Nov

22

How to Stop Managing by Instant Messaging

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The instant messenger has its uses, but it comes with a price that makes me think twice about deploying it despite the efficiency that is possible through it.

The 21st Century has seen the rise of the always-on, always-connected, continuously plugged-in worker. This worker looks exhausted, and every time their blackberry vibrates or their computer makes a small noise, their eye begins twitching, they pretend to continue to look at you and listen, but you know they no longer are because they are now furiously typing away on their keyboard.

Is this our destiny? To never look up at people’s faces again and instead to forever be trapped nearby keyboards, forever afraid of what is going to pop out of our inboxes again?

I believe that answering email instantly is a toxic behavior. I’d even go further to say that instant messaging in an office is a toxic practice that leads to the destruction of human relations and the beginnings of a machine world where people stare into space as the cables protruding from their heads transmit instant thoughts across a network.

People go out on anniversary dinners, and throughout one of the two, if not both, are taking cell phone calls and are answering email from people at the office. People attend their children’s sporting events, look up from their blackberries and say, “What happened?” after their kid scores the win for the team that they did not see because they were texting.

Life is not happening on our blackberries and computer screens. We are slowly becoming a society of obsessive compulsive people – not in a good way that is humorous to recognize. We are becoming a nation of people who are psychologically ill and in need of help. No, I am not trying to make you laugh, so if you just chuckled, check your laughter. We are sick, it is very serious, and it has to stop or we will become worker bees who wake to work, fall asleep at work, and die at work without ever having lived the lives we took work to pay for in the first place.

Causes of the 24/7 Always On Worker

* The rise of the 24/7 retail day without holidays from internet sales calls for 24/7 support and 24/7 responsiveness
* The rise of the blackberry-enabled boss who thinks that the messages are terribly convenient and expects answers to pop back out ala the Bat Computer
* The technology organization that does everything online – literally everything – including meetings where the first line of the meeting is “I just sent everyone a link to…” or “I just sent everyone a copy of the presentation…”

Disconnect

Over at Manager Tools, Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne recommend that the always-on worker disconnect to improve productivity. “You are not paid to answer email. You are paid to do your job. Your job is not email. It just seems like it is.” Horstman says with great passion. Breaking people free from the crack-pipe of doing nothing but answering email all day is a mission of his.

Horstman and Auzenne have several key recommendations for ending the madness:

  1. Disconnect all instant messaging and never open it at work again
  2. Turn off “TOAST” – all notifiers in Outlook and other programs that pop up to say you have mail
  3. Turn off all noises your computer makes to notify you
  4. Disable your phone’s vibration or sound it makes when you get email.
  5. Check email at three pre-arranged times per day for 30 minute intervals.
  6. Use rules and filters to reduce the amount of unnecessary email you receive

Many, many people have tried these methods with amazing success! They check their email three times per day, get far fewer messages, and they actually have time for real work.

But for some of us, this doesn’t work.

Toxically Instant

If you work in an environment where your boss holds you accountable for reading email in real-time, then this is never going to work for you. I’ve tried helping others get off of the email crack pipe. Some have succeeded, and others have not. Those that have not have one thing in common: a boss who uses email as instant messaging, will not stop, and expects instant answers within 30 seconds to an email.

No system of self-discipline will help there. If you go off the grid for three hours and come back and find your boss has re-routed around you and practically redesigned department workflow to eliminate need for you because you disconnected, you’re never going to succeed at reducing your email need.

The Inbox of a Toxic, Always-On Worker

One symptom that you work for such a boss would be indicated when you fail to answer your boss for three hours and find messages like this when you open your inbox:

“Come to my office.”
“Where are you?”
“Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?”
“Are you on vacation?”
“We had to make a decision without you. Details when you come back to the office.”

… all in the space of one hour.

Some companies have adopted instant messaging as a primary mode of communication, and everyone is REQUIRED to log into it daily. The windows pop up, the cursor is taken away from the current task, and everyone expects instant answers. In some companies, the workers are not allowed to turn it off. I believe the use of instant messaging at the office is a pretty good symptom that we are exhausting our people, destroying their privacy, and are not giving them an opportunity to to relax and recover. Instant messaging is like a carved tombstone laying beside a six foot deep hole in the ground. It’s the fourth horseman of the Electronic Apocalypse.

We need time when we know for certain our boss will not call us, email us, blackberry us, text us, or otherwise message us for something NOW NOW NOW NOW. Otherwise, we will suffer from combat fatigue. Vacation time is not enough. You need this time daily throughout the day.

I encourage everyone to reduce their email checking and turn off all instant messaging programs. I recommend all managers ban instant messaging in all forms and never send queries to which you expect an instant answer in email – use the phone. This top-down behavior will work great. Further, managers need to ensure that they are not overdoing it regarding how fast decisions need to be made. If a manager expects things to happen in less than an hour from notification to employees with any frequency, they will all practically kill themselves trying to stay plugged in, and no advice from management consultants can ever hope to fix that.

All management behavior flows downhill through the org chart. Even if I am an enlightened manager who does not think I should demand instant answers from my people, I will still engage in the behavior if my boss demands them of me. Until the top guy stops it, everyone below him is doomed.

I have read where others have tried to retrain their boss away from instant answers in email and instant messaging. They simply do not fire up the instant messenger program. They answer their email only three times a day no matter what happens, and they do not change their behavior no matter how much their boss complains. Some of them have been successful. Some of them have been told to start answering now or they will be fired. Others are being quietly queued up for layoffs right now.

You can try training your boss away from it, but with the economy tanking and layoffs on the horizon for just about every organization, I’m not sure trying to retrain your boss or irritate them is an especially great idea right now.

Try your best to eliminate email and electronics from your life away from the office. You will be healthier, more rested, and more productive. Limit your contact with email at work. Do more business over the phone. Do everything you can to turn your toxic work experience into one where you are no longer trying to keep up minute by minute. Overall, you will finally stop chasing your tail at the office and will instead actually produce.

Comments

One Response to “How to Stop Managing by Instant Messaging”

  1. Paul Willoughby on November 26th, 2008 5:14 pm

    I totally agree the instant messaging is a cultural pariah

    Paul

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