FROM ESCARGOTS TO NEW E-FANGLEDNESSES

As we said before, everyone’s got a solution for the trials and tribulations of email.

Personal assistants (robot-icized).  Internal social media divided by work groups.  Automatic softwares that sort email by sender, topic, urgency, and other categories.  New rules, from meeting protocol (turn off those $!%@!# laptops and smartphones) to days away from the app.   And new behaviors about cc’ing or replying to all and eschewing large attachments, like photos.

It’s clear that something needs to be done about our 122+ individual daily emails – and 100+ billion sent every 24 hours.

Or does it? 

How much, really, would each of us accomplish in a day without our e-crutches?  [You have to admit that the e-newbies like Yammer and HipChat, Convo and Slack are just organized, social forms of our online work communications.  They’re the latest forms of Sharepoint, where groups review and comment on documents and requirements and project management to-dos.]

Proponents of these group-wares cite transparency, the ease of exchange, the convenience of knowing that everyone who needs to be in the know is.  Then again, detractors point to the silo-ing of corporate America and the tendency to ‘say anything’ in small collaborations, regardless of whether the boss is watching.

So in addition to resorting to snail mail from time to time (our most recent remedy), it’s entirely possible that we call on the change gurus to, well, talk about new behaviors.  Such as leaders who’ve figured out how to work/not with email the best ways.  Role models demonstrating collaboration in non e-ways.  And a rewards system (in words or dollars) to motivate all.

Technology isn’t always our friend.

SCHOOL DAZE

Every year, Bloomberg Businessweek devotes one issue to MBAs and the schools that love them.

In the latest, a sidebar shows the survey results from 1,320 corporate recruiters who were asked to identify most valued job skills and score each institution for delivery of those skills. The charts revealed what industries want, skills employers value, and where schools succeed. 

Oddly enough (tongue firmly in cheek), the skill on almost every industry’s list was … communication.  Of the 11 industry sectors, from chemicals to transportation, only one – consumer products – didn’t mention communication in its top three ‘most wanted’ skills.  Six of the 11 industry reps ranked communication skills as number one; 68 percent of recruiters say it’s one of the five most important skills.

Then the disconnect begins. 

Of the top ten full-time MBA programs (as ranked by the magazine), from Duke’s Fugua to Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper – including the usual Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Columbia, Stanford, and Northwestern – guess how many scored super high on communication skills?

None.

Therefore, since business schools don’t do a superb job of training its grads on communication, it seems to be the responsibility of industry to do just that.  And sure, corporate courses available through Open Sesame, SkillSoft, Harvard’s ManageMentor do an average kind of job teaching communications.  But why couldn’t it be the province of the communications department and its siblings (like marketing) to supplement the standard learning?  Why couldn’t the function set up a mentoring program to coach managers, early talent, hi-pos, and the like on the ins and outs of communications?

No budget is no excuse.  What is?