For those of you who work in organizations of at least 500 people I am willing to bet my mortgage that, at once in your work life, you have experienced an organizational “Reply All” email chain reaction debacle. You know exactly what I’m talking about. One innocent mass email that somehow results in a mind-numbing, unfathomable series of “reply all” emails in which its sheer lunacy is matched equally by our entertainment and frustration, not to mention the 400 hours of lost productivity.
It starts with one email to a large group or community and may be as benign as providing information, or the email may ask for feedback but cautions not to “reply all”. What happens next seems inexplicable. Some people answer the original email, yet “reply all”. There are people who answer those emails by “replying all”. Then there are some who ask people to stop “replying all”, while themselves “replying all”. Some people point out the fact that by “replying all” to tell people to stop “replying all” is ridiculous (and they do this by “replying all”). Then there are those that “reply all” to ask to be removed from the group/community email list. And those that “reply all” to tell those people how they can opt out of the group/community email list. Then finally (and my favorite), the smart-ass and sarcastic emails that make fun of everyone who has actively been involved in this disaster, and they of course, “reply all”. Despite everyone wishing the emails would stop, mob mentality takes over and the event takes on a momentum of its own.
The innocent bystanders are left with a disproportionate increase in entertainment as compared to the greater increase in rage. Our day is completely disrupted as we clean out maybe hundreds of emails from our inbox. We’re left to ask ourselves why people keep responding “Reply All”, and more importantly, why on earth do I keep reading these emails?
But inexplicable? Maybe not.
As a result of an extremely scientific study I did (not really), there is actually a science to it. It’s a complex Black Swan event, and just like splitting the atom, the conditions have to be right, and certain thresholds have to be achieved to guarantee a runaway chain reaction.
There are two conditions that factor in to initiation:
- Email group/community must be larger than 50 recipients
- Chain reaction is accelerated in proportion to the geographic dispersal of recipients. The less that people actually know each other, the more likely it will take off.
Below is a graph that details the subsequent event:
The reaction is first initiated by one message emailed to the group. For example:
“Join us for the Red Cross Blood Drive this afternoon at 3pm in the main conference room!”
Our current understanding is that the type of email content, sender, presence or lack of a question, or request to not “reply all” have no bearing on the chain reaction (this hypothesis may require more study however).
Shortly after the email goes out, there are invariably multiple response emails from people who “reply all” (A).
Examples include:
- “Is that conference room A or B?”
- “I went to Thailand last year, can I still give blood?”
- “See you there!”
In any example, the rest of the group most likely has no interest in these responses. The number of response emails replied to all is directly proportionate to the size of the email group.
There are then people who respond to those emails trying to be helpful:
- “I think its conference room C, but I really don’t know.”
- “Probably not, but here’s a link to tell you which countries are flagged.”
- “Not if I see you first!:)”
And yes, those too are replied to all.
There is no requirement that the initial respondents be unaware of just the “reply” function or accidentally hit “reply all”. In addition to either being oblivious or clumsy, they can also do it on purpose (gasp). There is some evidence that certain people simply want everyone to know what they are thinking (case in point: this article).
Despite the initial conditions being set, the chain reaction cannot take off without the following people: those that “reply all” to ask people to stop “replying all”. Without these atom-splitting inducers, the reaction would fizzle out. In an attempt to be helpful they keep sending out emails adding fuel to the fire. There tends to be an eventual increase in these “Do not reply all” emails with a corresponding decrease in response emails.
The point where “Do not reply all” emails outnumber legitimate responses is the key and is known as the Fibonacci Threshold (or The Threshold) (B), after which “do not Reply All” message become angry and hostile. A chain reaction only occurs if upon reaching the Threshold, individuals continue to answer the original email by replying all.
The Threshold also usually coincides with the peak of emails from those compelled to point out that all of the “Do Not Reply All” emails are actually “Reply all” emails. The psychological basis for this compulsion is murky at best, but nonetheless serves as an accelerant.
After angry “Do Not Reply all” messages continue, there is the first appearance of the “Please remove me from this distro list” emails. (C) Because as recent studies have shown, ignoring the email chain is harder than contributing to the meltdown (Cocktosten and Fishbine, Science, 8:19, May 2007). This is followed by the appearance of email responses indicating how to remove yourself from the distro list.
Finally, the appearance of Smart Ass/Sarcastic emails signal the impending end of the reaction as people simply run out of fuel to care anymore. (D) These emails are sent to everyone and may take the form of something like:
- “Does anyone know where I can donate some blood this afternoon?”
- “Does anyone know if the server’s down? I haven’t gotten an email all afternoon.”
The entire event may last anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours and we’ve calculated that the Duration (D) of the chain reaction is a function of Members in the community (M) and Triviality of the topic (T), such that M x T=D.
Conclusion: The most important takeaway from this deconstruction is the fact that if no one sent emails asking people not to “reply all”, the reaction will never get going. Yet, human nature is often to weigh in and to try to control the uncontrollable and in the process make the situation worse. Maybe limiting our effort and ignoring things out of our control sometimes can be beneficial. And that goes for more than just emails.