.  Many people may include you in a group email because they don’t want you to feel excluded. 
3. 3.  Don’t send huge files without asking first.  Some folks are still on dial-up, which means it can tie their computer up for a very long time, and others may have limited space capacity with their ISP, and if you send a huge file, the recipient might run out of space and have other emails bounce back to the senders. 
4. 4.  When in doubt, assume the positive.  I hear many people pondering,  “I wonder what he meant by this part of his email?”  If you can, ask (by phone or in person) for clarification.  Why wonder when you can know?  If you email for clarification, you may or may not get the clarity you seek.  If someone doesn’t answer you right away, she might just be busy, or in email overwhelm, or it might have gotten lost in the Great Email CyberVoid.  Follow up with a phone call or another email rather than getting angry, hurt or resentful that your email has not been responded to.  The recent movie “The Upside of Anger” does a great job at showing how assumptions and the resulting anger can take us down a painful and sometimes completely unnecessary path.  If people never respond when asked to, consider taking them off your list, and then it won’t bother you any more. 

In summary, email is a fantastic way to enable connecting with and staying in touch with many more people around the globe in a faster, easier way than has ever been possible.  It has opened up many new possibilities in my life, as it probably has  in yours.  But like most tools, virtual or physical, if misused it can cause great harm.  So be judicious and think twice before using it for everything.  The temptation is there because it’s quick and easy.  There are many instances when the old fashioned forms of communication – in person conversation, phone call, written letter or note may serve your true purpose better. 

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