I've seen a lot of hard feelings created because someone was not copied on a memo.
There is, of course, a need for balance. Most of us receive copies of items in which we have zero interest. The cheerful use of the Delete button is a partial remedy to that excess.
Over-coordination, however, is a minor irritant compared to the sin of exclusion. The excluded party carefully examines all of the included ones and asks, "Why were they copied when my operation has just as much, if not more, interest in the outcome?" The answer may not be benign. Many a conspiracy theory has been launched by a missing name.
If you sense that a person might have a sliver of a claim to being legitimately upset by an exclusion, send a copy. Who knows? You may be surprised by the intensity of the individual's interest.
3 comments:
What happened to the old fashioned "know what you are doing" thing.
I would have expected to be chastised for including non-players as much as (or in some projects, more than) omitting players.
Then there's the flip side - why'd you cc that person on my email? Does he/she have to know everything that I'm working on?
Who do you include? Who don't you include?
Sometimes e-mail just seems to be the updated technological equivalent of the high school clique...
I usually say, "I don't live alone on an island". Although I get the sense that there are 1000's of little islands that people are quite happy living alone on, even defending with their own army of one. A workplace is like an island, we need to produce, consume, plan for the future, trade, defend, nurture, grow, and even takeover and war. To do this effectively we need to work together, the power of output is directly linked to the collaboration of the community. Involve as many people as possible, sometimes the best ideas come from the most unlikely sources.
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