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How to email with no regrets

Sadly an email sent is rarely if ever deleted.  There is always someone somewhere who will have kept a copy and produce it just when you least expected.

Yes, in Outlook you can recall an email.  However as soon as one sees that recall message I defy anyone not to be tempted to open the offending email!

Here are a few recent email scandals where the sender is probably bitterly regretting they ever sent the original email.

• VW – it turns out the head of US operations was sent an email about the emissions problems over 18 months ago.  No wonder he is on his way out.
  

  Email regrets

• Hilary Clinton continues to be dogged by the saga of the emails she sent through her own email account. It is not just about whether or not they contained classified information but the content as a whole.
• Nick Moon director of  GfK NOP was exceedingly rude about one of the key Brexit campaigners Dominic Cummings.  Moon intended to email only a fellow director and called Moon ‘odious’.  But he hit Reply All and Moon being in the original Cc box  saw the email!

There is nothing new about emails you wish you had never sent.  It is that somehow we never seem to learn good email etiquette and that email sent, is an email kept for life.  Within everyday business you can take three easy steps to reduce the risk of creating an email scandal.

1.     Resist hitting Reply All – check who is in the To and CC address box and make sure you are sending it to the right people.

2.     Think and re-read your email before hitting send.  Ask yourself what if this turned up on the wrong person’s desk?

3.     Practice the art of ‘slow email’.  Write a rule to put every email into a holding pattern before it leaves your inbox.

For more suggestions see Mesmo Consultancy video on how the manage the risks of cyber crime and leaking confidential information.

How do you have a preferred way to manage  these risks to ensure you have no regrets about the emails you send?

Tags: email etiquette, email scandals, Mesmo Consultancy, Recall email, Slow email

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