According to our recent leadership survey, most professionals receive, on average, over 50 emails per day. Buried in the hundreds of words “conveniently” delivered to your in-box is the information you need to assess, decide, and act. Help yourself by using the “reply” button to coach your people—particularly those who are prone to wordy emails—to make their messages succinct. Request they give you a headline or punch line right up front, one that explains why you’re being sent the message. Ask for subject lines that tell you priority, response required (or FYI only), and by when. With a little bit of leadership on your part, you can help others turn email from a time waster to an effectiveness tool.
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Interested in the topic of email effectiveness? Have you taken our email effectiveness survey? If not, it’s a good way to take a look at your own email habits, and help others too: http://tinyurl.com/236qqy4
David Peck
Executive Coach and President
Leadership Unleashed
Twitter: recoveringleadr
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Based on client experiences / lessons learned, our weekly LeaderTips have been offering self-coaching themes and topics of interest to leaders since 2004. They are often published in BusinessWeek Online, sent weekly to our clients, and hundreds of other corporate leaders worldwide. I invite you to forward them to others, who are also welcome to subscribe using the link below. Note that over 100 of these tips appear in my book, Beyond Effective: Practices in Self-aware Leadership. Click here to subscribe to LeaderTips via email.
