I get what you are saying. It is a very fine line between being an asshole and not being an asshole. Here are a few suggestions. I have let the people I work with know what I am doing. So I send them an email explaining not only what I am doing, but more importantly why I am doing it and how it makes life easier for them as well.

Truth be told, they need to see that there is something in it for them as well. The fact is, a well constructed concise email subject line has a much better chance of being answered than one that is poorly written.

It is also important you model what you want. This includes your own email you craft, but also includes correcting improper subject lines when returning an email responses. In these cases a short sentence indicating that this email was not responded to immediately due to the nature of the subject line will help reinforce what you want from others.

The other thing though that is equally important in all this is making sure people know you are coming from a place where you are genuinely trying to help them with your feedback. People always respond to kindness. It’s not about making people feel bad because we all have bad email habits.

We just had a discussion about this with a group I am consulting with. It’s been really good in fact because we have made it our mission to call each other when we ignore something we have said we must implement.

It’s quite comical in fact and people have responded really well.
Let me know how it goes my friend.

DD

I get what you are saying. It is a very fine line between being an asshole and not being an asshole. Here are a few suggestions. I have let the people I work with know what I am doing. So I send them an email explaining not only what I am doing, but more importantly why I am doing it and how it makes life easier for them as well.

Truth be told, they need to see that there is something in it for them as well. The fact is, a well constructed concise email subject line has a much better chance of being answered than one that is poorly written.

It is also important you model what you want. This includes your own email you craft, but also includes correcting improper subject lines when returning an email responses. In these cases a short sentence indicating that this email was not responded to immediately due to the nature of the subject line will help reinforce what you want from others.

The other thing though that is equally important in all this is making sure people know you are coming from a place where you are genuinely trying to help them with your feedback. People always respond to kindness. It’s not about making people feel bad because we all have bad email habits.

We just had a discussion about this with a group I am consulting with. It’s been really good in fact because we have made it our mission to call each other when we ignore something we have said we must implement.

It’s quite comical in fact and people have responded really well.
Let me know how it goes my friend.

DD

I can get with this whole post, even the enforcement part, but I need a little help. Specifically, the 2nd bullet at the bottom:

“sending an email back indicating that a subject line was poorly written and needs to be more specific”

What kind of advice can you offer for doing this and not being “THAT GUY”, the asshole who corrects other people all the time. Seems pretty delicate.

Thanks for the post (I read it on Triiibes).

-Ben