How many times do we expect our people to understand or be across a change because they were sent the details in an explanatory email.

Sure – email is a convenient form of communication. Its fast, we can reach a lot of people,  and we can attach content like there’s no tomorrow. And once we hit the “send” button, we can tick the box and say communication is complete.  And afterwards we feel as though we can absolve ourselves of responsibility because after all – we did tell people.  If they aren’t doing what we told them in the email, it’s their problem right?

I think it’s still our problem actually. We already know that:

• depending on how much email people already receive, there’s a pretty good chance that your’s won’t even be read
• Or, it will be scanned through but not absorbed
• Or people will read the first paragraph, and when it doesn’t capture their attention they won’t read the rest
• Or it will go into a “reading” file, never to be read
• Or worse – for external contacts – it slides into the junk folder
• Or culturally, people are not used to changing their ways by reading emails, so it falls on deaf ears

Our responsibilities for ensuring the right information gets to the right people in a way that is meaningful to them, demands that we think beyond using email as the primary information channel.

 A good piece of communication should provide context and rationale, create trust, help people to understand how to change, enable people to make informed decisions, and answer the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the change.

So nex time you’re ready to bang off an email with important information inside that you want people to act on – think again! You may need to task your managers with discussing it in team meetings, doing some presentations or workshops, even creating visual reminders. Post your information in multiple locations and find a way to get feedback on whether people are “getting it” and “doing it”