I only get 100 words a minute from my adviser. I would prefer a 1,000 word e-mail which will take me less than a minute to read. That s a ten-fold increase in my own productivity. But if my advisor can only type 20 words a minute, my own increase in productivity is at the cost of a five fold decrease in his own productivity, because it will take him at least five times as long to write in an e-mail what he would have said on the phone. The lesson is that e-mail works and the phone does not.
Phone calls are very inefficient.
Trying to get two people together in a phone call is increasingly difficult in a busy, global world where chances are the person in another country is not even awake when you are wanting to chat. So then, at the very least you should assess typing speeds of all new executive recruits, offering courses to all who need them. One of your team takes you to court because he or she cannot type any longer. The Judge awards huge damages against you because answering e-mails was a part of the job, for which no keyboard training had been given. The volumes of on-screen work required led directly to the injury which the court says has made the executive unemployable.