Discussion: View Thread

Michael S. Cook asks for "examples of how e-mail can be disfunctional as a
management tool." We had several problems as our email system got up to
speed.

1) Frequent use of email for irrelevant "bulletin board" announcements
2) Use of entire all-school list for notes to one department
3) Use of attachments to entire list for material that could be pasted into
email as plain text

Our excellent new CIO and the IT chief developed an email list use policy.
Adopted by the executive board, it has become official policy. It has
solved most of our problems.

Two frequent problems occur on email lists in general:

4) Use of reply function without careful editing with repeats, threepeats
and fourpeats of prior messages, sometimes reposting over a hundred lines
to convey a one or two sentence message. (Just happened on Mg-Ed-Dv.)

5) Failure to use or change subject headers.

Ken Friedman

In a message dated 99-12-14 02:05:47 EST, you write:

<<
Sender: Management Education and Development Discussion <MG-E >>

E-mail will never replace face-to-face communication. I recently worked for
a manager whose office was right next door to mine. She never had time to
talk with her staff and preferred that they communicate with her through
e-mail. Needless to say, I no longer work for this lady. When managers
chose this route of communication, then it becomes a "dyfunctional management
tool."

Nancy Probst

Nancy Probst's comments about her boss next door who insisted on
communicating via e-mail reminds me of a cartoon I saw in the New Yorker a
few years back. The cartoon showed a husband and wife in their pajamas
sitting on their respective sides of the bed, each with a laptop in front of
them, and they were saying "good night" via e-mail!!


Larry Pate
University of Wisconsin-Madison
lpate@bus.wisc.edu


At 11:09 AM 12/14/99 EST, you wrote:
>In a message dated 99-12-14 02:05:47 EST, you write:
>
><<
> Sender: Management Education and Development Discussion <MG-E >>
>
>E-mail will never replace face-to-face communication. I recently worked for
>a manager whose office was right next door to mine. She never had time to
>talk with her staff and preferred that they communicate with her through
>e-mail. Needless to say, I no longer work for this lady. When managers
>chose this route of communication, then it becomes a "dyfunctional management
>tool."
>
>Nancy Probst
>