Jeremy Burton has a good idea: declare Friday as an “email-free day” in his department. This story, which I first saw in the WSJ, has grown legs as people debate whether this is a good idea or not. I think the stimulus that led to Burton’s edict is something we can all identify with: he wondered how much time his folks were wasting on email.
The response, though, is throwing the baby out with the bathwater; instead of working with his employees to help them use email more productively, he’s banned it for 20% of his org’s working hours so that he’s effectively reducing their productivity one day a week. One thing I learned in the Marines: you manage people according to their results. If the marketing folks at VERITAS aren’t getting their jobs done, it’s probably not because they’re sending too many email messages on Fridays.
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