Another popular game is the avoidance of responsibility by ­e-mail. However, everyone loses in this game. Anyone who writes to the largest possible distribution list ultimately succeeds only in preventing anyone from identifying with the topic, leaving him/her alone with the topic in the end. True, there are always recipients who answer e-mails even though they have received only a copy, but the basic truth is that only the direct recipient is actually the addressee. And he may not really be interested in carrying on an e-mail conversation with 20 people.

Thoughtlessness, structural irresponsibility, and a lack of ­awareness of the damage one can do in terms of communication, sometimes a lack of training as well (how secretaries used to take their bosses by the hand when it came to their correspondence!) have led to an e-mail culture which is by and large a mess.

That is why the typical symptoms for an organization which no longer performs well are worrying: “I receive so many e-mails that I can’t begin to read them all, much less answer them. I wait until it is so important that I get a call or the topic is discussed in the meetings.” Although this is thoroughly understandable from the human standpoint of the affected person, the impact on culture and motivation is fatal and is today still largely ­underappreciated. In the end, responsibility for the transparency in every type of your communication represents an essential ­value in dealing with other people. And the value culture is one of the intangible assets in the company – without it, you will be in trouble with all of the employees whose brains and hearts are important for the company’s profits.

MDA, BlackBerry or text messages cause the communication problem to explode exponentially

An MDA or BlackBerry which can be used to check e-mails quickly while out of the office can be an instrument for the improvement of performance – or the work of the devil, raising the stress level through permanent reachability. All of the pitfalls of e-mail communication are naturally found here as well. They become even more treacherous when the sender requests a fast and brief answer. If the writer does not carefully and ­precisely consider what the recipient needs in order to understand the answer, the material will be condensed to such an extent that misunderstandings become highly probable. Perhaps he is also using this kind of device? Understand chain e-mails on an MDA? Never!! You have to scroll down so much that you will certainly give up long before the end. Open and read attachments? You had better be grimly persistent in dealing with all of the obstacles.