tech options

E-Mail is Essential

By Theo Gantos

This article is meant for the leaders of organizations, and NOT the techies. Tech folks having trouble convincing management to deploy email may find these thoughts helpful.

Many organizations are talking about reengineering these days for the information revolution. What can you do? Where should you start? What should you change? How will you improve your operations? Don't change your organization, change the WAY your organization does work.

Enrich the jobs of all your people so you can increase everyone's accountability and responsibility while raising productivity. The focus is on work. Don't be misled, however. This isn't a minor tweaking. This is real "blow it up and start all over" stuff. Forget about managers and workers … departments and titles. Empower your people. The key technology driver to improving work is electronic mail.

Increase Responsiveness

How do we increase the responsiveness of a company? We give everyone access to all the information they need to work. Access to anyone's advice, input, criticism, experience. We don't have to play phone tag or be available at the same instant in time. We don't have to socialize in order to break the ice. We just get to the point and say what's on our mind and they do likewise. We want to bridge departmental and office barriers. We want to evolve from a rigid in-flexible hierarchy into flexible self-managed work groups. Electronic mail can help facilitate this transformation.

What results is real productive work getting done in record time. We're not talking about spewing voicemail dictation for 15 minutes straight. Just send me what you need … let me make changes and fire it back to you. You can't do that with voicemail … Or faxes. Try negotiating a contract by fax sometime. It just doesn't work. You're wasting more time than you're saving using these "point" technologies. What's needed is a complete integrated approach to improving the way we work by leveraging technology. Start by improving the way everyone communicates in your organization.

Email is a great equalizer. If you're short, soft-spoken, a different gender, a thinker, or merely not on the A-List, your ideas get recognized for just that — being good ideas. No more shouting matches in office meetings to get your point across. May the best ideas help us all succeed, period.

Accuracy of Print

Putting your thoughts down in print is more efficient. But it may require new writing skills. Some, notably author and ex-Apple executive Guy Kawasaki say email should be stream-of-consciousness. They say to forego fixing minor grammatical and spelling errors. If your message is understood then it is "good enough", they say. Speed is more important than quality.

Others, myself among them, disagree. We believe that the need for strength and clarity in your communications is absolute. The ancient Chinese hold that wisdom comes from thoughtfulness, not impetuousness. There is a time to act and a time for preparation. The samurai does not rush into battle haphazardly but moves deliberately, with terrible purpose. Likewise, modern professionals should not send out drivel merely because they can. Spelling and grammatical problems may cloud your message or prejudice others negatively.

Where's the Savings?

Where's the savings? Forget saving money … concentrate on revenue. Remember the old saw that the ultimate way to save money is to turn out the lights and go home. You increase revenue if you cut your organization's response time in half. You'd be able to handle more business with better response and less stress. Most of the justification from email comes from helping to win and handle more business with the same or fewer and more experienced staff. The goal is to maneuver like a canoe and hit like a battleship. Using all your first string all the time.

What About Voicemail?

What about voicemail? If we have voicemail we don't need email, right? WRONG. I personally detest and despise voicemail, even thought I use it. Voicemail is an overused crutch...a high-tech answering machine. Most customers will hang up if their need is too urgent when confronted by voicemail. Could you imagine voicemail for a furnace repair company, a pediatric physician, or an ambulance company? You need an answer and you need it NOW!

There's no accountability with voicemail, either. You're not sure anyone got your message. I don't like to use voicemail in my business because my clients want solutions, not phone tag. They are busy. They need information. They need it now. And they don't want to talk to a machine. Imagine all the wasted time and effort spent in leaving, retrieving and returning calls, when it was a simple question that could have been asked and answered electronically.

So, only big companies use email, right? Nope. Small companies can run leaner, meaner and keep their edge by plugging everyone into every potential opportunity. We have four people and use email to collaborate on all our projects. Everything from phone messages to timesheets to social invitations. We can send to and receive from fax machines right from our desk, too.

Why Is It Not Working For Us?

If we already have email why is no one using it? If you're not getting any benefits then you may have one of three problems:

• Your system is too difficult
• Not everyone is connected
• The leaders aren't using it

Must Be Simple

First, email needs to be trivially easy to use. Think of how simple a telephone is, that's what's required. Most of the systems we recommend don't use menus at all, because menus require memorization. Everything is designed to be accessible from one window using buttons on the screen. The program can be learned in about 10 minutes and all the commands fit on one quick reference card.

Secondly, everyone must be connected for the system to be of value. Yes, even your receptionist. If you have a mailroom attendant, especially part-time, don't forget them — just print their mail out for them automatically. An email system with only some of your people on it is like a phone that can only call Detroit and Omaha. Think of how easy it'll be to communicate with the entire staff. No more photocopies or collating and no more time wasted delivering paper around the office. Some systems can even deliver faxes and voicemail right to your desk!

Remember to link in your customers and suppliers, too. If they have their own mail system then you may be able to link into them. If they are on one of the commercial systems like CompuServe, America Online, MCI Mail, or even the Global Internet, you should be able to reach them easily. If not then you can at least send documents to their fax machine. Ease of communication with customers is a big advantage so make it a priority.

Connect to Everyone

Your mobile professionals need to be accessible as well. We usually provide remote access to laptop and wireless users at all of our sites. These are usually the people that everyone needs access to anyway. The remote users can also be tied in through a local internet service provider. If your receptionist is connected (and puts phone messages on email) then your mobile professionals can call into the system anytime and pick-up telephone messages.

Strong Leadership and Consensus Lead to Committment

Isn't all this technology going to be scary? Will your people fight it? Not if you lead by example. Gather your leaders together to understand and get consensus on the system. Install the system; arrange for training and a short shakedown period. Make sure that new computer users get plenty of help. Then remove that old phone message wheel left over from the industrial revolution and instruct your receptionist to put all your phone messages on email. You'll be amazed at how fast everyone commits to and then masters the system. Commitment is key, and comes before success.

If you're thinking about re-engineering your organization to increase your competitiveness, start with a strong email system. Once your people use email for all their communications, you'll never want to go back to clay tablets again.

Theo Gantos is president of TEKA, a technology consulting firm. Contact him: