Recently I presented at a partner conference for one of the big consulting firms. I asked the 400 partners in the room how many had more than a thousand emails in their inbox. Over 80 per cent of the room put up their hands. Overfull, poorly managed inboxes are a sure sign of a poor email culture in which not managing your inbox well is the norm.

This new reality has a direct impact on the productivity of everyone in our team, and begs the question: Does the promise of email live up to the reality we experience today?

It is worth thinking about the impact that email has had on our lives and how we work. Email was an amazing innovation in our workplace, increasing our ability to communicate easily with our colleagues, our clients, our friends and service providers. It is instant and inexpensive, and can travel to the other side of the world as fast as to the other side of the room.

But there is also a growing frustration with email, as our inboxes get fuller and fuller, and the volume of incoming emails per day creeps into the hundreds for some of us. Now I often have clients ask me if email is dead, or at least if it is dying. There is much discussion on the internet about the impending demise of email, and about its replacement by other, more suitable collaboration tools.

Ray Tomlinson, the man credited with inventing email, did not have such problems in mind when he developed this communication tool. Like climate change, these issues are man-made. While there are some sceptics who still refute the science behind climate change, I don't think anyone would deny the problems around email use. Table 4.1 shows some ways in which the reality differs from the original promise.

Email overload

Email management is the number one issue that I am asked to talk about in every company I work with, at every level, from senior leadership to support staff. This is one issue that has got out of control and needs to be dealt with as a priority. There are three main ways that email overload puts us under pressure.

1. Disruption and interruption

Ten years ago, when I would ask a group of training participants how many emails they received on average each day, they would usually say about twenty to thirty. And it was killing them! That seems quaint now. Today 100 emails per day is standard for many, and several hundred the norm for senior managers or staff in some industries.

What has increased over this decade is not the number of useful, productive emails that we recieve, but the level of noise. These are emails that don't actually serve us and in fact distract us from clearly receiving the ‘signal' that helps us do our jobs. Some of this noise is externally driven, but much of it comes from our colleagues and team.

These functions are generally overused, filling our inboxes with lots of information, but it's often of little value to us.

One of the strange things about emails is we tend to react to them as if they are all urgent. This is obviously not the case, yet because of the instant nature of the communication, we feel compelled to react as if they are. And this has changed the behaviour of those sending us emails. If we do not respond in a few minutes, they are calling on the phone to ask if we have seen their email yet. This is crazy!

The flood of ‘urgent' emails into our inbox is a major cause of distraction and interruption.

2. Inbox bottlenecks

The never-ending flow of emails into our inboxes inevitably leads to bottlenecks. It is hard to stay on top of such a deluge, especially if we have not refined our email processing techniques. Even with our best efforts, our responsiveness suffers.

This can lead to more work, more emails and more interruptions as others chase us for the work and information they need.

3. Stress and overwhelm

Research shows a link between email overload and stress levels. A study by Dr Thomas Jackson, in conjunction with Loughborough University, showed that while email recipients in the study were happy when they received timely information by email, they were annoyed by both irrelevant emails and emails that required an instant response. This in turn elevated their stress levels.

What can we do differently to change this current reality? What can we do to communicate in a more productive way and ease the burden of email for ourselves, our team and our colleagues? The first step may be to look at some alternatives to sending yet another email.

Alternatives to email

My son Finn asked me last year if I seriously got paid to help people manage email. He could not see the problem. He checked his Gmail inbox once every few weeks and rarely got anything of importance. He reasoned that executives could not find it that hard.

Then he came with me to help me set up for a presentation I was doing on a trip to London. When he heard the finance executives in the room talk about the 300-plus emails they got each day, his understanding deepened a bit. Afterwards he told me that maybe what I did was helpful after all. (Thanks mate!)

I can see his perspective. The younger generation have a different relationship to communications, and prefer to use phone-based apps to communicate with each other. Now, believe me, I reckon they have their own problems, but maybe they are not so wrong in choosing not to put all their eggs in the one basket. When it comes to communication, they use the best tool for the job, in each situation.

As the old saying goes, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When it comes to how we communicate in today's workplace, our hammer seems to be email.

In fact, while you are at it, why not create some agreements about all the different modes of communication you have available? Some clarity about what communication tools to use in what situations would make everyone's life a bit easier.

Four communication tools

There are four main communication tools available for use in most organisations. Each has its place, and a context in which it is most effective (as shown in figure 4.1, overleaf). They are:

• conversation
• meeting
• email
• post.

Before we take a closer look at each, it's useful to note that both conversations and meetings are ‘same time' activities. This means all parties need to do the activity in real time, at the same time. Email and posts are ‘any time' activities, so the reader can read the writer's communication whenever they want to.

Conversations and posts tend to be more ‘informal' in nature than some other modes of communication. Meetings and email can be seen as more ‘formal' communication methods.

Have a conversation

One senior manager told me recently that when he saw his team sending emails to one another from across the floor, he would tell them to get off their backsides and have a conversation. It infuriated him that they would sit 3 metres apart yet still send each other emails.

It is important to avoid being a constant interruption, but sometimes a conversation moves work forward more quickly and efficiently. A two-minute conversation between two people could replace 15 emails between five people. Conversations, whether face-to-face, by phone or using instant messaging (IM), are most effective when you seek cut-through.

Call a meeting

Meetings have a bad reputation in the productivity world, as they can be a very large waster of collective time, as discussed in chapter 5.

But they are a necessary way of getting work done. Meetings should be used sparingly, and of course should be effectively planned and run. Used well, they are a great way to move work forward, especially when we need to collaborate.

It may be more effective to have all the relevant people in the same space at the same time in these situations.

Send an email

Email has proven to be one of the most successful communication tools ever conceived. I remember when I first used email in my role, and the joy of sending messages effortlessly, and actually getting replies!

The problem, as we have discussed, is that the volumes are now so high that managing email has become a part-time job. But email is still useful, if we can just be more thoughtful about when and how we use it.

Email is best used when content is most important. Delivering attached documents, or outlining our understanding of an issue can sometimes be better done in a written email, especially when it is content that the receiver can consume in their own time, rather than the minute it is sent.

Share a post

A post is a comment on a shared platform such as Slack, Yammer, Enterprise Facebook or a CRM (Customer Relationship Manager). This communication method is becoming more and more popular in modern workplaces, but there is often confusion about how it should be used.

These tools are effective when readers need context. They will see a thread of the conversations within the context of the project, the topic, the issue or, in the case of a CRM tool, the client.

There is no absolute rule about when you should use one tool over another to communicate.

Do we really need a meeting for that, or could we just have a quick phone conversation? Could we agree to post these conversations on Slack so people can read them when they have time instead of being hit by 20 emails?

All it takes is some thought and discussion.

A more thoughtful approach to communications

Asking the right questions is the key to sending focused and clear communications.

The ‘W questions' we discussed at the opening of this section provide a simple structure that we can use whenever we send an email or make a post on any type of communication platform.

Figure 4.2 looks at a three-step process for writing a communication using why, what and who:

1. Plan the WHY. Every communication deserves some time spent on planning. This may range from in-depth planning for a critical report to a few moments spent focusing your thoughts before responding to an email. The key to planning is to get clear about what outcome you want to achieve with your communication. And double-check that you are using the best communication tool for the job!
2. Write the WHAT. Next, you need to write the communication. But if you want the recipient to take notice and act on your communication appropriately, you need to write it in a structured way and make it easy to access. The key to writing an effective communication is to make it easy for the reader to understand and respond.
3. Send to WHO. Lastly, you need to consider who needs to know. If using email, who should be in the ‘To' field and who should be in the CC field? If it is a response to a group email, should you Reply All or not? (I suggest probably not.) Should you send the communication to a few specific people or to a group list?

Planning effective communications (why)

The key thing you need to consider when planning a communication is what outcome you want to achieve. Do you need someone to do something? Do you simply need a timely response? Do you need a decision made? Are you just providing information to one or a number of people?

The communication method you use, and how you construct the communication, will influence the result you get.

By thinking about the reader, their workstyle, their role and the pressures they face, you can get a better feeling for the best way to communicate and achieve cut-through. If you are emailing your boss's boss, and you know they are in meetings most of the day, you might consider sending a short, high-impact email with a subject line that grabs their attention.

If you are communicating with a stakeholder in a project who does not know you very well, you may need to build rapport early in the communication by mentioning a common connection you both have worked with.

If you are delegating actions to multiple members of your team, you might consider outlining the actions, and who is responsible for what, upfront in the email.

You may decide that email is not the best way to communicate with someone. Considering their communication preferences, you may conclude that you will have a better chance of connecting through a channel such as Yammer or Slack, if it is used in your organisation.

Each of these strategies achieves a specific outcome. You need to take the time to plan the communication, and think about the outcome and the reader.

If you consider the productivity qualities you are aspiring to operate by as a smart team player, this approach will tick at least two of the four boxes. You are being purposeful by thinking about the outcome you want to achieve, and you are being mindful by putting yourself in the reader's shoes.

Writing effective communications (what)

A friend of mine once worked in the attorney-general's office. When she or any of the team had to meet with the director-general, they were expected to prepare a 20-minute overview of the issue, as well as a two-minute summary. They knew that, as his schedule shifted, their meeting could be pared down to two minutes, and they were expected to be able to succinctly nail the issue and any recommendations in two minutes. This was very hard to do, but it taught her a great skill.

Your reader is usually busy, distracted, bored, on the run or overwhelmed. Or all of the above. If you want to get cut-through in a world where 100-plus messages a day is normal, you need to stand out by writing well-structured and concise communications that help the reader to understand the issue, question, request or recommendation quickly.

It will benefit the reader because they don't have to do as much work to understand what is needed. It will benefit you as they are more likely to action the email in a timely way. Win–win.

This is another example of game theory productivity, discussed in chapter 2. It is about working with others in a way that is productive for you, as well as being productive for the group.

Mark Twain once apologised in a letter to his brother for writing such a long letter, explaining that he did not have time to write a short one. Writing brief but instructive emails takes more time, which may be less ‘efficient' but is a lot more effective.

The three ingredients of good communication

Think about an email you received recently that made you instantly recoil and think, ‘I can't even look at this right now.' What was it about the email that made you roll your cursor over it and move on to the next one? I would guess it was missing three essential ingredients that make you want to open it, or at least feel able to open it, there and then.

The first ingredient is focus. We need communications to quickly focus our attention on the issue, the request or the relevant information. What is this about?

The second ingredient is clarity. When you are not clear in your communication to me, it causes friction for me. I then need to seek clarification from you, in turn causing you friction. This results in wasted time and frustration for both of us, because not enough care was taken with the initial communication.

The third and final ingredient is context. Readers need context to understand how this fits into the bigger picture, and they may need additional supporting information to find that context. The key is to give them the context in a way that is quick to access if they choose to.

The SSS approach to emails

A simple format for writing effective emails is to slow down and use the SSS approach (see figure 4.3):

1. Subject. Write a clear subject line that accurately describes the contents. We are often lazy with subject lines, and don't bother changing old ones. Think of the subject line as comparable to a newspaper headline. It needs to be accurate and to grab the reader's attention. A strong subject line creates focus.
2. Summary. Start the email with a short ‘executive summary' so the reader can understand the context and any recommendations at a glance. This should also include a list of actions required from the email. By putting these upfront you will find that more people will read and action your email in a timely way. A clear summary provides clarity.
3. Supporting information. Finally, write or attach the supporting information so that the reader can delve into this if and when necessary. Appropriate supporting information provides context.

A strong subject line creates FOCUS.

A clear summary provides CLARITY.

Appropriate supporting information provides CONTEXT.

Sending effective communications (who)

Before pressing Send, have a final think about who needs to know. We create so much noise, especially with the overuse of email, and we have a responsibility to reduce that noise as much as possible while still doing what we need to do to fulfil our role.

One of my clients, new to a role in a tech company, complained of the flood of emails in his inbox, a conversation that had been raging there for a couple of weeks. He counted more than 60 emails in the thread, yet the conversation was not central to him, his team or his boss!

Email noise is a shared problem, and it needs a shared solution. To have any chance of staying on top of our priorities, we need to reduce this noise, as I discussed in my first book, Smart Work. There I reviewed strategies for reducing the noise, ranging from getting off distribution and CC lists to setting automated rules to redirect or delete emails.

I talked about the three main categories of email that we receive:

• action emails
• informational emails
• junk emails.

Only some of these emails are useful to us and are needed in our role, but many are just noise. Smart Work looked at ways to reduce this noise. Now we need to look at the other side of this issue, and examine how we can minimise the noise we ourselves create.

Noise can be created by:

• CC emails that do not add value for the recipient
• nonessential Reply All conversations in which the recipient is an observer rather than a participant
• thank you emails (most of the time)
• emails sent to a general distribution list rather than a more targeted group
• system-generated emails that duplicate other workflows
• nonessential chatter and discussion.

Of course, all of the above examples are relevant sometimes, but most of the time they just hamper us from getting to the important stuff.

Noise reduction strategies

So what can we do to reduce the noise for our team and our colleagues? There are lots of simple strategies that can help, and many of them just come down to a more thoughtful approach to using email. A little more empathy for your colleagues will go a long way!

Reply with care

One wonderful advantage of email is that it allows us to communicate with one individual or a large group with equal ease — for the sender. But if we address the email to people who do not really need to know, we start to erode the tool's utility for the recipients.

If we are the original generator of the email, we are less likely to address it to too many people, as it takes effort to include them all in the address field. But when we receive an email that has been sent to a group, we need only click the Reply All button to send our response to the whole group.

Imagine the support person in your team sends out an email to the entire team asking about dietary requirements or special preferences for catering for the team offsite next week. In such a case those with special requirements should reply directly, and only, to the sender. But how often does the whole group receive gratuitous Reply All responses informing them of Anna's allergy to shellfish or Peter's dislike of mushrooms!

We could reduce the number of times this situation arises in two ways. First, the team assistant could indicate clearly that any responses should be directed to her and her only. This would require a one-sentence instruction at the start of the email:

Please respond with your preferences only to me.

or

Please direct any questions to Matt and Carol.

This instruction would help the rest of the team enormously, as it would give them clear direction and remind them of the appropriate action to take.

A second solution is for you, as the recipient of the email, to take a moment before replying to think about who really needs to receive your response.

Don't be a copy cat

CC (for ‘carbon copy') is a holdover from the good old days when paper memos were delivered by hand to managers and executives. If other people needed to be looped in on the memo, carbon paper was used to create duplicate copies.

In the days of paper memos this was used judiciously as you could only put a certain amount of pressure on the page when writing, so the number of copies was very limited. And people thought carefully about who needed to know, and why.

But with email, the CC field is all too easy to populate, so we do. And it is easier still to CC a whole team distribution list. Extra points for that, I reckon!

While there is value in keeping your team in the loop, there is also a cost if this opportunity is not used judiciously or for the right reasons.

My clients tell me that much of the time they are copied in for the benefit of the sender rather than the recipients. We are CC'd for political reasons, as part of a power game. We are copied in because the sender wants to show how busy they are, or because the sender is obsessed about keeping everyone in every loop, just in case. Information is power, until we can't digest it effectively — then it is just noise.

The solution to this problem is similar as for the Reply All issue.

It is also useful to discuss with your team what you do and don't need or expect to be copied in on. This could take the form of a general discussion about your preferences, or relate to a specific project or issue. Giving people clear direction in this way saves time for you and them.

As the recipient of CC emails, you might also take steps to reduce the noise that you receive. In Smart Work, I talked about the idea of setting up a CC folder, and having all CC's directed automatically to this folder when they arrive. This means you have created a second, lower priority inbox that can be checked periodically, when you have time. If you do this, it is critical that you discuss it with your team, your peers and key stakeholders, so they are aware of your method.

It is important that everyone in your team knows never to put actions for recipients who are listed in the CC field. No one should miss an action because they assumed the email was sent merely to keep them in the loop.

Use distribution lists carefully

I work in many organisations where group distribution lists are still used as a very blunt communication tool. Emails will be sent to whole teams, departments and sometimes divisions using these lists. All too often, the content of the message is relevant to a sub-group but largely irrelevant to all others. The problem is that it is much easier to send to the full list than to select only the individuals who need to know.

I do see this happening less in organisations that have embraced other communication platforms such as Enterprise Facebook, Slack or Yammer, but the problem still exists.

One strategy that can help here is to take the time to create more segmented lists at the team level, so a communication can be sent to a team or several teams without too much work being involved. And of course, the lists should be kept up to date if they are to serve. Surely having one person spend time on the upkeep of these lists is a better use of resources than everyone having to deal with extraneous noise?

Another strategy is to move to another platform for this type of communication. If it is a broad announcement, or information that should be made available to the group, maybe posting it on an enterprise social media platform would be more efficient and relevant.

Get up and talk to someone

This is a really simple but important point. Stop typing that email to the person sitting opposite you. Get up, go over and talk to them. You might like them!

Okay, by adopting some of the strategies discussed in this chapter, we should have reduced the noise we are creating for our colleagues, and the noise we ourselves are subject to. Now to that other huge drain on our time — meetings.