“No E-Mail Fridays” Force You To Actually Talk To People?

For most businesses, and nearly all tech companies, Casual Fridays are a thing of the past. Every day is Casual Friday. My work attire often consists of a polo shirt and some blue jeans. Having separate offices behind closed doors are also a thing of the past. Today, it’s all about the cube. The idea is to group workers together to allow for more interaction among one another. And then there’s e-mail. It’s changed the way we do business and socialize in general. It’s made communication so convenient, that these days it’s almost “too much effort” to actually walk from your desk to a co-worker’s desk and…what do they call it…ah yes, TALK.

It's how corporate America communicates. Scheduling a meeting? Send an e-mail. Need that report right away? Send an e-mail. Are there serious issues in the department? Nothing a chain of e-mails can't solve. The volume of e-mails has exploded in recent years with over 170 billion now being sent daily around the globe. That's 2 million every second! But many in business now worry this tool for easy communication is actually making it harder to communicate. One Chicago based CEO has a solution to this problem. It’s called “No E-Mail Fridays”. When CEO Jay Ellison finally had it with e-mail, he sent out a memo announcing "No E-mail Fridays." His memo made it clear…

"Get out to meet your teams face-to-face.
Pick up the phone and give someone a call...
I look forward to not hearing from any of you,
but stop by as often as you like."

Despite all the benefits e-mail offers, we tend to use it as a kind of a tool to hide behind issues, versus getting up and talking to people. In addition to being impersonal and tedious, studies show e-mail can also be confusing and lead to misunderstandings in the workplace, particularly with bosses. As a medium, it's inherently ambiguous. There's not as much information conveyed. The pitch of your voice, the speed with which you say something, that emotional tone that's carried in your voice just isn't there.

So it’s time to close Outlook. Get up and go say “Hey, what’s up?” Real live conversation – it’s a beautiful thing.