>My (lower status) peers' emails would meander, and read like they wanted to show their superiors how good/smart they were at their job, and that they thought of every last thing.
The last part is key. If I don't list the things I've thought off, and write a briefer email, I guarantee I will get any of the following:
1. Followup emails with questions because they don't understand.
2. Emails of the type "Did you consider...?". This is the primary reason my emails can be lengthy, so that I can list all the things I considered so that I don't get questions asking about them.
3. Even worse, people not emailing me, but with them misunderstanding and doing the wrong thing, and then saying "Well I thought you meant..." leading me to ask "Where in my email did you get the idea that...?"
Do note that I'm not in a "superior" position. These are mostly emails to peers.
Why send email at all? The only times I use email is when:
- I need to formalize something everybody already agreed to (record keeping)
- The content of the message is not all that important
Perhaps your organization is different, but usually your communications end with email, they don't start with it. Talk to people in private, give them a call, etc.
- Old bug tracking system going away and how to use the new one
- New feature added to the testing infrastructure and how to use it
- Changes that affect the build system - requiring people to update their paths, etc.
- Weird bug I'm trying to debug (listing all approaches I've tried so far) (usually sent after consulting one or two people privately and getting nowhere).
>Talk to people in private, give them a call, etc.
This doesn't apply to any of the above. Usually my longer emails are for things everyone in the team needs to know.
What usually happens is:
1. Either the person did not read the email at all and start asking everyone for help when things don't work.
2. They read the email, but did not encounter the problem until a week later. Instead of trying to find the email and reading it, they just go to the author. Thus, the author has to explain things about 5 times (first time in the email, and the remaining 4 to people who did not want to read the email).
Granted, I could have put the information on the wiki and just sent a brief email with a link to the wiki page, but then I'll get people coming to me asking "Hey can you send me the wiki link again?" because they cannot figure out what to search for.
In general, people would rather talk than read. Even technical people. The primary reason people do not read my emails is that I am accessible. They would rather come to my cube, call me or IM me than read an email. This is why I put a minor barrier to reaching me: I'm usually not on IM. My next step will probably be to ask my manager to put my cube on the opposite end of the floor as the rest of my team. If I succeed, I'm sure the rate at which people read my emails will go up a lot. It's not a long walk, but that extra bit of effort will cause most people to try more options before walking.
The last part is key. If I don't list the things I've thought off, and write a briefer email, I guarantee I will get any of the following:
1. Followup emails with questions because they don't understand.
2. Emails of the type "Did you consider...?". This is the primary reason my emails can be lengthy, so that I can list all the things I considered so that I don't get questions asking about them.
3. Even worse, people not emailing me, but with them misunderstanding and doing the wrong thing, and then saying "Well I thought you meant..." leading me to ask "Where in my email did you get the idea that...?"
Do note that I'm not in a "superior" position. These are mostly emails to peers.