Sabotage Pattern #7: Always Use Electronic Communication
Everybody likes using e-mail for communication. And everybody also likes using additional (higher-level) tools such as JIRA or another issue tracking system to exchange information. So use these systems, even if the person you are “speaking” to is sitting in your close proximity.
Speaking to someone may distract him from what he is doing, so it is better to communicate via e-mail or through tasks in an electronic task system such as JIRA, VersionOne or Rally, because it frees others from the distractions you might cause by just talking to them whenever you want.
Moreover, written communication can be subsequently used as an evidence, should the other person try to misunderstand the order (of course, you can also reverse this and either misunderstand or follow the written order to the letter).
Using electronic communication tools extensively will have two great effects (for any saboteur, that is):
- it dramatically increases the number of e-mails, tasks and other electronic crap everyone in the organization receives, making reading and responding to these very time-consuming and forcing people to dig through piles of unread e-mails and unfinished tasks instead of doing any real work,
- electronic communication is in most cases (especially in a team environment or when discussing a problem or a solution to a problem) not nearly as effective as face-to-face: information will get lost, misinterpretations will happen and all this will result in delays and frustration.
Recognition
- Do you receive e-mails regarding trivial matters from people sitting close to you?
- Are you and your colleagues using an electronic task system to track everything and do you exchange notes over the system instead of talking to each other?
- Are you sending lots of e-mails to people sitting close to you even when they are at their workplace?
Removal
- Start by setting a personal example — when you get an email from someone sitting close to you, resist the urge to hit the reply button and use your two feet, come to the person and discuss the matter in person.
- Suggest to others that instead of writing emails, they could come over and discuss matters with you personally. Try to persuade them that it will be faster and more efficient — no loss of information and no need to type long emails.
- For electronic task management systems, suggest you only put major things in there and use them for tracking, not for communication.
