Email — the ultimate time suck and productivity drain (when not managed correctly) and why “email governance” is important.

A few weeks ago, I spoke with the senior leadership team of a multinational organization about the future of communication. Sounds intense right? Well, it was but not for the reason I expected.

It was a 60-minute session focusing on a future beyond email. Half way through, a senior leader in the group asked a great question: “Do you think email is the issue…or is it the people using (or misusing) email that is the issue?” I love questions like this because they cut to the core of the problem. It’s not about technology, it’s about people. The best tech in the world can’t overcome our unwillingness/reluctance to change/embrace something “new”.

We spent the next 10 minutes in a lively discussion about the importance of communication governance and the challenges organizations face without any governance in place for email (and communication in general). We agreed it would be important to tackle how email is being used before introducing any new communication tools. As an action from the session, I agreed to brainstorm an initial set of governing principles to improve how email is used for the team’s review. I’ve been noodling this for the last few weeks and have struggled with how to approach it. Can you tackle email alone or do you need to look at the broader topic of communication within the enterprise?

Here is my stream of consciousness on email governance. Curious to hear your feedback, insights and experiences as well!

What is email?

Electronic Mail is a method of exchanging messages between people using electronic devices. — Wikipedia

What is the current state of email?

It’s a never-ending black hole of noise that consumes our time, distracts us from getting stuff done, creates a false sense of accomplishment and leads to information loss. — Zach Katsof

What are the technology problems with email?

1) Email is not real-time

2) Email does not have a word limit per message

3) Email lacks emotion, and does not convey cultural nuances or sarcasm.

4) Email has no time zone and is always on

What are the people problems with email?

1) A lot of us use email as a real-time tool

2) Multi-generation teams have varying expectations of email, acceptable response times and how to use email

3) People are emotional and tend to read more into an email that intended.

4) People like to get stuff done. Responding to emails is an easy thing to do and “feel accomplished”

5) The “To”, “CC” and “BCC” fields are not understood, not used correctly or both.

What are the business problems?

1) Employee satisfaction declines because there is too much noise and unrealistic expectations on answering emails at all hours of the day

2) Clients, partners and colleagues wait too long to get answers because important requests are not actioned when asked by email

3) Employee productivity drops because too much time is spent lost in email

4) Knowledge drain when employees leave and information lives only in emails

How to take control of email?

Step 1: Admit you have a problem :-)

Step 2: Figure out if the impact of the problem is big enough that it is worth addressing. If you work in a company where email is the primary mode of communication, it’s worth investing time on this.

Step 3: Keep reading!

Who’s is responsible for fixing the email problem?

It’s a team effort and no one person can magically fix the problem.

Bottom-up: team members need to be empowered and educated on how/when to use email properly.

Top-down: senior leadership needs to walk the walk and lead by example with email. If your leaders use email correctly and set the right example, everyone else will follow (eventually).

Where to start?

1) Create a task force that includes people across the business (offices, countries, departments, seniority levels)

2) Challenge the task force to build a communication charter that provides direction to all employees about how the organization will use email moving forward

3) The taskforce should seek feedback from across the business to ensure the communication charter is representative of the business and the people in it. (important to identify/engage the 80% of team members in the business that resist change and include them early in this process)

4) Launch the new communication governance and charter to a small test group to validate assumptions prior to going live company-wide.

5) When it’s time to go live, make sure a senior leader (e.g. CEO/CFO/CIO) leads the charge and kicks off the initiative with a live video webinar to show their endorsement of the initiative and answer the important questions (What are we doing? Why are we doing it? What’s in it for you? What’s in it for our customers? How are we going to achieve it?)

6) To reinforce this project, a strong change management program will be needed to drive awareness, understanding and adoption.

7) Executive buy-in will be key to driving adoption. If the executive team (and senior leadership) respect the email governance policy, the rest of the team will follow.

What could an email governance policy look like?

I asked several buddies if they had this type of policy in place today. The quick answer from most was YES, of course. When I dig into it, most of the companies had an “IT policy” about what could go in an email, but few actually documented email best practices. Here’s my first cut at brainstorming an email governance policy (curious to get your feedback).

Guiding Principles:

1) Email is not a real-time communication tool

2) Email is meant to capture/summarize/memorialize important information

Best Practices:

1) If you need an answer quickly, don’t send an email. Pick up the phone, send an instant message or (if in the same office) go speak face-to-face.

2) If an email thread is more then 3 replies long, time to pick up the phone, schedule a meeting or go speak F2F.

3) It’s important to respect/use the “To, CC and BCC” fields correctly;

“To” = action required. “CC” — directly interests you, but no action required. “BCC” — FYI, no action required and don’t want you to get bogged down with replies.

4) Mass emails (e.g. company-wide) should be sent with all people in BCC field to avoid mass reply all chains. At no point should a mass email be sent using the “To” field.

5) There is no need to reply to an email with “thanks”. It is generally assumed that everyone appreciates and acknowledges your effort and work. No need to add more emails to an inbox.

6) An email sent after hours does not need to be responded to until the next day (if at all).

7) If an email requires a specific action, the sender should call out the specific action at the top of the email and also include the individual(s) that need to action it.

8) Memorialize the email governance policy in a document/employee handbook. Share it with each new team member, take the time to walk through and reinforce it’s importance on a regular basis. It will save you and your team a lot of time!

There is no doubt a ton more that could go into an email governance policy. Curious to get your insights and feedback on what’s working within your organization today!