Don’t let technology take over your life
RECENTLY I went to a presentation of some research into the uses of technology at work, at the London office of Google. They had commissioned a think-tank to look into the ways that technology will help us “collaborate” and become more “creative” in the years ahead.
But there was a strange situation when those of us round the table actually started talking about technology and how it affects our working lives. People moaned about getting so many emails that it stopped them doing any work. Another complained that she had a fancy filing system on the intranet at work, but that it was impossible to find where anything was. Others hated receiving emails at three in the morning.
WORK: THE BLOB
The technological revolution has turned Parkinson’s Law – that work expands to take the time available – on its head. It’s closer to say that now work multiplies to fill the time available, and then keeps going. It’s like The Blob in the 1950s horror film, the weird alien amoeba that “consumes everything in its path as it grows and grows”, as the poster said.
The thing is to make technology work for you. To do that, you have to work out what a particular technology is good for, and use it for that task and nothing else. Email, for example, is no good for organising lunch appointments. I sometimes have exchanges of 10 emails with people just arranging a time and place, when that amount of information could have been exchanged in a 20-second phone conversation. As somebody pointed out at the Google event, it was telling that they thought the best way to present their research was to get us all in one room. We exchanged information very effectively in that two-hour meeting – it’s hard to imagine a technology that would have been as effective. A meeting was the best way to get the job done.
One of the people I met at the Google event told me that everybody in her office relies on instant messaging. She hates it, and insists on going to talk to people instead. That way she keeps up with the office gossip as well as getting to know people and building relationships – all things that are vital, and especially for managers. Sometimes having a chinwag is the best technology of all.
Reading Niall Ferguson’s new book about the investment banker Siegmund Warburg I was struck that Warburg insisted that his employees exchange information by memos, not phone calls. The logic was that if you wrote it down, then you would express yourself more concisely and clearly. Warburg’s internal memo system was the email of its day. Written mediums are good for expressing clear, logical requests and commands, but the problem with email is that people bash out sloppy messages and therefore lose the power of the medium. Technology that is designed to make communication more efficient and faster can actually get in the way and create confusion.
In his book What To Do When You Become the Boss, Bob Seldon, who has been managing people for 48 years, devotes a whole chapter to using email. We might not all be able to follow the lead of his friend who only answers emails on Fridays, but we can certainly manage them better. Remember, he says, that email is a tool for doing your job, and using mail should not become the major part of your job. That’s good advice. His rules for email are in the boxes below.
BOB SELDON’S TIPS FOR MANAGING THE EMAIL PROCESS:
1) Look at emails after lunch, when you are least creative and probably won’t achieve anything else. They generally don’t take much thought. Turn off the ping that tells you an email has arrived. Set your email programme to open on the calendar instead of the inbox.
2) Set a maximum time for looking at emails. Take no more than two minutes for each.
3) Handle each email as you read it. Use the four Ds: do take action; delegate, if you need to; diarise a time to follow up; or delete.
4) Make sure your inbox is clear at the end of each checking session.
5) If an email requires discussion, then phone, don’t email back. You should make a call if the person is in the same building, is somebody you haven’t spoken to in a while, or somebody who doesn’t respond quickly to emails.
6) If you are a manager, enforce an email-free day – this encourages better teamwork and problem solving.
7) Tell people about your email management system. Then they know when to expect a response and won’t hound you.
BOB SELDON’S TIPS FOR MANAGING THE CONTENT OF EMAILS:
1) Restrict emails to reason and logic and send emotions face-to-face. If what you are saying will impact the receiver emotionally, then tell them personally. Emails are written quickly and so can often be written loosely. They are easy to misinterpret. Verbal communication is far more subtle, you can hear the tone of voice and see body language.
2) Avoid the word “you” in emails. It can sound very accusatory, especially when you are talking about past behaviour, even if you don’t meant it that way. “You didn’t come to the meeting” sounds bad.
3) Know exactly what you want your mail to achieve before you write it, and what you want the recipient to do. Emails should either provide information, request information or request action.
4) Make use of the subject line. Make sure it communicates the intention of your message. When you respond to an email, change the subject line to reflect the intent of your response. That way a specific email is easier to find. “Information” is a bad subject line, while “Please supply a copy of your latest brochure” is a good one.
5) Use the first paragraph to set out the content of your email and what you expect it to achieve.
6) If you cc somebody, make sure they know why and what you want them to do.
7) If the person you need to communicate with doesn’t like email, then don’t send one. Go and see them, or pick up the phone.
What To Do When You Become the Boss, by Bob Seldon is out now, priced £12.99