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worst practice number three: calling people
names
there is something strange with e-mail, whereby people are sometimes
writing things that they wouldn't dare to say if they had to meet
the person or even talk to him or her over the phone. There's
an example I quoted in an earlier article about a personal discussion
between teachers in a great business school. One of them was talking
in confidence to another one about internal feuds between teachers.
One of their colleagues had sent an e-mail sending a nine long
pages (!) describing his personal feelings so that everyone would
know about them. If we were to transpose this in the real world,
would you imagine somebody writing nine pages of his own handwriting
describing his personal woes and problems in a most intimate fashion,
then photocopying and circulating them to each and every one of
his colleagues by hand?
Similarly, people calling each other names in person when they
are meeting face-to-face is rather rare in the business world.
Usually, employees are trying to maintain a professional behaviour,
which is normal practice in business. People remain courteous
and even though they disagree try and do so in a reasonable manner.
Strangely enough, this kind of reserve is sometimes lifted when
people use e-mail. Strong language is sometimes used to describe
strong feelings and opinions. Most of the time this would not
do in the real world either. Because e-mail is impersonal, because
senders are facing the screen rather than a real person when they
are writing their e-mails, it makes them forget sometimes about
proper social usage of communication in general. I think it has
happened to everyone at least once in one's professional life.
One gets frustrated at someone or something, and one feels the
urge to write a message to get one's point across. E-mail seems
to be the appropriate way of doing this.
As a matter of fact it is not. One may find it convenient to
exorcise the problems that we have through writing. Shouting at
one's screen and typing with rage on one's keyboard is actually
doing one a lot of good (similarly to having a good workout in
order to vent one's frustration). My strategy for this is simple,
if you feel like writing an e-mail like this, think about it twice.
If you feel so irritated that you really cannot stand the situation,
take half an hour off and go out of the office and have a cup
of coffee and then come back. If this is not possible here is
what I suggest. Write your very angry e-mail which you will store
in your draft basket, save it and leave it there for the night.
Don't send it to anyone. Have a good workout at the gym in the
park or anywhere else, and then a good night's sleep, and when
you come back to the office in the morning, print your draft e-mail
out and read it in a loud voice.
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