Here is another real life example of written communication scenarios that happen fairly often and make you wonder how you should act. I would call them “communication paranoia”- “what would/do they think” type of scenarios.
You receive an email from a colleague (let’s call him Bob). The email contains a simple question; you could possibly answer this question offline. Yet your colleague chose to send it by email. He also copied 10 different stakeholders, including your peers, your managers, their managers and someone who may really have an interest in your response.
Your first reaction is to remove all the unnecessary recipients and to respond to the sender. But if you do that, some of them could think that you never responded to that email. So you keep them on the distribution roster, even though you think it is not required.
Bob receives your email and responds with a follow-up question. The same recipients are still copied.
Well… you understand that at some point, one of the individuals copied on the email will reasonably question why you keep copying them on non-important stuff. Yet, if you exclude them, they could be upset for not being included on the response.
Either way, the odds are you will not look good to someone on the distribution list. And it was not you who started the email thread.
So, what are the options?
Option 1 – do what you think is right: take the risk of being misunderstood, and respond to the right audience.
Option 2 – reply to the original message and suggest that the distribution list should be reduced if your colleague has additional questions: you demonstrate that copying everyone was not your idea and give Bob the opportunity to decide who to exclude from the distribution.
Option 3 – reply and indicate who you think should not be on the distribution: – by doing so, you assume the responsibility for shrinking the list, but you give everyone an option to reply if they prefer to be copied.
Those of us who tried option one multiple times probably found themselves in those awkward situations where they were blamed for something they did not do, so I would only choose that option if your authority in the organization is strong and well established.
Now imagine that the original email you received is not a question, but rather an escalation where Bob blames you for something that you did not really do. He says “when we spoke last week, you promised to send me this document by Friday, yet I never received anything”.
Let’s assume you are a responsible individual and you keep track of your promises and your action items. You clearly remember that you did not promise anything like that, especially because you have no access to the requested document.
Of course, you could respond to Bob that he misunderstood you, and you never intended to send him the document.As we discussed above, you reply to all.
And here your communication gets interesting. By sending that message to Bob, you send a message to all the stakeholders that he copied. Some of them know you well and have full trust in you. Some of them know him better and have full trust in him. Some of them never met you before and create their first impression of you through reading your response.
Now, the communication is not about letting Bob know what the document says. It is about sending all the recipients of the email indicators of how you respond in this particular situation and letting them make their own conclusion about who misinterpreted the action item, potentially impacting the “score” indicating whether or not you can be trusted going forward.
My interpretation may sound a bit extreme, but the truth is that many people judge their colleagues and create their impressions based on these very innocent email responses.
What else can you do? – You can apologize to Bob and say that you may have "miscommunicated" your message at the meeting. Does this make you look better? – Not really.
So here is my advice. Once you receive such an email, pick up the phone and talk to your colleague. All your explanations in a verbal one-on-one conversation would sound natural, easier to understand and straight to the point. You could find the solution in this conversation. After you hang up, reply to him (copy others) through email thanking him for the call and confirming that, as you figured out over the phone, that was a different file and here is what you agreed to do next. This way, both of you will look professional to each other and to your colleagues.