How to train people to respond exactly the way you want with email…
I just recently discovered Cesar Milan, who is better known as The Dog Whisperer.
I have known about him for years, but I read an interesting article in the New York post some months back that said parents had begun to incorporate his work and ideas into their parenting arsenal.
Needless to say this piqued my interest, not to mention my funny bone. I imagine we are now going to have a whole generation of kids who, upon command, will know how to sit, roll over and poop in the backyard.
Ah, if only life were so simple.
If you have ever watched his program, pay special attention to the opening because he has a brilliant line to start the show. He says, “I rehabilitate dogs; I train people.”
If you watch his show closely, you will see he does just that. He trains people.
This reminds me of my days teaching. I was always amazed how a student could be quite well behaved with one teacher and yet with another could act like a road raging Satan on steroids. I see it all the time with parents as well. Kids act one way with one parent and are a freaking nightmare with the other.
But this divergent behaviour is actually a significant insight. It tells us that under the proper conditions, people can be taught to behave accordingly. In other words, with the proper guidelines, people can be trained to behave the way you want.
Because this is such a vast topic, I am going to break it down into parts. Today I will talk about email and how to train people to effectively use email when dealing with you because let’s be honest-most people have no freaking clue how to use it properly.
Like many other things in life, people (you) provide no guidelines for others when it comes to email and yet complain incessantly about it. If you don’t clearly communicate what you want from others in email communication and then enforce those rules then you are the problem, NOT them.
Effective email habits are like good parenting skills. They come from having a clearly communicated plan of what you want and a system in place to deal with what you don’t want.
5 strategies to train people about your emailing desires…
These are the 5 worst violations. There are others, but for today, I want to get you to act on these 5 biggies.
1. Train them on when you respond…
Get into the habit of replying to emails at certain times during the day. It could be anywhere between 1 to 3 times per day depending on the work that you do.
Once you come up with a schedule (don’t be afraid to experiment with different times and frequencies) set up an auto-responder that lets people know this.
I received the following email auto-response reply from a colleague the other day.
“Thank you for your email. I respond to emails between 8am and 9am and 5pm to 6pm each day. If this is an emergency, please contact me at my business number. Have a great day.”
It’s brilliant really because it does two things. It sends a message that this person doesn’t respond to others sense of urgency. Reading between the lines, he is saying, “I’m not going to make your shit my shit. Get your act together so everything that comes up isn’t always an emergency.” I love this because it requires others to be organized and thoughtful about the emails they are sending.
It also acknowledges receipt of the email and clearly states when a reply will be forthcoming. There is nothing worse than sending an email to someone who doesn’t get back to you for like a week. It shows they have no plan on their end and worse it starts making you wonder things like, “Did they get my email?”, “Did I send it to the wrong address?” etc.
2. Train them how to write an effective subject line…
There is nothing worse than a subject line like, “Hey.” That could mean anything from, “Hey, you are fired!” to “Hey, you are the father of my child.”
Train people how to write a proper email subject line.
Recently I have begun to incorporate something that quickly indicates what is required. Then I make it as specific as possible. For example…
Subject line: [Urgent] Attached file needs your signature
Subject line: [Feedback required] Please review attached contract
Subject line: [Meeting] Friday February 3rd@11am
These are just a few examples, but it is important to teach people how to write subject lines so you can quickly scan and see how things should be prioritized. This will save you a ton of time in the long run..
3. Train people to be brief…
Use as many words as are necessary to get your point across and eliminate the rest. Say what you need to say and then shut up and hit send.
I had this message taught to me by Seth Godin. I often send him emails on ideas etc. that I have about his writing. Seth always responds (usually within a few minutes) with no more than 7 words.
In fact, I finally received a copy of his latest book, The Linchpin, after it had been hanging out with Canada Customs for the past 6 weeks. I sent a few paragraphs stating I finally got it and how much I was looking forward to reading it. His response: “Glad that worked out Dean.”
Short, sweet and to the point.
The brilliance though is it reminds me that I need to be brief in my points as well.
4. Train them how to write the body of a longer message…
Not everything can be answered in 7 words or less however.
The problem though is people are way too wordy, and I am just as guilty as anyone on this. Teach people to get to the point. Screw the email foreplay and get right to the climax. I would strongly recommend you not use this philosophy in your sex life however. 
If there are three things to address, then get right to them. But more importantly, number them so others know how many things they are dealing with. Far too often people bury their points in excruciating long emails that read like “War and Peace.”
Get right to the point.
Subject line: [Meeting Agenda] 3 things needed
Body: Dean
1. Bring signed contracts.
2. Provide summary of latest deal proposal
3. Give brief oral update on deal closingAllison
5. Train people on what to cc you on and what not to cc you on…
This is something that can get totally out of control. Some people cc everyone and their vet if they are not reined in. Tell people what you want to be cc’d on what you don’t want to be cc’d on. It’s that simple.
Give them guidelines or your inbox will be inundated with a bunch of useless crap that most people send out just to let people know how busy they are.
*****
The great thing about these steps is you can get started today on this. And the best way to train people is to first revamp your own emailing habits so they are in line with what you want.
BUT here is the most important aspect of all of this.
None of these things mean anything if you don’t enforce the rules you have created.
At the beginning it will seem like a lot of work, but you have to call people on the stuff they are doing wrong if you are going to train them properly.
What does that mean? It means…
- responding only during your allotted times that you said you were going to respond (because if you don’t, then you will set up the wrong expectations for those on the other end)
- sending an email back indicating that a subject line was poorly written and needs to be more specific
- sending an email telling people to write brief emails with the facts and leaving out the back story
- placing a phone call to explain that an email will not be attended to until it is broken down into the tasks required
- sending an email indicating you are not to be cc’d on a particular topic
If you can apply these simple rules your life will be exponentially more manageable as a result. But it requires you to quit thinking people can’t be trained, because you know what, they can be baby!
To an idea worth quitting,
Dean
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