Emailstorming

Bonnie returned with six minutes to spare before her eleven o'clock — just enough to check voicemail and email, if she did both at once. Slipping on her headset, she punched pound-six on the phone, and clicked "Check Mail" on her screen.

As she listened to her voicemail, her email program began downloading the first of 28 messages. 'Amazing,' she thought, 'either I'm really important, or nobody respects my time.' After the seventh message, she had to leave for her eleven o'clock.

Emailstorming is like
brainstorming, but instead
of using our brains,
we use emailThat's why she missed message 17, which announced the room change for her meeting. She would arrive late, as would three colleagues.

Bonnie's organization is experiencing Emailstorming. Emailstorming is like brainstorming, but instead of using our brains, we use email.

In the constant storm of messages, only a few have significance to their recipients. We spend too much time figuring out which messages we care about, and we miss important messages completely, or get to them too late, as Bonnie did.

Here are some causes of Emailstorming, and some tips for dealing with them.

Shotgun messaging

The sender "shotguns" the message to anyone who might be tangentially interested. Often, shotgunners want to be able to say later "I sent it out, didn't you see it?"

To keep someone "in the loop," send a private — possibly annotated — copy of your message. That way, they receive only the message, and none of the subsequent "Reply All" messages.

Annoy All

Sometimes Reply All is appropriate. At other times, a Reply All may actually be an "Annoy All." The risk of annoyance is enhanced when the reply is relevant only to the recipient.

Be selective about replies. Most often, only the sender needs the reply, but sometimes a few of the CCs want it too. Be judicious.

Mass announcements

Routine announcements sent separately by HR, Security, or other functions generate potential interruptions for every recipient. These messages are especially annoying when they apply to only a portion of the recipient population.

Consolidating nonemergency mass announcement messages into a weekly internal e-newsletter not only reduces inbox clutter, but also reduces interruption rates.

Implementing these solutions sometimes requires individual action, and sometimes coordinated action. For example, Management plays an important leadership role in addressing the problem of Mass Announcements.

Surprisingly, Management also plays a key role in solutions that require individual action. When leaders make the term "Shotgun Messaging" a part of the organizational vocabulary, they make it easier for everyone to recognize it when it happens, and they encourage everyone to address the issue directly with shotgunners.

There is a trap though. Distributing a link to this article throughout your organization via email risks violating the intent of sending it. Instead, get the message out by making Emailstorming a topic of an organizational meeting or training. Dealing with email problems in email is like throwing water at a flood.  Top    Next Issue

Are you so buried in email that you don't even have time to delete your spam? Do you miss important messages? So many of the problems we have with email are actually within our power to solve, if we just realize the consequences of our own actions. Read 101 Tips for Writing and Managing Email to learn how to make peace with your inbox. Order Now!

And if you have organizational responsibility, you can help transform the culture to make more effective use of email. You can reduce volume while you make content more valuable. You can discourage email flame wars and that blizzard of useless if well-intended messages from colleagues and subordinates. Read Where There's Smoke There's Email to learn how to make email more productive at the organizational scale — and less dangerous. Order Now!

For much more about Emailstorming, see "Emailstorming."

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

Paths

Most of us follow paths through our careers, or through life. We get nervous when we're off the path. We feel better when we're doing what everyone else is doing. But is that sensible?

Assumptions and the Johari Window: I

The roots of both creative and destructive conflict can often be traced to differing assumptions of the parties to the conflict. Working out these differences is a lot easier when we know what everyone's assumptions are.

Tangled Thread Troubles

Even when we use a facilitator to manage a discussion, managing a queue for contributors can sometimes lead to problems. Here's a little catalog of those difficulties.

Seven Ways to Get Nowhere

Ever have the feeling that you're getting nowhere? You have the sense of movement, but you're making no real progress towards the goal. How does this happen? What can you do about it?

How to Deal with Holding Back

When group members voluntarily restrict their contributions to group efforts, group success is threatened and high performance becomes impossible. How can we reduce the incidence of holding back?

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming March 19: On Lying by Omission

Of the many devious strategies of workplace politics, deception is among the most commonly used. And perhaps the most commonly used tactic of deception is lying. Since getting caught in a lie can be costly, people try to lie without lying. Available here and by RSS on March 19.

And on March 26: Seven Ways to Support Word-of-Mouth About Your Content

Whether you're making a presentation or writing an article or a book, making your material more memorable is a desirable objective. After the talk, or after the reader sets down your work, what you have to offer will be accessible only if the auditor or reader remembers something about it. Available here and by RSS on March 26.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrentSgXnAlNVWlhxNIJner@ChacAtZoEYrrmofzZnjPoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info