(2 of 3)
That is especially true if the originator the message is the new bane of the American corporate landscape: the "virtual manager." The virtual manager can be many things, most of them bad, but generally is a conflict-avoiding character who at once hides behind E-mail and uses it as an instrument of aggression, creating not only ill will but vast inefficiencies as well. "I cannot tell you how many people we've encountered hiding behind E-mail," says Emory Mulling, a consultant who is often brought in to help virtual managers change their ways. "Lots of them do not like conflict, so they issue reprimands over E-mail, and most do more harm than good." Says Andy Gilman, president of CommCore Consulting Group: "It's perfect for managers who would rather do anything other than walk down the hall."
Here, is the sort of message, written with little thought as to how it will be read, that illustrates both the one-way nature of E-mail (the recipient can't immediately defend himself) as well as the dangers inherent in offering criticism in an electronic message:
You MUST MUST make your report titles more descriptive. If I can't understand what the report is about, how will our clients? You are evaluated on your ability to communicate clearly as much as you are on any other part of your performances.
By the time this micromanaging zinger gets through the system, the sender has moved on to his next message. Meanwhile, the recipient stares at his screen as if a thunderbolt has zapped his office. Here's how he reads it: MUST MUST means "you are an idiot"; evaluated, "soon to be fired." And E-mail is a handy way to apply the blowtorch. "The bottom line is that if I send you an offensive E-mail, I feel great," says Mulling. "I've gotten something off my chest. But now you take on the anger. It's a way of passing anger." Another consequence is that the recipient, not knowing how to respond, may simply brood about it. "I've seen people eat their stomachs for a week because of one thoughtless E-mail," says Monte Gibbs, 28, who has worked for IBM and MCI and is executive director of product management and development at an Internet provider called Epoch Networks, in Irvine, California.
There's no body language in E-mail, perhaps its critical deficiency. As a result, says Diane Morse Houghton, president of Jaffe Associates, a marketing firm whose far-flung employees primarily communicate electronically, "E-mail leaves a lot of blank spaces in what we say, which the recipient tends to fill with the most negative interpretation." When he worked at MCI, Gibbs says, he and his colleagues categorized bosses and co-workers by their E-mail behavior. "There were the Crouchers, hunched over the medium, who live on E-mail moment to moment. Most of them don't participate. They're watchers, very passive. Then there were the Wirefires, people who live to respond on E-mail, actually prefer it to oral contact, and they constantly Spam [send multiple messages to] you. Then there were the Luddites, who don't embrace the medium at all and have a lot of passive aggression toward it. I've had all three types as bosses."