In response to my article in Forbes on Email Hell, my friend Richard Titus made a spot on comment:
This is great. I also employ several email tools (ClearContext, x1) to try and reduce the "occupational spam" that's a critical part of the BBC culture. A big part of the problem, however, is a failure to delegate decisions & authority. Over Cc'ing i find is really about people seeking permission rather than forgiveness - as an executive you have to give people a goal, and permission to succeed or fail in its pursuit.
This isn't just germane to the BBC culture, the BCC culture exists in most organizations. Email and meeting habits are set from the top down.
The difference between communication and collaboration is having a bounded goal. Executives have a responsibility not only for goal setting (which with motivation is leadership) and accountability (management). But we have responsibility to structure conversations towards goals. Richard points out CCing is symptom of a lack of empowering responsibility, but there is also an opportunity.
Reporting can flow in more ways than up. Reporting doesn't need to be a side-activity, but a byproduct of getting work done. It needs a modicum of structure and additional transparency that is now easy with social software.
Do not interpret this as decouple decision rights and information flow. The spice must flow, however, the production of too many useful things results in too many useless people. My apologies to Frank Herbert & Karl Marx for that last comment.
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