It’s no secret that at Timyo, we believe that sending email with built-in expectations should be the norm, and we are working hard to achieve that goal. Today, I wanted to look at one of the subtle advantages that becomes the norm when your workplace sends email with clear expectations.
Before Timyo, there was no good way to communicate expectations in email quickly, clearly, and easily. The best you could do was to write detailed expectations into the body of the email, regarding when you wanted a response and what kind of action you wanted taken, but that is pretty time-consuming and still open to misinterpretation. And because delineating clear expectations could be awkward, that information was often left out altogether, yielding emails like this one:
To: John
From: Jane
Subject: July projections
Hey John,
I’d love to get a look at our projected numbers for July.
Thanks,
Jane
Now, this email may look pretty straightforward, but if you are like John, and especially if Jane is your boss or an important client, this email is actually a minefield that is almost guaranteed to be the beginning of a life-ending panic attack.
Moment of Panic #1: When does Jane want these projections? Right now? Probably right now! Oh man, I’ve barely even started looking at the June numbers; what am I supposed to tell her about July?!
Because of the “automatic ASAP” culture of our email status quo, it is often assumed that we need to get back as soon as humanly possible to every email, especially emails from bosses, clients, and other VIPs.
Moment of Panic #2: Which numbers does Jane even want?! I mean, I could give her my best guess after looking at the data for five minutes, but what if she wants a better forecast than that?! I could ask Jean, Jean would have a better idea on July, but she’s not even in the office today, so if I wait for Jean I won’t be able to get back to Jane until tomorrow at the earliest! Oh God, I’m definitely getting fired over this!
Because John doesn’t know when Jane wants a reply, he also has no idea what sort of response she wants: quick and cursory? A comprehensive overview? Granular levels of detail? John has no way of knowing without writing back to Jane and asking, but this is tricky if Jane is the boss or a client, because John doesn’t want Jane to think he doesn’t know what he’s doing, especially if he kind of actually doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Which leads us to:
Moment of Panic #3: Aaaagghghhhh it’s been like 10 minutes and I haven’t even sent Jane a reply OR started working on the projections. Should I drop what I’m doing and work on July? Does she want the July projections once the June projections are firmed up? Because if so I should do those first but if she doesn’t want those first then the July projections won’t be as good and WHY ISN’T JEAN JUST HERE RIGHT NOW SO I COULD ASK HER ABOUT IT JEAN WOULD KNOW SHE KNOWS EVERYTHING AND I KNOW NOTHING WHY TODAY OF ALL DAYS DID SHE HAVE TO BE AT THE DENTIST?
And the following, tragically final, email:
From: John
To: Jane
Cc: Jean
Subject: Aaaagghghhhh.
Hi Jane,
I am sorry. Clearly Jacques in HR made a mistake in bringing me on board, but please do not blame him; he’s a great guy, just overly optimistic about what in hindsight was clearly a failed prospect (i.e. Me). I’m moving to Antarctica to think about what I’ve done amongst the penguins and the polar bears.
Please forward any email to Ihavefailedyouforever@endlessregrets.org
Brimming with self-disgust and in the market for long underwear,
John
Clearly, this could have all been avoided if only Jane’s company had been using Timyo.
Then, Jane’s initial email would have contained clear expectations right at the top.
If Jane had used Timyo to put
then John would have known that Jane actually did expect an immediate reply, and he could have just sent along his best guess along with any relevant extra information.
If Jane’s email had instead said
then John would have emailed Jean, sorted out a more detailed projection, and responded to Jane the following day.
And if Jane had put
then John would have known that he had a couple of solid weeks to get the data together, figure out both the June and July projections, and prepare a polished report to Jane when everything was good to go.
Instead, John moved to Antarctica and died almost immediately of exposure, because a couple of pairs of long underwear is not nearly enough to keep you warm at the South Pole. RIP John.
Don’t let this happen to you or your coworkers, contacts, or clients. When you use Timyo at the office, you not only prevent people you care about from dying a horrible death at the South Pole, you guarantee that you’ll get the kind of response you are looking for, all because you quickly and easily sent email with clear expectations.
Also, one thing John definitely wouldn’t have died of in Antarctica is polar bears, because those guys are only found at the North Pole. Come on, John, who doesn’t know that? Actually, John seems pretty incompetent. So on the bright side, he was probably going to get fired anyway.
