UP and DOWN the ORGANISATION

Once upon a time a man by the name of Tom Plaizier developed a game called 'Up and Down the Organisation'.

He managed in just one quick game to demonstrate that if you have an organisational hierarchy in which communications are restricted to just up and down the organisation and are so formal that people are required to only communicate in writing that the rigour effectively blocks communication to such an extent that no work can be done.

These days, I am afraid that I see something slightly different emerging in the work place. With the advent of e-mail most people can send things to virtually anyone both inside and outside an organisation quickly and efficiently.

However, it is the very ease and speed of the exchange that should provide us with some tingling sense of warning.

It is far too easy these days to think nothing of putting fingers to the keyboard and creating a document which is then sent to someone else and MAY in fact be a corporate record. If it is then what most people forget is that the record is kept (or at least should be) on a corporate file. In other words those scatterbrained ideas, comments etc. suddenly appear on a virtually public document and are stored for years if not decades and hence available to anyone.

Pushing the wrong button on a key board has been the downfall of many a person recently. The funny note you wanted to send to your friend suddenly ends up with the wrong person - simply because you got the wrong email address and pressed the send button before you could stop yourself.

Those sardonic remarks that you would make in a confidential whisper in a bar or when passing someone in the corridor end up being not only broadcast to all and sundry but may well be something that is then kept on a file for years for everyone to see, especially auditors and others who you may NOT want to see such things!

In the 'old days' there were standards of communication among people and there were things called 'style sheets' that enabled people to see what was proper form and terms of addressing people. These days all that has gone out the window for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness and all we have left are often ill considered words on some electronic format that may or may not last through time.

My advice to the modern bureaucrat?

THINK before you commit yourself to an email and ask whether or not you would want to make the information public so that it can be seen by anyone. If not re-write it into something you are happy to be made public before you send it!