Several years ago I had an employee whom I'll call Richie. Richie used to send me an email and then walk over to my desk and say, "I just sent you an email." Since he'd already interrupted I would oblige and read his email so I could give immediate feedback and try to get back to what I was doing. I purposefully chose the word "try" because every interruption causes your mind to lose concentration and require you to regain your thought, sort of like how we (or I, anyway) have to re-read a paragraph or sometimes a whole page of a book if I stop to look at something else that's probably email.
In this excellent Harvard Business Review article, author Hal Newport suggests eliminating email in favor of having "office hours" where you have time set aside to talk with people that need you, same as professors do in college, Mr. Newport correctly states that email has created a fragmented dialog, one where a face-to-face conversation could "allow you to handle in three minutes decisions that might have otherwise taken three days of attention-snagging messages." I mostly agree.
The problem is, the business world isn't academia. Sure, professors have staff meetings and other peer-related responsibilities. However, professors are not having their classes interrupted by their peers. Their office hours are generally for students who are, essentially, the professor's customers. In most businesses it is not practical to schedule times when your customers may or may not contact you. Or put another way, your business hours ARE your office hours. In an office environment, your interruptions also come from your peers and in an open-office environment, like where I work, the frequency of interruptions can be amplified simply because you don't have a door to close or office hours to manage the barrage of interruptions.
Your peers don't mean to turn your day upside down, they just need to talk. Perhaps they just want to chat about last night's game. Or maybe they really need some bit of critical information that only you have. Whatever the reason, your peers are operating on their time schedule, not yours.
This is pretty powerful thing to understand. Your peers are operating on their time schedule, not yours. Anyone that has read Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People understands that this falls smack in the middle of Quadrant III. That is, getting from you this priceless nugget of information is urgent to them but is unimportant to what you need to get done.
So let's get back to Richie. His approach was classic Quadrant III -- to me -- but was Quadrant I - to him. To him, it was both urgent AND important, which is why he would stand over my shoulder until I read his email. And it is this misaligned sense of importance and urgency that is at the heart of the matter. If Richie was going to come to my desk anyway, why send the email in the first place? Perhaps he wanted it documented in writing. Perhaps he didn't think he could articulate it as well when speaking in real-time. Or, maybe he forwarded an email from someone else that gave it context. Whatever the reason, he sent it as an email. I am equally guilty of this crime.
To me, email is not an urgent medium. In today's information age we have numerous ways to communicate: phone call (including video calls), text messages, Instant Message (IM), social media. And face-to-face, real conversations too. For me, the order of urgency, from least urgent to most, is as follows:
- Social Media -- Unless you manage a support group or some sort of external communication via Social Media, or you are contacting someone who does, this is not a great choice for communicating real business needs. This is a way to be heard when you don't want or need a response.
- Email -- Send an email when you need something from someone but the answer can wait. Maybe it can wait until tomorrow, or next week, or maybe by close of business. Whatever the case, email suggests that YOU are willing to work on THEIR timeline. Used properly, email can be really useful. But email is mostly abused and therefore we are all buried under an avalanche of these little electronic jerks.
- Text Message / IM -- I combines these two forms of media because to me they have the same purpose, a short interruption for a small piece of information. These media are not well suited for long conversations but are ideal when you want a quick response.
- Phone call -- This old fashioned standby is still as relevant today as it was when it was invented. A phone call means you want to have a conversation and you'd like to do it now. However, a phone call may be a Quadrant III activity and therefore the callee has the power to accept or decline the call.
- Face-To-Face -- Walking over to someone's desk sends a message that, what I need to discuss is important enough that I am going to interrupt you whether you like it or not and I cannot wait for a response.
The above order of precedence only works if both parties agree to it, which is almost never the case, though I do try to espouse it whenever possible which, admittedly, isn't as often as I'd like.
So what to do? The rise of communications options has given birth to whole industries that try to wrangle all this communication. It is proclaimed that apps like Slack are going to kill email once and for all. With 100 billion pieces of email being sent every day, that seems unlikely, at least any time soon. Though apps that actually help tame the beast are certainly worthwhile. But in reality, it this just another window to which we need to turn our attention?
Chances are, there will never be a single solution that solves this ever-growing problem. Because there will always be people like Richie who will come to your desk and say, "I just messaged you on Slack..."
Do you have a better way? Share it in the comments.
