Bad E-mail Habits Observed

Communicating the right way via e-mail and other modes of communication is important. Unfortunately, the ease of use of e-mail is leading to some common and frequent bad habits. Here’s some “names” I’ve coined for the most prevalent bad habits I observe in my Inbox:

1. Firestarting. A person receives an e-mail that makes them panic, or that is too complicated for them to deal with alone. Since it's so darn easy to throw a dozen people into a forward, CC, or reply a lot of people end up getting involved at that instant and increasing the panic and confusion rather than solving the issue. By the time all the threads get uncrossed, more time has been spent in disjointed crossfire than on solving the issue.
2. Crossfire Info-bombing. This one is a personal pet peeve and follows LaPlante’s Rule of Inbound v. Outbound: The amount of e-mail you can respond to effectively is inversely proportionate to the amount of e-mail you receive. I particularly suffer from this as I get CC'd on everything. As an executive, everyone wants to call everything to your attention. They think that by throwing your name on a CC that the TO: recipient will be that much more compelled to respond, and when they do, they CC me as well. Furthermore, while we think that everyone can read and absorb all of the e-mail they receive, the reality is that it is not possible for all. The detriment is that due to crossfire info-bombing, I get to spend less time absorbing and intelligently responding to important e-mails. Instead, I have to try and skim all the mail I receive and figure out if it really is relevant for me to absorb and/or if I need to respond.
3. Ticking bombs. Often I find e-mails lurking in my inbox that should have been a call to my cell phone immediately. It's akin to sending me an e-mail letting me know that you’re currently witnessing my car being stolen out front. Which brings me to…
4. Problem bouncing. E-mail comes to a person. However, that particular person does not feel like dealing with it right then. Instead of picking up a phone, walking down the hall, organizing a meeting, or whatever, they forward the e-mail on to someone else to deal with it.
5. Bottom-threaders. This is more of a personal annoyance. However, many people choose to respond to an e-mail at the bottom of the original e-mail. This is counterintuitive and mixes up the recent-down (a.k.a. current-at-top) approach that 99 percent of the world follows. I miss responses all the time because they're buried in the thread out of recent-down order. What’s worse, when you mix the two together and you have no idea where the thread is or was. Drives me nuts!

Golden Rule applies: Communicate to others how you wish to be communicated with: Quickly, efficiently and with the relevance, intelligence and organization that minimizes the recipient's effort to understand it and deal with it appropriately.

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