Picture credit: fotologic
These days it is so easy to quickly e-mail a difficult task to somebody else, either to share the problem or to shed it completely, rather than dealing with it ourselves.
I’m not talking though about that harmless, fairly untidy, childhood party game where players strip away layers of wrapping to reveal the prize. No, the ‘reverse pass the parcel’ to which I am referring is a more insidious and protracted pastime – internal e-mail copying and forwarding that adds layers of wrapping to the original packet, complicating and frustrating by turn.
a problem shared is a problem multiplied
The old adage was “a problem shared, is a problem halved…” but that was before the advent of e-mail, obviously.
Now, a problem shared can be a problem doubled, tripled or exponentially magnified. Simply because too many of us are too lazy when using e-mail forwarding and copying
Of course, sharing problems, or resolving queries, with colleagues is a natural function of our working lives. But it is getting harder and harder to manage our mailboxes, largely due to the indiscriminate use of e-mail.
whoosh! there goes the phantom mail cart again
Twenty or thirty years ago, the internal post could take a day or two to reach parts of the same building and a well-honed memo might well have taken a day or two to dictate, be transcribed, typed and distributed.
That was then and this is now – we have to manage dozens of quick-fire business communications every day, personally. Which is why we don’t always do it very well – and this is where we seriously erode the productivity benefits of our modern office technology.
make the prize easier to see
Have a look at your in-box and I’ll bet that you have at least one message that has done the rounds of your organisation – and grown substantially in the process. At each stage in its journey, the message content will have been embellished before being passed on, as each recipient added their own personal contribution.
Many of us regularly receive huge e-mails that begin life as simple enough, indeed quite succinct, requests. Before they are finally dealt with though, it is often difficult to unravel the many layers of superfluous “wrapping” that surrounds the basic message. Which takes time and can cause confusion about what really lies underneath.
We can all help each other by using e-mail forwarding and copying only when absolutely necessary. And most especially by not further complicating the underlying message.
If you agree with my views, why not pass this on to a friend by email?
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