With the deepening of globalization, major enterprises are expanding globally, and local enterprises are distributed all over the country. E-mail has become a popular communication method in enterprises with its timely, reliable, fast and convenient archiving method. E-mail also carries interpersonal relationships, workplace politics and business strategies in enterprises.
How does e-mail become the main way of communication in modern organizations with its unique communication characteristics, how to reflect the relationship between people and organizations in hierarchical organizations, and how should individuals in organizations view the new challenges brought by e-mail and adapt to these challenges? The students of class M BA20 10 of Peking University International had a round-table discussion and analysis on these issues.
E-mail is also a big stage to show corporate politics and organizational ecology. Through this important behavior of enterprise organizational life, this paper analyzes the enterprise organizational ecology contained in mail culture from the perspective of organizational behavior.
Kick the ball and pass the buck.
E-mail seems to be the essence of the so-called "mail culture" and a tool to shirk work and responsibility.
The email war of shirking responsibility is harmful and useless, wasting resources. The best way is for the big boss to come forward directly and point out the person in charge of the work to calm things down. If you meet a leader who likes to show team spirit with "we" as the subject, things will probably come to an end.
At present, the goal of the organization is to have a clear division of labor and clear responsibilities, and to avoid kicking the ball to the greatest extent. In fact, the clearer the division of labor, the lower the redundancy and flexibility in emergency. At this point, the most common thing is to show off all kinds of struggle skills in emails. When it goes too far, it comes back with enough mail strings to make candied haws.
However, if you are familiar with this ignorance, it is also effective to do the opposite. For example, this "customer-oriented" practical case: a manager has been assigned a cross-team project. He has no direct resources, no money, no power, no one to manage, and no one can call a meeting at will. Managers then take email as the main working means, actively make work schedules, send tasks in the form of mass emails, and check the completion of tasks in the form of mass emails. Of course, every letter is the direct supervisor of the person concerned, and once someone replies to the email alone to shirk his work, he must reply in the form of mass email, thus exposing everyone's work attitude to the spotlight, making the other party irresistible and only acceptable.
In addition, mail culture prevails in foreign companies, and the internationalization background increases the complexity of e-mail. A group of people from all corners of the country have to speak English at all levels and try to communicate with each other. Some enterprises appreciate short emails, while others have developed the habit of long speeches. It is always the best policy to exaggerate communication skills and forget the purpose of communication and attach too much importance to technical means.
Keep it as it is, and settle accounts after autumn.
This is the most notorious point in email culture: no matter how small it is, whether it is said in person or on the phone, it must be confirmed to you by email, which means "keep this photo and settle accounts after the autumn." This behavior has two purposes: one is to attack, and the other is to defend.
The way to attack is simple. Suppose A promises to submit the quotation documents before a certain line in the email, then if it is late, B may use the promised email as a handle to attack A. Suppose C makes a mistake in the email, D may euphemistically but pointedly point out that "this kind of retarded mistake will affect the professional image of the company" or "customers don't like suppliers who don't pay attention to details". Of course, plagiarized people are the most important audience.
While collecting evidence, we call each other brothers-the popularity of this phenomenon will inevitably lead to a sense of insecurity. As a result, everyone spent a lot of extra time paying attention to wording and details for fear of leaving something behind.
Defense is one of the main uses of e-mail. It is necessary to be harmful to people's hearts and to be defensive. E-mail is not only "archivable", but also has a unique source and is easy to retrieve. These advantages cannot be taken into account by paper, audio and video files. Therefore, e-mail can be equated with the signature document in business cooperation and has legal effect. When looking for a job, the email confirms that O ffer is regarded as a formal acceptance; Reply to the supplier's budget email, which is regarded as accepting the price; An email interview with the media is regarded as agreeing to speak publicly, and so on.
Therefore, the mail must be cautious, the price and the supplier agreed on the phone, and must be confirmed by email; When a job is cancelled, the reason and the person in charge must be confirmed by email. Otherwise, times have changed. How can you find the sound that disappears into the air? How can you not involve yourself? It is also the strategic value of "active defense" of mail.
The following crimes were committed by the emperor.
In 2006, Loke Soon Choo, a veteran in the workplace and president of EM C Greater China, finally parted ways with the "best female secretary in history" because of the "mail door" incident. It is hard to imagine how a small secretary can bring down a regional president if there is no email address for everyone, including senior executives, in the enterprise electronic system, which provides a convenient channel for the "offenders below".
E-mail has a unique feature: the passivity of the recipient. Telephone is different, the other party must be willing to connect to transmit content. The recipient of the email can only passively accept, can't predict and can't refuse. Therefore, using e-mail to promote content is called "push", which can break the geographical and hierarchical restrictions and make it at least technically possible for everyone to make their own voice. In addition, the immediacy of e-mail will also enhance the impact of the event. However, a coin has two sides, and this feature of e-mail also makes the "impulsive" behavior irreversible.
In short, the cost of reaching the top of the enterprise by email is very low. The struggle in the shopping mall is fierce, and the more convenient the weapon, the more powerful it is. Because of e-mail, middle-and lower-level employees who used to be far away from the real power struggle may also be involved and even occupy an important position. This kind of behavior is more unpredictable and preventive, which makes the company's struggle more complicated.
In addition, one way to gain extra power in organizational management skills is the so-called "report", and the characteristics of accessibility, mass sending and passivity of recipients of e-mail are its sharp weapon.
However, enterprises themselves are not passive victims. Enterprises pay attention to defense and counterattack while using e-mail, and the security of e-mail has become an important topic for every enterprise leader. With the emergence of new situations such as "following the trend of attack", enterprises are constantly strengthening their defense lines:
First, many companies technically control that people at different levels cannot join the distribution list, and they cannot set forwarding masters without corresponding authority.
Second, it is very likely that all emails sent by employees will be automatically sent to relevant management personnel after background processing. In some sensitive industries, companies will take such defensive measures.
Third, foreign companies, especially listed companies, are bound by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, so basically all emails passing through the server will be archived, all emails will be well documented, and sensitive words in emails will be paid attention to and locked accordingly.
The mystery and trap of forwarding and secret transmission
Forwarding, also known as cc, is a function of e-mail. Few people will copy dozens of documents and distribute them everywhere, and telephone recording is even more inconvenient to transmit. However, e-mail can easily forward an email to others, such as forwarding the supplier's email to the boss and forwarding the boss's email to colleagues. But forwarding can also be dangerous:
The human resources director of a Beijing branch of an enterprise has been complaining about the service of the headhunting company contracted by the headquarters, but he can't convince the headquarters, so he has to organize a meeting to discuss the rectification plan. After the meeting, he sent the meeting minutes to several people in the headhunting company, hoping to see the progress. At this point, everything is normal. But half a month later, the director received an email from the headquarters, and it was this one! The situation is very strange. After investigation, the director found that an employee of headhunting company turned to the company's Shanghai branch for help during the rectification period, and he directly forwarded the original email without deleting the meeting minutes and the email body. But my colleagues in Shanghai branch are not good at it. They wanted to take this opportunity to attack the Beijing branch and tell the truth in front of the headquarters, so they forwarded the email to the headquarters completely, which means: Look at the incompetence of the people in the Beijing branch and hired such a poor headhunting company. The people in Shanghai branch didn't know that the headhunting company was signed by the people in the headquarters. The headquarters saw the email and thought that the director's attitude of actively helping the headhunting company to rectify was worthy of recognition. To show the friendly attitude of the headquarters, the mail was returned to the supervisor. This series of forwarding is caught in the middle of the workplace struggle by default. So when forwarding, please drag the screen to the end to see if the original one should be seen by the other party.
Bcc is also called bcc. The setting of this function is suspected of abdominal darkness, or it has penetrated the darkness of human nature. Bcc is often used to set a trap: a writes an email to b and bcc the boss. B's reply will also be seen by the boss. And B doesn't know that the boss is watching, and the content of his email is definitely more direct and frank than knowing. Bcc can also be used in another situation: the boss wants an employee to know about a project, but it is not suitable to appear on the cc list at his level.
Because everyone can secretly send it to anyone at will, or it may be secretly sent, so when you cc or bcc, you must think clearly whether your writing can be seen by everyone at some time in the future, because no one can guarantee whether the recipient will send this email to everyone.
These two functions have played an important role in the process of making e-mail promote the company's struggle. Although it is logically incorrect to push back the email with the result of the incident, the mass killing effect of other modes of communication will not be so impressive.
Communication tool
At present, many multinational companies adopt "distributed office" and have branches all over the world, and email is the main communication method. The popularity of "project management system" based on the project to form temporary teams makes people have to be ready to communicate and cooperate with strangers at any time. Without face-to-face politeness constraints, people are usually more likely to express their true views in emails.
It is the convenience and ease of use of e-mail that makes it the main communication tool of the company. If the enterprise organization is complex and the communication cost is high, it is necessary to reduce the communication cost by mail.
In addition, the requirements of modern enterprises for clear authority need to be archived at any time. For enterprises, everyone will face auditing, and the work content of sensitive departments should be archived. E-mail also reduces the cost of recording and saving.
E-mail reduces the communication cost, promotes the globalization of enterprises, facilitates the establishment of international teams and ensures the timely enjoyment of information. Without e-mail, how many late-night or early-morning hours would Americans and China people in a team spend on conference calls?
It's just a means.
However, under the background of internationalization, the conflict between culture and values and the interweaving of commercial interests make e-mail become the carrier of internal political struggle, which is almost fate.
E-mail is a sharp weapon of corporate politics, but almost all one-to-many communication methods will occur, such as internal instant messaging and internal forums. E-mail has a high exposure only because it is the most commonly used at present. Even if there is no e-mail, people will seek other channels. In the future, with the progress of science and technology, they may choose other communication channels.
The negative effect of mail culture is related to the lack of trust and belief in corporate culture. Mail is just a tool, similar to an amplifier. If the organization itself is full of intrigue, then the political struggle on various communication tools will be very fierce, and mail will inevitably become a powerful tool for the struggle.
Credit carrier
Mail is the carrier of credit. Modern commercial society emphasizes the credit system, and both senior and newcomers in the workplace must establish and maintain their own workplace credit on the carrier of mail.
The so-called "people-oriented technology", technology can never solve the conflict between people, and the root of mail culture is ultimately the problem between people. The root of reducing office politics is to increase the trust between people and improve the relationship between people, not the relationship between people and tools.