The Subtle Art of Fireproofing Yourself
By: Michelle Middleton
Tags: Work, Personal Growth, Careers, Email, Personal Development

Note if anyone had any objections, tactfully, AND if they didn’t

Say you had a discussion with stakeholders about a proposed workshop and no one had objections. When circulating meeting minutes, state this in writing. When someone pipes up later saying they didn’t agree to x, y, z then you can whip out exhibit A (your minutes they signed off on) to fight your corner.

When circulating a memo or meeting minutes, give the opportunity for recipients to clarify contents. If they have no comments and later raise an issue that was covered in the minutes, they have to be accountable for signing off on something they didn’t read.

Anyone worth their salt when called out on something like this would be like “ok, my bad, I overlooked that”. Those that continue to deny a mistake should be approached with caution.

Leave a paper trail

Following up any conversations with a summarizing email gives you a paper trail of communications. This is a great backup outside of the workplace as well, such as when dealing with telecommunications or utility providers if you're trying to resolve an issue, for example.

Here are some tips for crafting a follow-up email:

Ask or politely inform whoever you’re talking to that you’ll be clarifying in an email so you don’t forget. Make it about you or the situation, not that you don’t trust them.

Follow up immediately. The longer you wait, the less you remember.

If you need to cc or bcc a third party in on the communication, make sure everyone knows why. For example: “Hi [colleague’s name], as per our conversation, here is an email to summarize the points we agreed upon for our next workshop. For completeness, I’ve cc’d in [another colleague/boss] for completeness/to keep [another colleague/boss] in the loop, since they’re overseeing the project / can see our progress. If there are any amendments please feel free to let me know.”

The above is a tactful way of saying that you have a witness to the conversation or agreed actions, without giving the impression you’re ‘dobbing them in’. Copying people in emails, especially superiors to conversations they haven’t been specifically asked to be kept in the loop about, can seem like playground tactics. Keep it friendly and succinct.

State when you’ll be following up — then do it.

Give people the benefit of the doubt and give them an idea of when you’ll be checking in for their progress.

If a milestone is approaching and there’s been radio silence, a friendly reach out might go something like: “Hi [recipient], I’m just checking in regards to the upcoming [project deadline/milestone/equivalent] to see where you’re at…”

Letting people know ahead of when you’ll be checking in maybe at the beginning of a project can give them something to work towards, and makes it seem less dictatorial when you do send your colleagues a reminder.

Having access to the right software can help with this too. Microsoft Teams, for example, allows you to allocate tasks and a deadline and can provide a clear trail of communication that is visible to everyone.

How I’ve used the above techniques in my work

The techniques above started out as a medico-legal defense against what I may or may not have done, should the need ever arise for me to defend myself.

Whenever I check the oral soft tissues of a patient, and there are no significant findings, I write ‘no signs of malignancy or premalignancy’. Later, if someone develops oral cancer and someone was trying to make the argument it was missed earlier, my findings of, well, no findings could turn out to be quite valuable.

I had a case last week where a general practitioner contacted me about some lumps he noticed in his patient’s mouth and wondered if we’d noticed them before. I was able to quickly look back at my notes from two years prior to the patient’s first dental checkup to find I’d written that the patient in question had ‘prominent bilateral mandibular tori’ — which was reassuring for the doctor and myself that I didn't turn up empty-handed, and that the lumps were benign variations on normal anatomy that weren’t a cause for concern.

Final thoughts

I’m the first to think I’m wrong. My trail of emails has allowed me to reaffirm my sanity when I’ve been asked to send something I thought I already had, for instance, no end of times, and has had the added benefit of boosting my confidence in situations like these as well.

Basically, I don’t trust anyone — least of all myself — to remember anything.

Writing your notes as if you’re going to get sued one day has its advantages. I hope you’ll get the same utility out of these little nuggets as me.