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To or Cc
When sending an email, the action you want from the recipient(s) dictates which address box you put their name.
‘To’ is for action. You expect an action from those whose name is in that line. If there are multiple people in the To box be sure to spell out who is expected to take action (when and how).
‘Cc’ is for information only. It implies that no reply is either expected or necessary. Good email etiquette dictates that if you are in the Cc line and feel you must voice your opinion, only reply to the sender.
Tags: Cc address line, cc'd email, email etiquette, To address line
What does your inbox tell you about your management style? In Tuesday’s Financial Times, Naomi Shragia wrote a compelling piece about manager’s fear of delegating. Over the years we have reviewed many senior manager’s inboxes as part of our smart email management one-to-one coaching and training programmes. An obvious source of email overload is the higher than
Too much Cc’d = Email Overload
normal volume of Cc’d email.
When asked why there is so much Cc’d email and how much is really necessary the standard reply is along the lines of ‘I need to see what is going on’. But why if you have a team you trust? Or perhaps either you don’t really trust your team (be they junior or senior managers) or they don’t believe that you trust them. Consistently, I have observed a gap between what a manger says is
his style and the reality of business culture. Most managers tell you they delegate and have developed a culture of trust and empowerment. Few acknowledge to being mico-managers. Not so judging by the amount of Cc’d email. If reality matched perceptions, they and their team would make far less use of Cc’d email.
If the culture is one of trust and empowerment, Cc’d emails is only sent either in advance of an impending crisis or to say ‘job done, crisis averted’. As Shragai points out micro-management styles and a fear of delegating holds back many business and their employees. Sadly email adds fuel to this fire by encouraging email overload through excessive and unnecessary use of the Cc address line. Most people already loose one hour a day through email misuse: add to this mico-management and we have another recipe for lost productivity and raised stress levels.
Take a look at your inbox to see just how much Cc’d email is in it. Then ask yourself how much you really need. How much is vanity and a reflection of your own lack of trust and ability to delegate? If you need some help to reduce the volume of cc’d email and save you your business time, why not call us and book a one-to-one coaching session. We guarantee to save you time. If we don’t we don’t charge you!
if you would like some help reducing the email overload and moving towards a more productive business culture why not call us and ask about our smart email management one-to-one coaching can help you and your business.
Tags: cc'd email, email management, email overload
As the last typewriter rolls off the production line I am filled with sadness. I loved the clatter of the keys and the whiz of the carriage as you pushed it across. Here is a wonderful video for those who yearn after these sounds which to me equalled creativity and thinking. There was little scope for making errors unless you wanted either to type the whole page again or cover yourself in Snowpake corrector fluid. You had to plan what was to be typed before hitting the keys.
I blame the demise of the typewriter on the insidious rise in Cc’d email and hence email overload. In the era of the typewriter you could only make a limited number of carbon copies. Typing a memo therefore did not give you the option to flood 
everyone’s in-tray (inbox) with trivial memos and replies and counter replies.
The effort of typing a reply also meant you used your time carefully and again cosidered what was to be said and how it should be laid out. You also thought hard about the length of the memo (unless you could touch type). The death of the typewriter may therefore also be partly to blame for the often appalling level of grammar and English we now witness in electronic communications, not to mention bad email etiquette.
Then there is RSI. Did anyone ever complain of it with a typewriter? No. Did you need to be connected to use one? No. Did you need to upgrade every year or so? No. Your portable typewriter was like a faithful companion, always there ready to go and help you produce that new column, manuscript, letter etc.
There have been several obituaries to the typewriter amongst my favorites of which are Oh Brother, where are thou? by Will Self in The Times and Typewriter’s block in the Financial Times.
What do you miss about the typewriter?
Tags: cc'd email, email etiquette, email overload, RSI, typewriter