I recently received this question on Ask John:

“Is there such a thing as over communicating? Daily, I receive tons of work e-mails from Store Managers, Assistant Managers, DM’s, RM’s, HR, DLPM, supervisors, etc. etc.! Many e-mails include the same information from the previous guy. It seems that everyone wants to be the chief. Not to mention information that does not pertain to my scope of work. I have created folders to try and organize important information but at times, I still get a bit overwhelmed. Believe me when I say I don’t want to spend over half the day in my office reading e-mails. It’s worse after a day off. What is the best way to deal with this?”

What a great question! It is indeed a difficult question, and a dilemma that many people struggle with.

Is there such a thing as over communicating? Short answer is YES!

As far as the rest of the questions, the short answer is DELETE key!

Computers in general and email in specific were designed to make our lives easier. Unfortunately in many instances such as what you bring up, they have complicated our lives due to inappropriate and excessive use by many.

I think you hit the nail on the head when you state that everyone wants to be the chief. People want to feel important. They don’t want to be left out of the communication flow. People tend to want to put their own spin on things. The real problem is that spin often causes confusion and misunderstanding.

Remember the game of Telephone? You whisper something to the person next to you; they whisper the same thing to the person next to them and so on. By the time the circle of information gets back to you it is often completely different than what you said to begin with. This is exactly what happens when too many people are sending out what is supposedly the same information.

Over communicating especially in email form, also causes a lack of personal contact. We rely on email to deliver news or information so that we don’t have to deal with the person directly. We just send off an email and say our job is done. There is no follow-up, no ensuring understanding.

People don’t stop to think if what they are sending is applicable to those they are sending it to. They just send it out and it is up to the receiver to determine if it is information they need. They problem lies in that we get so many work emails that they all too often just become noise, static on a poorly tuned radio station. It also results in the old Cry Wolf situation. People send so many emails that people just start to ignore them. Then when something is actually important it gets over-looked.

It is assumed that if we talk a lot or send out a lot of emails we are communicating and nothing could be further from the truth. More is not always better. Sometimes stuff is just stuff. Communication over-kill is just that; over-kill.

The other problem that occurs, because people are so busy and sometimes unconcerned with other peoples work load, is that they don’t take the time to see who the original email was sent to. They just glance at the information and hit ‘forward’. Big problem!

These would be my suggestions:

• Over the course of two weeks record all of the time that you spent in your office on emails.

• Over the course of two weeks track and print all of the emails you receive. Put them into two groups; those that are duplicates from different sources and those that don’t apply to your job function.

• After you have the two week documentation request a meeting with your District Manager. Show them your information with all of the duplications, non essential information and the time that you had to spend in the office to deal with all of this. Hopefully this will clarify your frustration and your D.M. will step in to help resolve this issue.

• If this doesn’t work check to see if your company has a suggestion page on your Intra-net. You could suggest that perhaps a gate keeper of sorts is needed to eliminate this waste.

• If you need to go further, hopefully you have a confidential contact in your H.R. department. Have a conversation with them, telling them the steps you have already taken. See if they have any further suggestions for you.

• When you get duplicate information emails I would write a short, polite response simply saying “thanks for the information. I received this same information from Person X and have already replied”.

If none of this works, go back to the DELETE key!

Have any of you experienced this same issue and frustration?

How did you handle it?

What comments or suggestions can you give us?