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I tried emailing like a CEO and it made my life better

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Re: I tried emailing like a CEO and it made my life better

#11

Post by StavrosK »

gtsteve wrote: post #9
jasonmaydie wrote: post #3

Some people get anxiety when email piles up in their mailbox and may spend a considerable amount of time sorting and categorizing their emails, some go as far as making zero inbox a thing. I would hazard to say most people don't care about their inbox. I for one don't mind at all if an email I didn't read festers in my inbox for years, after all if it's not urgent enough to call or physically reach out to me about it…

> it's not urgent enough to call or physically reach out to me about it it's not that big a deal Exactly. If someone has a problem with me taking a couple of hours to get back to an e-mail I say, "you wouldn't send the fire brigade a postcard would you?"

"Thank you for saving my house from the fire last week. XOXO"

Re: I tried emailing like a CEO and it made my life better

#12

Post by parenthephobia »

> I wanted to know, did you always email this way, or did you only start once you became the boss? His answer (over email): “Yes.” I’m going to assume the yes was to the first part of the question and he skimmed over part two.

This isn't something to emulate. People who only read the first few words of an email before replying make communication harder for everyone else. Sometimes things can't be accurately summed up in half a sentence.

Re: I tried emailing like a CEO and it made my life better

#13

Post by petercooper »

jasonmaydie wrote: post #3

Some people get anxiety when email piles up in their mailbox and may spend a considerable amount of time sorting and categorizing their emails, some go as far as making zero inbox a thing. I would hazard to say most people don't care about their inbox. I for one don't mind at all if an email I didn't read festers in my inbox for years, after all if it's not urgent enough to call or physically reach out to me about it…

some go as far as making zero inbox a thing.

That's me. I am very conscientious with emails. Nearly all get actioned or a reply and I often use it as a to-do list. But I also get both my work and personal inboxes to zero every weekend :-) It definitely makes me feel better as things sitting waiting to be done make me anxious (to the point of getting all the cooking stuff into the dishwasher before sitting and eating a meal :-D)

Re: I tried emailing like a CEO and it made my life better

#14

Post by lkrubner »

My experience has been that a lot of people are surprisingly uncomfortable writing. This includes people who have gone to the best universities --- people with excellent educations. They can write well enough to get through school, but they don't enjoy it, and they don't feel they are really expressing themselves in writing.

Personally, I feel like my writing skills are better than my verbal skills, so I default to email, because email plays to my strengths. But over the years I've been taught that I'm in the minority on this. Many managers and co-workers greatly prefer to have a conversation. Often, they feel like they are not getting the facts when they engage in written communications. Apparently they need to see my face and read my body language. Apparently this is true even when the subject is deeply technical, like talking about the APIs our microservices use to talk to each other.

Re: I tried emailing like a CEO and it made my life better

#15

Post by alexhutcheson »

canadianwriter wrote: post #10
hnrodey wrote: post #7

Rules for good emails 1. Keep the message as short as necessary but no shorter. 2. Put the most important information at the top of the message. 3. If it email is for an ask, call out from who you need the response and put it at the top of the message. 4. If you need to send a long email with many details, put the most important information at the top (ie. what the reader needs to know) and then fill in the body with…

We usually have a lot of CC's. So we use the @ system. Eg. @stacey - can you get me the numbers on whatever?

I just bold the names, which has a similar effect.

Re: I tried emailing like a CEO and it made my life better

#16

Post by Bartweiss »

parenthephobia wrote: post #12

> I wanted to know, did you always email this way, or did you only start once you became the boss? His answer (over email): “Yes.” I’m going to assume the yes was to the first part of the question and he skimmed over part two. This isn't something to emulate. People who only read the first few words of an email before replying make communication harder for everyone else. Sometimes things can't be accurately summed up…

Answering "yes" to "A or B" questions is a terrible approach - if I had to start defining communication anti-patterns it'd be one of the easiest examples. Saying "always" or "the first one" isn't hard, and actually answers the question.

Re: I tried emailing like a CEO and it made my life better

#17

Post by JoeAltmaier »

parenthephobia wrote: post #12

> I wanted to know, did you always email this way, or did you only start once you became the boss? His answer (over email): “Yes.” I’m going to assume the yes was to the first part of the question and he skimmed over part two. This isn't something to emulate. People who only read the first few words of an email before replying make communication harder for everyone else. Sometimes things can't be accurately summed up…

And yet this is ubiquitous. Nearly nobody reads the whole thing, or if they do they respond to only the most interesting part. The rest is ignored.

I have a rule: Ask exactly one question in an email. Because asking more doesn't ever work.

Re: I tried emailing like a CEO and it made my life better

#18

Post by rwc »

I think the author suffers from a perfectionism problem. She wants to sent the perfect reply. When asked for advice, she sets a bar that’s much higher in her own head for what the reply should be than what the person asking likely intended. Bosses and CEOs don’t seem to suffer from these anxieties, and have no problem sending back short, decisive, and sometimes imperfect replies.

Re: I tried emailing like a CEO and it made my life better

#19

Post by albertgoeswoof »

As a manager or senior a huge part of your job is communication and distributing information, and email is one of, if not, THE core method of doing this.

The author has decided to provide poor communication because she can’t handle her inbox. One word replies can be extremely misleading and will cost her more time overall than reading and replying to her emails properly. I would be fuming if I was her boss or worked for her.

Re: I tried emailing like a CEO and it made my life better

#20

Post by LeeHwang »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #19

As a manager or senior a huge part of your job is communication and distributing information, and email is one of, if not, THE core method of doing this. The author has decided to provide poor communication because she can’t handle her inbox. One word replies can be extremely misleading and will cost her more time overall than reading and replying to her emails properly. I would be fuming if I was her boss or worked…

Yea I can see this backfiring over the long term.

A counter example is Nintendo, where Sakurai was literally recorded, so people wouldn't be confused about the project status and what he told them to do.

https://www.polygon.com/2013/11/20/5127488/a-day-in-the-extr...

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