Avoid emails if it can be delivered over call or meeting

In 2001, Neal Pat­ter­son, the CEO of Cerner Cor­po­ra­tion, sent an email to his work­force rep­ri­mand­ing them for not work­ing the long hours he ex­pected. He threat­ened to with­hold pro­mo­tions until the em­ployee park­ing lots stayed full from early morn­ing until late at night. The email be­came pub­lic. Cerner stock fell 22%, cost­ing the com­pany around $300 mil­lion. The les­son: Never send an email while angry, stressed or upset. Never be overly in­for­mal or too ver­bose, don't hit Reply All un­nec­es­sar­ily and don't fail to re­spond to your email. Fun­da­men­tals of email eti­quette in­clude using self-control, writ­ing in a re­spect­ful tone and valu­ing your cor­re­spon­dents' time. In­clude a clear sub­ject line. Be con­cise; use proper gram­mar, punc­tu­a­tion and spelling; and copy only those who need a copy. Don't send an email when the con­ver­sa­tion is bet­ter de­liv­ered face-to-face or on the phone. Don't in­clude any­thing in an email that you wouldn't say in per­son. Humor and sar­casm sel­dom work in text.

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