Easy Not To Be Rude

Remember when e-mail was novel? Remember Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in the 1998 movie “You’ve Got Mail.” Recall how excited she was when her computer went “bing.”

We’ve come a long way in the last two-plus decades since that movie. Most of us feel we are drowning in e-mails. The difference is how we deal with it.

That’s why I found Adam Grant’s piece, “No, You Can’t Ignore E-Mail. It’s Rude,” so refreshing – and useful.

Far from being a polemic against those who ignore their e-mails, he shows how those who can’t (or choose not to) keep up are hurting themselves at work and in life. Here’s how he begins:

I’m really sorry I didn’t say hi, make eye contact or acknowledge your presence in any way when you waved to me in the hallway the other day. It’s nothing personal. I just have too many people trying to greet me these days, and I can’t respond to everyone.

That sounds ridiculous, right? You would never snub a colleague trying to strike up a conversation. Yet when you ignore a personal email, that’s exactly what you’ve done: digital snubbery.

Yes, we’re all overwhelmed with email. One recent survey suggested that the average American’s inbox has 199 unread messages. But volume isn’t an excuse for not replying. Ignoring email is an act of incivility.

“I’m too busy to answer your email” really means “Your email is not a priority for me right now.” That’s a popular justification for neglecting your inbox: It’s full of other people’s priorities. But there’s a growing body of evidence that if you care about being good at your job, your inbox should be a priority.

When researchers compiled a huge database of the digital habits of teams at Microsoft, they found that the clearest warning sign of an ineffective manager was being slow to answer emails. Responding in a timely manner shows that you are conscientious — organized, dependable and hardworking. And that matters. In a comprehensive analysis of people in hundreds of occupations, conscientiousness was the single best personality predictor of job performance. (It turns out that people who are rude online tend to be rude offline, too.) Want more? You can read the full article here