CareerJournal.com offers up this article – Avoid These Email Blunders To Prevent Career Derailment – that speaks to some simple-sounding errors. You know, email has been around for some time now, but I am still impressed by how many blunders are still made today.
This particular graph grabbed my attention:
Don’t spoil your boss’s image. If your boss asks you in an email to speak to a coworker about a problem he or she has with that individual, forwarding the message blindly (and the incriminating language in it) is like setting it in stone. It will not only offend the recipient of the email but could also get you in trouble for allowing remarks that can be construed as personal criticism to seep through company email. Such situations are handled best by phone or face-to-face communication. Unless you have requested permission, do not forward anything that was sent solely to you. If you are still determined to use email, restate the original message in neutral, diplomatic terms.
I saw this occur firsthand in a previous role with a peer of mine. We managed geographic regions around the country and we each had a blend of distributors and direct accounts in our territories. This salesperson sent out an internal email to a distributor and it was disastrous. She had forwarded an email that had been forwarded with commentary quite a few times before reaching her. Apparently she did not read all of the previous comments.
The distributor did take the time to read through the entire email trail and he was…well, let’s just say he was quite unhappy. There was some commentary about his sales performance and the possibility of moving the distributorship to his main competitor in the territory.
A stupid, simple mistake that took weeks to fix all from one forwarded email.