The Harvard Business Review had an article on the need to say, thank you in emails. Just the general response to that email is important. It is the lack of the humanization that we are slowly moving away from when we have to deal with so many emails in our daily workdays.

In previous blogposts I was on the other side of the argument; in favour of not responding to emails with a simple, thank you. I was under the impression that we have too many emails to deal with already, and saying, thank you was a superfluous email that we should not have to deal with. We are all busy and do we need to deal with these types of emails?

Apparently, it is important to send these emails in that it connects us to our human side and it is more personal using an impersonal forum such as email. We sometimes feel like we are losing our humanity by being so impersonal in responding to emails and not taking the time to acknowledge people.

By not saying, thank you we do not acknowledge the other person and they may feel slighted by the lack of acknowledgement. The other person may not wish to see a, thank you email; but at least we have taken the time to acknowledge them with a sincere, thank you.

A good example is when we deal with people one-on-one. If they do something kind for us, do we simply walk away without saying, thank you? Of course not. That really made me think hard about not sending a, thank you – but not any, thank you – a sincere one. That example is very important in that we should acknowledge people and say, thank you. We should not expect that they should know we appreciate what they do for us, simply because we are too lazy to acknowledge them.