It’s About Time to Stop Reading Your Cc’s
How many days, weeks, or perhaps even years of your life will you have spent reading email by the time you retire? More importantly, what fraction of that time did your time result in a meaningful decision or action?
A VP of Operations at a premier aerospace company once made the bold decision to never read another carbon copy. In fact, he set an Outlook rule to immediately archive any message that he was CC'd on. He never looked back.
There are two types of people in this world, those that can't be bothered by notifications and those that can't bare the thought of them going uncleared any longer than necessary. Regardless of which camp hoists your flag, everyone pays a price for distractions. Cal Newport, author of Deep Work, suggests that every distraction consumes a 5 minute block of focused attention. Multiply that by the number of emails many leaders receive in a day and it’s no wonder it can feel like there’s never time for the work that really matters.
If you're the type that begrudgingly reviews your cache of CC e-mails, likely after the majority of the office has gone home or before tucking in for the night, ask yourself these questions:
What meaningful actions have I taken as the result of reading a cc message?
How often has that been a reaction, on my part, to something that should have been proactively brought to my attention or addressed by someone else without my involvement?
How many CCs do you have left to read?
Chances are, if you still need to be reading them, you have communication, workflow or performance challenges in your organization that should be a priority to address.
When a member of the leadership team allows, or expects, CCs to be a means of communication:
The least accountable employees can experience a reduced burden of responsibility as they introduce a challenge to people with more authority without a specific request for help. It is in this environment that people communicate risks, issues and failures in general terms without owning the necessary actions to remedy them.
Leaders put a tax on themselves and the rest of the team to read and respond to messages that do not need to command their attention.
A culture of top down responsibility over personal accountability is nourished by supporting a system where employees seek to drive others to action through visibility to supervisors.
It fosters a culture of growth through exhibition where employees that have the most visible roles can earn disproportionate trust and recognition through CCs that are, again, a sap on everyone's time.
All of this is not to say that there is never a time for a copied e-mail. They can be helpful when debriefing an issue after completion, filling in for someone, and…surely there's one or two more useful scenarios. The point is to be intentional about your communication protocols - recognizing the hidden costs of disruption and reduced accountability, while reconsidering the value you get in return.
As we accelerate our shift to hybrid work environments and asynchronous schedules, strong communication protocols are becoming more critical than ever. Microsoft's Modern Workplace has all of the tools necessary to thrive. But if organizations aren’t intentional about how they are deployed and used, applications like Teams can become nothing other than a more invasive form of CCs.
At 3Seven Consulting we are passionate about using technology to accelerate productivity. Whether through workflows, establishing clear objectives, defining roles and responsibilities, or leveraging accountability measures to maintain focus and performance, we can help your business to thrive. 3Seven can help your organization to work quickly and efficiently through independent and asynchronous work by leveraging technology for what it was meant for; to extend the reach of what we can do on our own.