How to nail the use of email and other communication tools

Communication tools such as emails and meetings have their place in modern law firms, but they must be managed intelligently and used according to their strengths, writes Dermot Crowley.

As the old saying goes, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. In terms of how we communicate in today’s workplace, our hammer seems to be email. I am working with many partners and executives who are receiving 200 to 300 emails per day and they are overwhelmed by this deluge, especially when most of it is just noise.

One of the challenges of managing email effectively is the fact that your productivity is compromised by other people. You are copied in on emails that you probably did not need to receive. You are placed on distribution lists that have little relevance to you. And you are privy to group conversations about Peter’s cat.

You may not be able to control what other people send you, but you can influence it by getting your team together and putting some agreements in place about when and how email should be used. 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 tools to manage

There are four main communication tools available for use in most organisations. They each have a place and a scenario in which they are most effective. Conversations and meetings are synchronous activities. This means that all parties need to do the activity at the same time. Email and posts are asynchronous activities and can be sent and read at different times. Conversations and email tend to work better one on one or with a few people. Meetings and posts work better when larger groups are involved.

Meetings

Meetings get a bad rap in the productivity world as they can be a very large waste of collective time. However, they are a very necessary way of getting work done. Meetings should be used sparingly, and of course they should be properly planned and run. Used well, they are a great way to move work forward, especially when we need to COLLABORATE.

The conversations that we have in meetings help us to make decisions, work out strategies and plans, allocate actions and brainstorm ideas. It is more effective to have all the relevant people in the same space at the same time in this situation.

Conversations

One senior manager told me recently that when he sees his team sending emails to each other from across the floor, he tells them to get off their backsides and have a conversation. We need to ensure that we don’t just become a constant interruption, but sometimes a conversation moves work forward 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 are most effective when you need to get CUT THROUGH.

Emails

Email has proven to be one of the most successful communication tools ever designed. I remember when I first used email in my role – and the joy of sending messages effortlessly, and actually getting replies! The problem now is that volumes are so high that managing email has become a part-time job. Email is still useful, however, if we can just be 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, not the minute it is sent.

Posts

The last category is what I call posts. They are becoming more and more popular in modern workplaces, but there is often confusion about how this communication method should be used. What I mean by a post is a comment or note written on a shared platform. Examples could include an Enterprise Social Media platform such as Enterprise Facebook, or a project management tool such as Slack. Both tools are effective when the readers need CONTEXT. They tend to thread the conversations within the context of the project, the topic, the issue or, in the case of a CRM tool, the client.

So we have options. There is no absolutely black-and-white rule about when you should use one tool over another to communicate. However, you and your team should start to think about when it might be good to choose certain tools over others when communicating. Do we really need a meeting for that – could we just have a quick phone conversation? Could we agree to post these conversations in Slack so that people can read them when they have time instead of getting 20 emails? Now that we have agreed on that decision, can you email me so we both have a clear understanding of what was agreed? All it takes is some thought and discussion. Not everything is a nail.

Dermot Crowley is a productivity thought leader, author, speaker and trainer. He works with leaders, executives and professionals in many of Australia’s leading organisations, helping to boost the productivity of their people and teams. Dermot is the author of Smart Work. For more information, visit www.dermotcrowley.com.au or email dermot.crowley@adapttraining.com.au.