Startups and Entrepreneurship

Why are CEO's better at email communication than the people who work for them?

 

Because they understand that communication is the key to success. 

 

They know that reliable communication is the key to their business.

 

They value their network, and they know that as leaders people depend on their direction.

 

If they are not responsive, it’s a chain reaction of paralysis that leads to unproductive teams and poor performance.

 

On the flip-side of CEO’s is the middle to senior management who are absolutely horrible at email. We all have people we work with who have hefty titles and who at the same time as collecting their beautiful paycheck, can’t be bothered to respond to emails ever.

 

Nothing is worse than being held in standstill from moving forward because a co-worker can’t be bothered to respond.

 

The Top 12 Tips for Emailing Like A CEO:

 

THE 12 HOUR RULE: It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Try not to get behind. If you do get behind, make a pact with yourself that no matter what you will try and respond within the day. Jump back on email at night and clear your inbox.

 

BE EFFICIENT: Set your inbox to thread conversations so that you’re not responding late to conversations or issues that are already resolved.

 

DON’T CHERRY PICK: Aside from emails from your boss which you should respond to first, try not to cherry pick emails. Responding out of order to certain emails and not others creates a messy inbox and will cause you to miss emails.

 

BE QUICK & DIRTY: Respond to easy emails immediately and then trash (or archive) them.

 

DON’T BE RADIO SILENT: Don’t open an email, read it, and close it ever. If you open it and it’s too involved to solve in that second, write the sender something like, “Hi, got your email. I have to do some digging into this, and that might take some time, but rest assure I am on it!” Don’t be radio silent. Re-mark this email as “unread” and pin it to the top of your inbox.

 

BE BRIEF: No one has the patience or time to read a novel. Be brief and to the point and try and write in a bullet point format versus in long paragraph form.

 

THINK GLOBALLY: Be mindful of colleagues in different time zones. If you want a productive working relationship, you have to be considerate as to when you are responding. I will try and respond to these emails late at night or first thing when I wake up so that I can catch my colleagues while they are still in their workday.

 

DON’T DISCRIMINATE: Be an equal opportunity emailer. Treat everyone with the same importance no matter what their title is or their job function.

 

DON’T EXPOSE EMAIL ADDRESSES: Do not send big group emails with people in the “To” section. People are very protective of their email address and if you do need to email a big group, put everyone in bcc. Please refer to point 10.

 

BEWARE OF BBC-ING: BCC colleagues with caution. People don’t immediately realize they are in bcc and could accidentally reveal themselves in a reply all to the group.

 

BE CRYSTAL CLEAR: Include deadlines in your emails so that you’re setting clear expectations for response time.

 

BE AN EARLY BIRD: You don’t have to set your alarm for 3:45 am as Tim Cook does, but waking up an hour earlier to review emails will improve your productivity. It’s also a nicer way start to your day and walk into the office ahead of the game.

 

 

read the original at https://www.forbes.com/sites/alizalicht/2018/10/07/how-to-email-like-a-ceo/1