GUEST BLOG: Are you an email rock star?

By Shane Cradock

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“I’m an email Rock Star”

 These words were shared with me by a very smart executive at our first meeting.

‘You’re not going to meet anyone who’s better than me at email, so that’s one area we don’t need to focus on.’

He was right, and wrong. Right in so far as I have never met anyone who is as efficient in clearing their inbox down to zero daily as he was. Wrong in so far as we did need to focus on his email because there was one glaring problem. He wasn’t working strategically and as such, he wasn’t performing.

One of the main problems was that the things he really needed to do were being passed over in favour of appeasing his ‘email fans’. Yes, he truly was a legend when it came to responding to all emails in record quick time, but it was at a very high cost because that wasn’t his job.

The miracle of technology has brought with it ever increasing opportunities to ‘interrupt yourself’. People are conning themselves into thinking that being busy, with things like their email, equals success.

Obviously it doesn’t.

It’s a challenge we all face in the Western World. The McKinsey Global Institute found that the average employee spends 13 hours a week minimum reading and responding to email. Over a year that adds up to 650 hours, which is 81.25 eight hour days. Ouch! And remember, that’s minimum.

Most inboxes are overflowing with unimportant mails masquerading as priorities. The reality is that not everything matters equally and success isn’t a game won by whoever ever does the most. Yet that’s exactly the way most people seem to play the game, especially with their email.

Email interruption is one part of the ‘Interruption Epidemic’ I believe we’re in at the moment. My own estimation is that most businesses are losing at least 30% productivity due to interruptions. Most people see ‘being busy’ as a badge of honour. But the key question to ask them is busy doing what?

When you’re at a leadership level, the price of being busy is a lack of high-level thinking, resulting in key priorities not being identified. This will eventually hit the bottom line and maybe even the future of the business. High-level thinking is the kind that helps you prioritise your time and resources based on strategic priorities.

So here’s some of the changes my client made (and even if you’re doing these yourself, trust me when I say that there are people in your team who don’t!)

Techno tweaks:

• All email alerts and sounds turned off.
• Moved from email on to email off i.e. He turned off email coming in automatically and moved from push to pull.

Guidelines:

• Never look at email first thing in the morning.
• Set clear ‘get in, get out’ times during the day for email.
• Clarified in writing his top five priorities for the year, in order of importance, and then for the quarter ahead.
• Set up ‘thinking time’ every Friday to review the week that was and plan the week ahead based on immediate and strategic priorities.

I have astonished business people by suggesting that they turn off their email. In my experience, the only role that needs to have their email on all of the time is someone in direct customer service.

So what happened to my client? Did the world end? Or more importantly, did his fans lose faith?

Well, the bad news is that he’s not an email Rock Star any more. The good news is that he’s become a Rock Star in his business. And that’s what matters more.