Everybody is taking their turn in the dock over the financial earthquake that has wrecked our economy. Bankers, accountants, government, rating agencies, consumers, home owners. All are indulging in a magnanimous mea culpa. This is a necessary and good part of the grieving process. I propose it is now time to put the mediums by which we communicate on trial. In particular I want to discuss email as the medium that defined the culture which led us to the brink.

The benefits of email are clear, but let me expand on some of the unintended consequences. Email has allowed the world to be taken over by the socially inept. There are people now running organisations that cannot communicate with others face to face. They have few ideas of and dubious leadership qualities. They favour electronic communication at one remove. I am not overstating this. Some people are real car crashes and they should not be put in charge of much at all; yet email has enabled them to rise like eagles on pinions of air.

Part of the problem is the counterintuitive nature of the medium. On the surface email looks immensely democratic and transparent. It allows project management to proceed apace and a leaves a clear trail so that people can be given responsibilities and held accountable for their performance.

No. Email provides only part of the picture. In reality, total communications involve phone calls, meetings and chats in the corridor. None of these are recorded so a witch hunt that demands disclosure of all relevant emails will only show a detail of the whole canvas. In fact, email has become a way for people to abrogate responsibility and accountability by appearing to execute their duties when their real motivation is to cover their own ass. Of course, ass covering has always gone on in business and it always will. But we have a problem. It has now reached such epidemic levels that it has become the defining executive quality and one that is rewarded as such. People are now covering their ass in email rather than addressing any other business risk in a meaningful way.

Communicating in this way has brewed the perfect storm. It is the best medium to use if you want a bubble to inflate to bursting as it encourages everyone to lose touch with each other and reality. What happened to leadership and developing an entrepreneurial environment of trust? Next time you want to convince a group of people of something, go and see them, test your argument, wave your arms round a bit, involve them physically in the process of decision making.

Once this recession’s handwringing, bloodletting fest has finished, email will still be here doing its damage - slowly and invisibly, like cigarettes. I have no solutions. It is far too late. Just watch out for the way in which it can impoverish creativity, reward the mediocre and lower the immune system of your company.

Maria Fuchs-Alcox has had a distinguished and colourful career as actress, singer, filmmaker and cultural blographer for www.wiredvideo.net - Corporate Video Production London

[tags]Business, Email, Communications[/tags]