I just almost committed one of the great evils of the 21st-century workplace. I almost sent an Evil Escalation e-mail.
Imagine you have a hard deadline two days away and you are in desperate need of someone in your proximity to help you. You have previously secured a loose commitment from your counterpart to help you with this sort of request. You send a reminder about the deadline – that will affect you much more severely than your counterpart – and receive no reaction. This can be exceedingly annoying when the favor is of a reasonable character, you report to the same organization, and the result will because of this, benefit both of you in the long run.
The two ways forward.
Either you pick up the phone and call your colleague to give them a heads up that you are in need of assistance. The probability of you getting help, or at least a decent explanation to why you are on your own, is at this point very high.
or
You can, as I almost did, send yet another reminder of what is needed, and, almost in passing add a carbon copy to your boss, your counterparts boss, and everyone in between. At this point, if your request is somewhat relevant. You will probably get the immediate result that you were looking for.
But at what cost? You have now alienated a colleague. You have also shown everyone involved in the cc field that you are not equipped to handle the situation. To me, this seems like a poor long-term strategy for success. And I am glad I stopped myself from doing this in time.
As to my own, annoying, work-avoiding colleague – whose help I needed. I happily, did choose the first option and picked up the phone. The person, who I never met before, was happy to help, despite almost drowning in post-vacation emails that made it difficult for him to prioritize. After turning in our work I was also able to get even more help from him in a separate matter. A few days later I had a digital coffee with my new, friendly colleague about the dangers of poor communication. We both agreed that it is a really good idea to make an effort to avoid jumping to conclusions that hurt our ability to communicate well.
I learned something today.
Given the choice, I think it is a good idea to avoid the Evil Escalation E-mail.
A bit of nuance.
There are of course legitimate reasons for including more people in e-mails. But only if it is relevant to the conversation and the work. Or all other ways of collaborating have failed.
I find that when it is used purely as an intimidation tactic. It is often a signal that there are things in the group culture at a company or department that needs addressing. Let us try and make everyone feel comfortable in sharing and collaborating effectively.
What do you think? Are there times when an escalation email is necessary? Am I just dead wrong? I would love to know your opinion on the matter.
If you would like to read something more, maybe you are interested in my thoughts on innovation and design.
Have a great day!
Photo by Andre Hunter on Unsplash