Delegating a Task

by Charles Plant | Apr 4, 2012 | Management

In meetings and at the office there are definite rules about delegating tasks. While delegating tasks or responsibilities to a subordinate is a straightforward matter, delegating tasks to a co-worker is somewhat more problematic. The problem is that no one really has the right to delegate tasks to a co-worker. If a task is to be given to a co-worker it has to be done in an agreed upon manner where both parties are aware of what is going on and both agree to the work being delegated.  It is almost a dance being performed in a meeting when one person tries to delegate tasks to a co-worker. This is not the case however with email. For some reason, people think that they can just give something to someone else to do in an email when they would never consider delegating the same task in person. Email is adding an effective layer of anonymity to dealings between co-workers that does not exist in live meetings. This layer of anonymity is allowing people to get away with behavior that would just be unacceptable anywhere else at work. Unfortunately, it is through processes such as these that people come to feel that they have lost control of their working lives. When co-workers, people at the same level of the organization can assign tasks and responsibilities, one has lost another element of control and this in turn can lead to greater feelings of being overwhelmed.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the anonymity that email has introduced is the tendency for people to try to delegate upwards, to assign responsibilities to their boss in ways they never would have considered doing before. Perhaps this is a reaction to being out of control and an attempt to re-assert control but I have experienced it myself and heard others complain of the practice as well. Certainly in the past you could have asked your boss to do something but you would have done this with some degree of trepidation and handled it in a formalistic manner so not do disturb the worker-boss relationship. With email however, those older social niceties are pushed aside in favor of directness and speed.

Keeping up with Email

by Charles Plant | Apr 2, 2012 | Management

Anne Avery explains how she keeps up with a high volume of email.

http://vimeo.com/35915814

Booking a Meeting

by Charles Plant | Mar 28, 2012 | Management

While I had been using email for quite a while, I had not adopted the use of a shared calendar until somewhere in 2001. I remember very distinctly my first reaction to it when someone looked in my calendar and booked a meeting for me. I was incensed that they would have the temerity to dictate how my time would be used and actually set my priorities by booking a meeting. Back in the Stone Age, before the advent of shared calendars you either had to go through the individual or through an admin assistant to book time for a meeting. This meant that the individual was in control of his or her own time, making time free to others when and if he or she wanted to. With shared calendars however, anyone can book a meeting in anyone else calendar as long as they have the requisite permission. This means that others are now setting your priorities and determining your agenda. It is this loss of control that is leading many managers today to feel overwhelmed.

Reply All

by Charles Plant | Mar 21, 2012 | Management

As bad as the habit of copying everyone is the habit of Replying to All. This is a button that should never have been invented. While it is nice and easy to use, it is almost comical in seeing how people use it. Clearly not thinking, many people fill up others Inboxes with unneeded crap just because it is easier to reply to all than it is to reply to only those specific people who should have received the reply in the first case. Compound the Reply to All with a message that you have received as a CC in the first place and a an unnecessary Thank You into the mix and you have now just received and had to deal with five emails or so where you didn’t need to get any of them. This might be seeming a bit pedantic but when you add this problem up over the day it can be leading to a much larger problem. If you consider how many emails you send versus how many you receive, you get a picture of the size of the problem. In my case I added it up for a few months and found that I was receiving five times as many emails as I was sending. This means that 80% of the emails that I got were not significant enough to warrant even a response. While this may seem trivial, it is the shear volume of emails that people are getting, in my case 80% of them, that are making people feel overwhelmed and out of control at work.