Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee is often credited with writing, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Email is one such “great power” we often take for granted, dashing off messages in spare moments through the day. We may think even less about the power of email because of the other forms of communication—namely text and social media—that dominate our personal lives, but email still matters.
Via email, we can communicate with people who are otherwise hard to reach. We can reach large numbers of people in one go. We have a built-in record of exchanges. For these reasons, email remains the standard for most business communication, consuming about 28% of the average workweek with sorting, reading, writing, and answering. Great responsibility, indeed. Yet, with a few simple shifts in thinking, by considering the responsibility carried in written words, we can make that 28% of the work week more powerful and efficient.
Know Your Audience
We’ve all received, and promptly deleted, the reply-all email that didn’t really need to include “all.” We’ve also all gotten mired in a long chain of replies in an email conversation that could have been handled much more easily in a short meeting or in-person chat. Most of us are also guilty of perpetrating such crimes against our colleagues’ time and energy.
So, the first thing to consider is whether the email you want to send should really be an email, or whether you have a message that could be better handled in another medium. Then, instead of hitting “reply all” in a distracted rush, take a moment to consider who really needs to see what you’re sending and target your list to those people. The people you don’t send that message to will thank you—or they would if they had any way of knowing about messages you didn’t send them.
Crafting the Perfect Message
We’ve also all sent and received the long, possibly rambling, message that causes us to zone out halfway through. Time is at a premium for everyone, so target the message. Know your goal and include it in the subject line. An empty or vague subject line at best inspires confusion, at worst, dread. Prioritize the most important information at the top, keeping it brief and direct, and leading to a conclusion that states your desired outcome or next steps. Break the text into short paragraphs for easier readability.
Some debate may continue regarding the use of opening and closing lines, but most people still appreciate the basic courtesy of a greeting and signoff. You can dispense with the formalities in replies to an ongoing thread as long as you observe them in the initial message. Just be sure you’re tailoring the formality to the recipient. Some bosses may not bristle at a casual “Hi—” from an employee, but you want to be sure before you send.
Presentation is Everything
Your colleagues are probably not going to pore over your every message to scrutinize for comma splices and sentence fragments. They probably will notice misspelled words and typos, though. We can’t be perfect, but we can proofread and fact-check. You don’t need to check every detail against your high school grammar primer, but giving your message a once-over before you click “send” lets your recipients know you value their opinion by giving them the best version of yourself.
While you’re checking for typos, also check your tone. Written communication carries a lot of advantages, but the subtleties of non-verbal communication are obviously not among them. Think about whether you would want the message to appear on the local news…next to your photo. If you still feel good about what you’ve said, your tone is probably good.
The Nightmare Scenario
Even with the best intentions and preparations, mistakes happen. Emotions carry us away. We notice the glaring typo only after the fateful moment of clicking “send.” We send a private message to the entire office. There was a time when such errors would turn our lives into a bad sitcom episode—if we were lucky, but now we live in the future. Be sure to check your email settings and know your recall options. A growing number of platforms will allow you the option to set a grace period for yourself, up to a few minutes, in which you can undo a sent message with no one the wiser.