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Careless emails are the fastest way to expose a love affair. Recently seeing ‘Betrayal’ by Harold Pinter’s play reminded me of this fact. The nub of the story, as the title suggests, is about people having affairs and betraying each other. Based on his own affair with Joan Bakewell, it takes place in the late 70s when email as we know it was almost non-existant. The couples involved managed to keep their affairs secret for years.
Would that happen now in the digital era with email and social networking making it so easy to expose what one is doing? Take for example the Harry Stonecipher affair which is perhaps the most high profile and costly one to be exposed by careless email conversations and poor email etiquette. Before the era of email always on, this would probably have gone unnoticed and perhaps petered out.
More recently is the case of the late Mike Todd Chief Constable of Greater Manachester Police where again much of the evidence was found through email exchanges with the various women in his life. Again these exchanges were carried out on the company rather than personal emails accounts.
Women are often accused of gossiping more than men. If you look at the root source of most of the email scandals such as the Claire Swire’s affair they are nearly always perpetrated by men. My own research on gender differences shows that poor email etiquette in terms of gossiping by electronic communications is higher amongst men than women (see ‘Managing in the Email Office’).
In all likelihood the UK law on email retention will change over the coming year to be more like the US laws whereby email must be retained for a certain length of time. This will make it even harder to cover one’s tracks if the exchanges of love letters are on the company email account.
Perhaps it’s time to return to writing conventional love letters and at the very least improving one’s email etiquette when sending emails on the company email account.
What is your view on email love letters?
This weeks tips are how to write email PEARLS and not lead balloons which will land you and the business in trouble.
Tags: email best practice, email etiquette
How often do you feel people leave you sufficient time to respond to an email? Results from client projects suggest nearly half of us feel that people do not leave sufficient time to respond properly.
To participate in the full survey with a chance to win a free copy of ‘Brilliant Email’ – click on this link ‘Time to Respond’ survey.
Not being left suffient time to respond can be quite challenging especially when a substantive response is needed which requires thought and perhaps some background research. Why do we leave other people so little time to respond? Is it:
Whatever the reason, unreasonable expectations up the email stress on the person of whom we ask for a quick response. Further the pressure to responde often results in costly mistakes. For example, we admit to errors, give wrong facts, commit to deadlines and tasks which are not achievable etc.
What can be done to change the culture and make time for people to give an adequate reliable response? First and foremost, ask yourself how long it would take you to respond. Now double it (as we always over estimate our personal abilities) and that is the time you need to allow the other person to respond. That is good email etiquette.
Second as the recipient, to take the heat out of the situation, decide how quickly you can respond and if it is not within a working day, tell the sender. Tell them when you will respond. Don’t ask if it’s OK. You decide and set the time frame. Again use good email etiquette to manage the situation.
Third as a sender check people availablity beforehand and agree what is a reasonable response time.
For more tips and hints on ways to leave time for the recipient and as the recipient take the pressure off you to respond, follow me on Twitter.
Meanwhile what are your favourite tips on how to reduce the email overload and email stress created by those who expect an instant response?
Tags: email best practice, email etiquette, email overload, email stress
Emails as evidence has been highlighted in the phone hacking scandal. I have long since held the belief that one of the reasons News of the World (NoW) in the early days were so keen to settle with Sienna Miller so quickly was because she demanded to see all emails relating to herself. However, it was never going to be long before all hell broke loose as others demanded to see such emails. Now these demands have been made and not surprisingly HCL Technologies who manage their email systems say they were asked to destroy more than 200,000 emails over the past year!
I utterly condemn the phone hacking and indeed may now stop reading any Murdoch publication. Nonetheless, there are lessons to be learnt about the use of email. Emails as evidence highlights three issues.
First, can the emails be destroyed? Under current UK law, in theory yes. But you can bet that someone somewhere will have kept a copy either printed off or saved to a file.
Second, it underscores the need to be so vigilant about what we put in an email. A conversation is far less likely to be kept. Careless emails sent in haste as busy business people struggle with email overload have been been very costly for many organisations. For example saying ‘yes’ when a client says an error has been made leaves little scope to negotiate. A comment which is seen defamatory may also be costly.
Third, it highlights the viral open nature of email. An email is as open as a postcard. You can bet your life someone somewhere has seen these NoW emails who should not have seen them. One way or another I’d wager a bet that, try as they may to have destroyed the email evidence, it will turn up at some point like the proverbial bad penny.
Last, but by no means least, there is talk of changing the UK laws relating to email retention and archives to be more like the US law. Emails will have to be kept and made available on demand. That too brings its own set of problems.
This all underscores the need to think before hitting send. If in doubt, talk first, then email later if needs be. Before you all comment, sanctioning phone hacking by conversation is no less an offence than sanctioning it by email.
Have you ever been subject to a legal case where email evidence is included?
Tags: email archiving, email best practice, email overload, email retention, email security
What is good email etiquette for the vacation period? After all there is nothing more annoying than coming back to an inbox full of trivial messages and multiple messages from the same person. Here are a few guidelines to win friends and not make enemies of those on vacation.
1) Stop sending people on leave emails. Start making a note of what you planned to say in an email and gather all your thoughts together in one document. Then on their return either send it or talk them through the matters.
2) For emails with a shelf-life add an ‘expiry date’ for example, all the trivial but timely messages like, the server will be down for maintenance this weekend, the sandwich man is in reception.
3) When sending messages which are sensitive/confidential put the words ‘confidential’ in the subject and make sure the recipient has a rule in place to send these directly to a folder. After all you never know who might be managing that person’s box in their absence.
4) If you do ask someone to monitor your inbox whilst you are away take time to agree how they will handle your email and how they will indicate which ones have been dealt with and which still need attention.
5) This is a good time to adopt an email free period. Take an afternoon off from your inbox and walk and talk a little more.
These tips on email etiquette for the holiday period will help you save time to both as a sender and recipient. They will also help everyone reduce the email overload feeling which we all experience on returning from leave.
What are your tips?
Tags: email best practice, email etiquette, email overload
Email etiquette – is it right to reprimand your future daughter in-law by email as in the latest email media disaster? In my opinion no on two accounts.
First, it was the wrong communications channel. Such messages should always be communicated by talking (whether they relate either to personal or work matters). Once you put something like this in an email and hit send you put down a marker which cannot be erased. Barriers are created and the tone of the relationship set. There is no such thing as ‘recalling’ an email because even if it was sent back the chances are the recipient read it before it was returned. This was very poor email etiquette.
Second, to me the content was rude, arrogant and dismissive. All of which creates as the media said the image of a ‘mother in-law from hell’. Is that how she wanted to be portrayed?
This underscores just how quickly and easily such emails go viral and create an email disaster. If the future mother in-law really could not bring herself to speak to her future daughter in-law an alternative would be a letter. This would not have gone viral quite so easily.
There is now a follow-up story which suggests it was all a publicity stunt to promote their business. However, this too represents appalling behaviour and creates a very unprofessional image. Furthermore such email hoaxes just drive up the email carbon footprint.
Good email etiquette is one of the keys to relationships between both individuals and businesses.
In my opinion this was the wrong use of email on all accounts. What’s your opinion?
Tags: email best practice, email etiquette, email management