I’ve been using email since 1980. At the time I was taught two things about using email: one, don’t put anything in email that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of The New York Times (unfortunately innumerable people haven’t followed this best practice), and two, respond in no more than 24 hours – if only to acknowledge that you received the email.
I’ve tried to pass these best practices, and a few others, such as how to title email attachments, to my teams.
So I was pleased to see that I’m not only executive who believes in being responsive to emails. Here’s the snippet from The Wall Street Journal article How Take-Two’s CEO Powered Up, sub-titled Strauss Zelnick sought advice from a series of high-profile mentors in his quest to conquer the worlds of media, entertainment and videogames.
Mr. Zelnick says he has adopted a number of best practices from Barry Diller, Chairman of IAC/InterActive. One example: “Respond to everyone, always within 24 hours,” Mr. Zelnick says. “It’s courteous and you never know where opportunities are going to come from.”
Mr. Diller was probably speaking not just of email, but of phone calls, faxes (!), and other forms of business communications as well.
