Achieving Palpable Relief, Part II.
Hi There,
In last week’s message I shared a couple of client success stories. These stories weren’t about winning business, acquiring new clients, or even getting a promotion. The wins were based on these professionals’ ability to manage their inbox, so it didn’t manage them.
Interestingly, the two success stories I shared had something in common: Both Cathy and Vicky moved from feeling powerless to powerful when they imposed agency over their own processes.
Today, I’d like to widen the lens of taming the dreaded email inbox to team situations. Moving from ‘I’ to ‘we’ may seem more challenging when it comes to affecting change. But in these two cases, my clients had conversations with their teams to co-create solutions to the enigma of their unmanageable inboxes.
1. Adam was drowning in email. Since the messages in question were the client facing type, he felt obliged to be instantly responsive. Due to this circumstance, Adam felt helplessly attached to his inbox. After all, his organization was quite vocal about their dedication to client support. As the leader of his team, Adam was responsible for attending to customer needs. Or so he thought. When he considered the types of questions he traditionally fielded, he recognized that many on his team could respond to these inquiries instead. He developed an auxiliary team email address and then co-created guidelines for answering or passing on inquiries through that address. Now Adam finds himself managing only about 15% of his original load!
2. Celia has direct reports who manage eight teams across a region. She found herself frenzied while diligently trying to keep up with each team’s progress. The email threads were tedious to follow, often containing one-word messages like “Thanks” and “OK”. That’s when Celia considered asynchronous communication for team projects. Celia agreed to experiment by moving one of her team projects to Slack. She developed a dedicated channel for this project, which allowed everyone involved to follow the progress of the team’s efforts on their own timetables. After some initial confusion, she and her team created best Slack practices, making the experiment a win for all. Celia is now in the process of transitioning projects from her other teams to Slack. And each team benefits from the learning curve of her other teams as she shares best practices across her sphere of influence.
What about you and your team(s)? What have you found works when it comes to disconnecting from your inbox while keeping up to speed with your colleagues and teammates?
If your reaction to the question is, “NOTHING, I’m buried in email”, consider which of the four case studies would be most appropriate for you to try.
Cheers!
-Deborah
Deborah Goldstein
DRIVEN Professionals / Forbes / Linkedin
info@drivenpros.com | LinkedIn
DRIVEN Professionals, 35 Adrienne Lane, Garrison, NY 10524