Email is great for a great many things – for sending files, distributing an update to a group of people, scheduling a meeting, dropping a quick, informal note, or creating a record of something in writing that you think you may need later on.
Here’s what it’s not good for:
- Building positive working relationships
- Collaborating on a project, big or small
- Delivering praise
- Delivering bad news
- Giving feedback
- Having any discussion on any topic, whether it’s between two people or has a whole long list of CCs
In other words, email is horrible for anything that could be characterized as human interaction. The lack of tone leaves far too much open to interpretation, making it entirely dependent on the receiver’s mood for interpretation. That could be good, it could be bad, it could be indifferent.
So instead of emailing, make an effort to talk to your co-workers in person. You’ll avoid many misunderstandings by taking the extra two minutes to have that very human interaction, and build better relationships with the people that you spend your work weeks with. Maybe stop a bit short of creating an email free zone, but err on the side of getting up, taking a walk, and visiting your colleagues in person. That simple act can make a world of difference.
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