Management by email forwarding

From our Easy Management files.

Do you have a manager who will periodically forward some email newsletter, product announcement or discussion synopsis to his or her staff?

Are you that manager?

One of the easiest ways for managers to show they are up to speed on what's going on in their field or their industry is subscribing to these communications and forwarding them to their own staff.

It is also a perfect way to mask your lack of knowledge or skills.

This is the power of "implied knowledge".

Most workers assume that the boss reads and understands whatever he or she forwards. It may come as a rude awakening indeed to realize that years of forwarded emails on a subject mean nothing -- a simple question at the right time, or the wrong time, depending on how you view things -- can expose an abject level of ignorance.

Our resident expert (RE) was asked if and how you as a recipient of such epistles can smell a rat.

RE: There are two aspects that can help you figure out how much the sender knows.
The first one is the length of whatever the sender adds as their own comment, the second is the nature of the comment.

K-news: Length meaning, for example, a plain forward without anything else?

RE: Yes, that's a huge factor. There are some forwards that are just fine without additional comment. Generally, the ones in that category are straight "do this" emails, for example, when it is time for the annual performance review. That kind of communication is a set of instructions and requires nothing else.

K-news: You are talking of announcements of a different nature?

RE: Yes, and they can also be duplicate, sorry, I should have added this as a third aspect. I'll get to this later, let's do the quality of the comment first. The more general a comment, the more it indicates that the managers knows little or nothing. As an example, say you work in software development and the manager forwards a weekly discussion forum digest about web services with nothing but "FYI". If that happens once or twice, you should not judge, but if this is the usual procedure, that person is not an expert on web services.

K-news: Isn't that too harsh? What if he just wants to be helpful and leave details to be discussed later?

RE: I knew you would say that. If we assume "just wants to help", then we are dealing with a manager who does not budget his time well. If it is a tight ship, stuff like this is frivolous. So, in the best case you have a manager who is not a great time manager. "Just wants to help" is also the main excuse when it turns out the guy is clueless.

K-news: Can you be specific, tell us what to watch for?

RE:  Specific is the operative word, actually. If there is a task associated with a forward, I can see it being useful. So, for example, if a mail as a task "John, can you assess by the next weekly meeting how much more dev time item b has", that is a good sign. On the other hand, if there is an open-ended question or comment, for instance, "any impact on us?", or "any thoughts?", that is usually a cover.

K-news: What did you mean by "duplicates" earlier?

RE: Let's say one person in a group follows a certain mailing list, and everyone in the group receives regular updates from this team member - if the manager still sends forwards of this list, that would be a giant red flag. To me, it indicates either poor time management, or marking territory, or glossing over ignorance.

K-news: How effective a  tool are these forwards?

RE: They can be quite effective, they create an implication of knowledge, they imply the recipients are accountable and are being watched. With almost no effort, you can project power. But they can badly backfire, and people will detect a pattern of fluffing and obfuscation sooner or later.