Is E-Mail Ruining Your Office Dynamics?

by Amy M. Bucaida, Missouri Credit Union Association

In this global world of business, it’s easy to understand the absolute business need to use e-mail as a form of communication. For those that work remotely from their team, like me, it’s imperative. But I have to wonder if this technological savior is all it’s cracked up to be. Is e-mail breaking apart team relationship dynamics that are built through voice-to-voice conversations?

Why, you ask, am I concerned about the loss of personal communications? For me, it’s all about the loss of the conversation’s personality and diminishing productivity as was pointedly displayed in a series of recent e-mails the last of which set my teeth to gnash.

With fingertips poised over the keyboard and ready to fire off a response, I thankfully stopped short to evaluate why I was having such a visceral reaction to the words flickering on the screen in front of me. I read the words again – just two simple sentences mind you – and still couldn’t quite understand why I had received this communication with such an apparent demanding tone. What on earth had I done to elicit such a confrontation?

Following what I believed an appropriate cooling off period, I started stabbing at the keyboard a response, but could not find the words to frame it in such a way that didn’t sound as accusatory as those received before them. Without further delay and with an inordinate desire to retrieve this conversation from the dark hole to which it had traveled, I picked up the telephone and called the sender.

After a perfunctory hello and introductory apology for offending the sender in any way during the course of the written exchange, the sender delicately pointed out she had no idea what I was talking about.

It turns out, the answer to my inner-speak question was, “Nothing.” My perceptions about the tone and true meaning of the senders e-mail were actually misperceptions. I had put way too much weight on the words I had read and assumed the worst.

The villainous e-mail

Oftentimes, we boldly and quickly answer e-mails without much thought as to the words we’re using or how they will be perceived on the receiving end.

E-mails by their very design are intended to be short and focused. Today’s prolific use of the smart phone makes this that much more pertinent. Unfortunately, with this condensed form of communication we lose too much of our interpersonal communication skills.

For the recipient, there’s no interaction or connection that allows the other person to understand the tone and inflection of the spoken word and body language of the communicator – a la my example above. For the sender, there’s no way to portray the importance of the request or information through the use of verbal skills and body language. We miss out on the eye rolls and arms crossed, heads nodding and silly banter.

This technology insulates us from meaningful communications, making it difficult to connect to the person. This loss of personal interaction puts your office dynamics at risk. Communications that lack emotion and grasp for understanding can have a great impact on your business. They:

• create perceptions and blind discussions that can lead to miscommunication and lack of understanding, and ultimately breed disdain and distrust in your organization.
• can diminish productivity. According to Internet sources, the average business professional spends more than 25 percent of their time sending and answering e-mails (a number that today represents 110-117 e-mails daily). Sending e-mails back and forth to gain clarification, remove supposition and determine actual message only adds to the efficiency draining load – the exact opposite of what we’re trying to achieve by deploying these very technologies.
• are an easy entry point for the blame game. Have you heard this before? “I sent them an e-mail and didn’t hear anything.” Team members who send e-mail and blithely await a response have the opportunity – and use it – to point a finger at another to say the lack of progress on that issue is the fault of the non-responder. When, in fact, the responsibility for follow-up should always remain with the person accountable for the accomplishment of said task or project.
• unleash the carbon copy bomber. Come on. You know what I’m talking about. You may just not have heard the term before. It’s the person, who instead of solely communicating with the appropriate person for the topic brings into the conversation other people to help make a decision. Adding three people to a conversation with, let’s say four e-mails back and forth, is a mathematical equation that hurts my head and piles heaps onto the daily madness.
• bring the shiny object syndrome to your office every day. The constant reading and responding to emails as they enter your inbox really pulls the recipient from the strategic task at hand.  This is particularly true for those who typically receive 100 or more emails on any given day. In today’s world there is an expectation that an email is read immediately, and the sender expects an immediate response. This is not practical or possible, but it is seemingly becoming an expectation. How many times have you been focused on a project (away from your emails) to have a colleague or boss interrupt with the question, “Did you see my email?”  Responding to each and every email that comes into view is equivalent to chasing the proverbial “shiny object” rather than staying strategically focused on projects at hand.  It is a habit that can keep you running in circles every day if you let it.

Put the “e” back in team

There is no time in this breakneck speed business world for ricochet of e-mails that perpetuate unfounded perceptions and continually chip away at team relationships. It takes more time to try and understand than to actually comprehend. Rebuilding relationships is much more laborious than maintaining them.

So here’s my challenge to you. From now on, when you get an e-mail that makes you question what the sender is really saying, pick up the phone or walk down the hall to have a genuine conversation with that person.

For those of you who use e-mail to hide, I’m on to your wily ways. Be prepared to see my shining face and hear my sunny voice more often.

As for the friendly “You’ve got Mail” notice that pops up on my screen, I intend to start scheduling some down time on my calendar during which I can turn off my e-mail and focus on the strategic aspects of my job. Care to join me in some peaceful thought?

Oh, and don’t get me started on people using smart phones during meetings. That’s another whole story to tell – maybe next time.