News

Showing items tagged with "Clean Inbox" - 13 found.

Break the cycle of email dependancy

How cleaning out your inbox can help reduce email addiction. Published in the Daily Echo 23 January 2014.

Tags: Clean Inbox, clean out your inbox week, Daily Echo, email addiction

Read this post... | Comment on this post

Creating a More Effective Email Communications Culture: Guest blog by David Grossman

In the final part of this series of interview with David Grossman, he reviews what are the barriers and drivers to creating a more effective email communications culture.

Monica: What do you see as the principle issues restricting the use of email within organizations?

David: Limiting email and reducing abuses is a step in the right direction, especially for middle managers.

We conducted research of 1,100 executives, senior leaders, managers, and employees on their perceptions of e-mail.

David Grossman CEO the Grossman Group

Our 2012 email perception study, “Enough Already! Stop Bad Email,” shows that when it comes to email overload, it’s the middle managers who feel the most pain:

• Middle managers typically spend 100 hours (6,000 minutes) a year on irrelevant email
• They are 50 percent more likely to access work email outside of normal business hours
• 30 percent experience work-life balance issues
• 20 percent fear missing relevant information
• 21 percent experience stress

And yet, they don’t want their ability to use email taken away or even interrupted.  83 percent of middle managers agree that email is an effective and necessary communication tool, and only 15 percent said that limiting email during normal business hours would be very effective. Our research suggests that to melt the iceberg that is the “Frozen Middle,” companies need to do a few things:

• realize that the responsibility to improve is at the individual and organizational levels
• agree on email expectations and get leadership in board
• promote e-tiquette to reduce overload

All that said, limiting email and stopping abuses isn’t the ultimate solution to improving employee engagement, work-life balance, and productivity. Really, it’s a Band-Aid because the much larger issue is about ineffective communications inside organizations today, which is negatively affecting business results.  That means leadership needs to assess and improve the overall communication system for the organization.

Monica: How can we improve this situation – top three tips.

David:

1. First, determine whether email is the right communication tool: As you assess whether email is the right vehicle, consider its limitations and your strategy for getting feedback. Use email when you need to provide one or multiple audiences with a brief status update in the body of a message, deliver a longer message or information as an attachment to your intended receivers, or prompt the receiver(s) to view web-based content or other content that’s attached. Don’t use email to give bad news or to give complex, detailed or lengthy information or instructions.
2. Commit to using email more effectively oneself: I’m a believer that the number of emails one receives is proportional to the number of emails one sends. Before you send, ask yourself, “Should my message be communicated face-to-face or voice-to-voice instead?” Make sure your email is relevant, and ask “Is the information pertinent to my recipient? Do they really need to read my message?”
3. Coach others when they’re not using email effectively: Could people in your organization benefit from picking up the phone instead of using email? Are their emails lacking necessary context or calls to action? Coach them. When you commit to using email more effectively and help others do the same, you can not only take steps to conquering email overload, but also improve the flow of communication within your entire organization.

For more information on email overload, its effects on the frozen middle, and additional tips, visit our Email Research and Resource Center.

David Grossman, ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA helps leaders drive productivity and get the results they want through authentic and courageous leadership communication, a sought-after speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 leaders. A two-time author, David is CEO of The Grossman Group, an award-winning Chicago-based strategic leadership development and internal communication consultancy; clients include: DuPont Pioneer, Lockheed Martin, McDonald’s, Motel 6 and Tyco, to name a few.

Tags: Clean Inbox, clean out your inbox week, corporate email etiquette, David Grossman, email communications, email overload, The Grossman Group

Read this post... | Comment on this post

Effective Email Etiquette to Improve Email Communication: Guest post from David Grossman

In the second part of our discussions, David Grossman talked through key ways to improve email communications, both in terms of how and what your write (email etiquette) and making you email software work for you.  All of this will again help you keep a clean inbox  (and maybe even an empty inbox).

Monica: Given that email is an effective communications tool – how can we make better use of it?

David: Use email only when it’s the most appropriate vehicle for your communication.  These situations include when you need to:

David Grossman CEO the Grossman Group

• Summarize information, as a follow-up to a conversation
• Provide directional, important and timely information
• Share detailed information and data
• Ensure there’s a record of your communication
• Direct the receiver to an online source for more information
• Provide brief status updates

Additionally, to keep your inbox clean, consider these strategies, along with the many others that were shared this week:

• Set up rules, filters or labels
• Delete regularly
• Unsubscribe from newsletters
• Clean up your contacts
• Create a “read later” folder for nonessential emails

As you experiment with what works for you, you’ll begin to create new habits that will tame the email monster.

Click here to benchmark your email etiquette using Mesmo Consultancy’s free on-line tools. To gauge  how well you use Outlook click here.

In part three David talks about how to improve the organisational email culture.

David Grossman, ABC, APR, Fellow PRSA helps leaders drive productivity and get the results they want through authentic and courageous leadership communication, a sought-after speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 leaders. A two-time author, David is CEO of The Grossman Group, an award-winning Chicago-based strategic leadership development and internal communication consultancy; clients include: DuPont Pioneer, Lockheed Martin, McDonald’s, Motel 6 and Tyco, to name a few.

Tags: Clean Inbox, clean out your inbox week, David Grossman, email etiquette, Mesmo Consultancy, The Grossman Group

Read this post... | Comment on this post