Making Sure Nobody Takes Care Of Your Problem

January 17th, 2007

Here’s a tip to everybody in the business world:  If you want something to get done, don’t CC anybody on the email.

At least 20 times / day I get CCed on an email asking for something to be done, and I’m sure you can guess my gut reaction:  “Mike, Will, or Chris will probably take care of this.”

The problem in this situation is that Mike, Will, and Chris are thinking along the same lines.

If you want to make sure something gets done, make sure you only send your request out to one person - preferably one with the authority to delegate tasks.  This way, there’s a chain of accountability.  It also saves people the extra time of sending emails to everybody involved to see if they already took care of the issue or not.

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