An uncalled for dissonance
As you know I lecture often on Information Overload in organizations, and I describe in these lectures the manifold damages of email overload in a workplace setting, followed by the available remedies. To my surprise, I sometimes encounter an indignant response: people declare that email is a vital tool, and I’m wrong to declare war on it!
This always catches me by surprise, because my battle is with the abuse and misuse of email, not with the tool itself; and I’ve certainly never called for abandoning email – I benefit from its use as much as everyone else, and have a firm respect for its usefulness.
So how come people disagree with me when we are in full agreement?
A disclaimer (read this!)
First, let’s get this straight and formal:
I, Nathan Zeldes, hereby declare and assert that I am not calling for anyone to abolish email. I believe email to be a very useful tool, and expect it to stay around – to good effect – for quite some time.
There, I said it!
So what is it? Angel or Devil?
That said, there is still the fact that the ineffective application of email plays a key part in killing knowledge worker effectiveness in numerous organizations worldwide. That is not what people expected when they said – correctly – that email is one of the best killer applications in the history of computing. Like many tools, email has two sides, the good and the bad. Like the best tools humankind has developed – think of fire, or the knife – it can easily cause great damage if applied incorrectly.
The trick is to separate our instinctive admiration for email’s good side and our need to take measures against its bad aspects. Unfortunately this requires a dispassionate analysis, and in our total dependence on our Inbox to run our day to day work we are far from dispassionate about email – hence the passionate indignation I mentioned above.
What you can do about this
The best advice I can give here is to forget about “dropping email”. True, some people and organizations are going down that path; you can hear a fascinating panel discussion among three of them in a recent IORG Webinar. But for 99% of people email is not going anywhere, which is okay. And once you accept this, you should focus your attention on aligning this important tool with your business goals by making it productive. You should start by analyzing email use models and practices in your organization, identifying improvement opportunities, and applying solutions.
And please, don’t shoot the messenger – me – when I tell you to do it!
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