Stop People From Hiding Behind Emails

“But I never agreed to that!” says Brooke

“Oh yes you did, you told me over the phone!” protests John

“Listen John, I don’t care about who said what to who and when, all I can see is that in this email you decided.” says the boss.

The above scenario is the power of email, what you say and agree to, and what you don’t.

Email is still the number one communication tool for internal communication within organisations. With Covid and many millions around the world working from home, email has become even more ubiquitous.

Don’t you hate it when someone asks you to decide, but the information that they are providing in the email is ambiguous. They are unclear about what they really want because they try to cover themselves in case something goes wrong. The ‘I told you so’ crowd. They want others to stick their neck out while they protect their own necks.

These people will never take a position on anything. They would rather send through information and then ask you to decide based on what they sent you. No recommendation or explanation of what they have sent. No insight into the problem faced, rather just data vomit in an email, for you to sort through.

So what do we do about these types of emails ?

In my personal experience, it is always best to deal with these people in writing.

These people have a certain way of operating, and this is how they do things. They send you their data vomit, then when you email them back and ask them certain questions, for clarity, that might expose them and their analysis to later judgement, they answer you by phoning you.

Unfortunately, many of us just trust that the phone conversation will clarify matters but we are all very busy and what I have learnt is that in business, people have very short memories, it is for that reason that you should always follow up any telephone discussion with an email confirming what you discussed and what decisions you made, and the reasons for those decisions. Draw them into the email, highlight their part in the decision, so that if something goes wrong, there is joint accountability.

Unfortunately, these are the measures you will need to take, because of the games people play within corporations.

I have seen too many good people take the rap for less competent people who play the ‘I never committed to that’ game.

They like to cast blame after the fact and try to escape any responsibility, so e sure to lock them in and always do it in writing. I wish I didn’t have to write articles like this, but I learnt early on the lesson of ‘give it to me in writing.’

A confirmation email of what you discussed and your reasoning, also assists you with the time dimension. A dimension often overlooked in retrospect.

Retrospect can often result in the ‘what on earth were we thinking?’ moment. So many times, we decide to take certain actions in major projects based on the information we have when we decide. A perfectly excellent decision can look rather poor in retrospect, even though, with the information available, the decision was correct. This is the power of the email confirmation.

Keep these in mind when sending through the email confirmation.

Highlight the role of each person and the manner in which we took the joint decision, what the rationale was for us making that decision and what information we based the decision on.

Highlight any other thoughts that were considered and why the decision that was chosen was the correct decision.

This way, you take team responsibility and don’t let those who hide behind ambiguous emails get away with it.

Thank you for reading this article.