The second installment in an occasional series where I think out loud about using email effectively.
First off, reader and comics fan Craig pointed out this wonderful comic strip on the perils of email: Link. Thanks, Craig!
Next, here are some of my own current ruminations about email….
Spinning out of control (and how to stop)
Sometimes you have to use email to conduct business. The problem is that email discussions have this habit of spinning out of control. Sometimes people write things they later regret. Sometimes people stop reading carefully, and talk at one another instead of with one another.
Recently, I was participating in an ongoing email discussion. Another woman and I separately sent out perfectly innocent email messages that unwittingly stirred up strong emotions in someone else. That person sent out a very restrained reply, but suddenly it occurred to me that something was wrong.
Suddenly, it felt like things might spin out of control very quickly.
Fortunately two other people sent out nearly simultaneous email messages:– one person wrote, Let’s wait for our face-to-face meeting next week and discuss this there;– the other person wrote, This can wait until we have our next meeting. And our email conversation stopped immediately, while we wait for our next face-to-face meeting.
I’ve decided that when you’re communicating via email, you always have to be ready to stop and say, I’ll call you and we’ll talk on the phone — or, Let’s meet face-to-face and discuss this. In addition, I’ve decided that when you’re communicating via email, you always have to be ready to listen when someone says, Hey I’ll call you on the phone — or, Hey let’s meet face-to-face and discuss this. You always have to be willing to stop the email discussion at someone else’s request, and move to a more interactive mode of communication like the telephone or a face-to-face meeting.
The thing about email is that you often don’t know the emotional state of the person with whom you’re exchanging email. When someone else asks for a phone call or a face-to-face meeting, you have to trust that they really mean it. I’m thinking that when someone else asks for a phone call, the only appropriate email response is:– What are some times I can call you, and what’s the best phone number to reach you at? (or: What phone number are you at right now?) If someone asks for a face-to-face meeting, you can say:– When and where? That should keep things from spinning out of control.
Two other possibilities:– I believe that the better you know someone, the less likely it will be that an email discussion will spin out of control (which means that team-building for committees using email heavily is probably a good idea). I believe that having regularly scheduled face-to-face meetings helps a little to keep things from spinning out of control (because you know that you’re going to have to come face-to-face with those people).
But everything I’ve said here is up for debate. What are your experiences with email spinning out of control? What goes on when email discussions spin out of control? Once they start spinning, how to stop?
Next installment: Email [curse | blessing], part three
Sorry if this is weirdly formatted but your comment box runs off my screen so I have to press Enter a lot to see everything I’m typing–
I’m not sure if how I handled out of control emails was the best way, but I actually had to put a stop to them. I worked with a guy I used to get into heated debates with about religion (go figure). I am UU and he calls himself born again Christian. When I left that job, we kept in touch by e mail.
Anyway, his ongoing e mails about his beliefs, excerpts from the Bible, and how he presented them as fact, not as simply his beliefs, got to me so much that I asked that he not discuss religion with me.
We just kept going around in circles and I knew we’d never stop arguing about it. Soon, I ended up putting the entire email correspondence to an end because it became inappropriate for reasons other than the religion topic. I did once try to meet him in public (after I’d left the job) to discuss things with him but the plan was botched and never happened. I think it’s better that way. We were never going to see eye to eye or even understand each other.
Kate — Your Christian friend is a great example of what can happen with email — and yeah, sometimes you just have to give up on someone. I think the hard part for me is knowing when to stop exchanging email. You write: “I’m not sure if how I handled out of control emails was the best way” — and maybe that’s what’s really ahrd about it, there are no hard-and-fast rules, so there are many times when you’re not quite sure if you’ve done the right thing or not. Thanks for the great comment.