When sending a follow up email, is it appropriate to CC the recipient's boss?

Question

I was tossing around a few ideas with my colleague on how to further a project that's being delayed or lacking attention by a particular person. They mentioned perhaps I should CC the person's boss when sending a follow up email regarding a stalled project. Often times, the person I need to email is my superior, meaning I'd have to CC someone even higher up.

Would this be an appropriate thing to do in a professional environment? Would it bring more attention to the matter, or would it be closer to blackmail?

Note: This is regarding a follow up email, after the first attempt to contact them has been made.

Answer 1

Would it bring more attention to the matter, or would it be closer to blackmail?

Both, obviously. If you are trying to force the person to pay closer attention by making sure his boss is aware that the question is asked, that is a form of blackmail.

Does that necessarily make it a bad move? Not always, but give a lot of thought to the personality of the people involved before you take this step. Is this the kind of person who regularly ignores emails? Are they likely to think poorly of you for taking an aggressive approach? Is their boss the kind of person who is offended by breaches in the chain of command?

It also depends a lot on the structure that you're both within. In particular, I am more inclined to CC my boss than someone else's. Because he needs to know if I'm being slowed down by someone else's lack of response. If my boss happens to be the boss of the person I'm chasing, I'm not going to let that stop me.

But, more often than not, there is a better way. Follow up with a phone call, or go to the person's desk, before you start playing the political game.

As with all office politics, the question for me is not "is this appropriate?" The real question should be "will this achieve the result I am looking for, without costing me a working relationship?" And that always depends on the personalities involved. There is no hard and fast rule.

Answer 2

CC'ing a supervisor is usually fine. I think the tone and intent of the email is what matters more than who's CC'd on it. Good or bad, people always get a reputation inside of companies for playing politics, or pulling rank, if they are in fact participating in such activities. So long as you're neither playing politics or pulling rank (as opposed to just going directly to the person you need to deal with) you're probably on safe ground.

If your tone is professional and courteous (of course it's fine for you to stress the urgency/lack of follow up from the last communication), then email is usually an okay method of communication. If it's an emergency (or it's getting there) it wouldn't hurt to pick up the phone as well, assuming there's a phone number to call.

As with anything, you generally get the best long-term results when your courteous, even if things are rough right now. If you're courteous the vast majority of the time, when it comes time for you to say, "Hey [person you're waiting on], we've been working together for a long time, and I really need you to be a little more responsive so I know what's happening. When can I expect to get an update?" Press for a commitment on the timeline for follow up, and hold them to it. Over time, they will either get used to that flow (and provide updates when you really need them), or you can escalate it if the lack of follow up becomes a repeat problem.

Answer 3

CCing someone's boss is a raising of the stakes. It's essentially saying that you are not getting satisfaction in whatever it is you are talking about and that you will bring in a higher authority to get your wishes satisfied.

That's fine if it's what is needed. But be aware that the other person will take it that way, and may well take offence, especially if they believe they are giving you good reasons why the 'stalled' project is not making progress.

Answer 4

If the person is your own boss, you need to be more careful doing this. Before escalating this way, I would send him an email telling him you need a response by such and such date and time or the project deadline will be missed. Usually words like project deadline being missed will make someone aware that they are causing the delay and that there is a papaer trail and they can be blamed if it happens. If it was my boss I would also actually make an appoint ment to discuss the issue and not leave until a resultion has occurred. Again, you may need to forcefully make the point that his decision is delaying the project deadline. I hava alos successfully used the project management system to bring this up. Usually a discussion item saying the project is oh hold until a decision has been made on xyz issue, will also break the logjam. This is easpcially true if his boss might read the PM system items.

Another effective tactic can be to tell him the decision you want and tell him that you will assume he agrees with it unless he gets back to you by such and such date. This is really helpful when you have a boss that doesn't read his emails or respond to them. You made the decision but he owns it because you asked for feedback and told him that he agrees if you don't hear differently. Even better if you do this as a way of saving him time, he can't even complain about it.

Answer 5

Whenever possible make the first followup to an unanswered action item in person with the individual in question. If you're going outside the boundaries of your team, let their supervisor know you are expecting some work from their direct report.

Email chains are a poor surrogate for actual interaction and people will respect you more for creating authentic interactions.

If you're dealing with varying geographies, a phone call with an immediate email afterwards is as thorough as you should need to get in most environments. Whether or not to CC the supervisor is largely a judgement call; I'd want to know if people are asking my staff to do work outside of their normal scope.

If things feel like they are getting complicated, it's probably a case of needing a better system to track requests and issues than email. In these circumstance I highly recommend putting a tool in place. It can be as simple as a shared Google doc spreadsheet or as complicated as an issue tracker like Bugzilla or Jira or Redmine, but the goal should always be to promote visibility and minimize friction.

Answer 6

This should be saved for very rare cases, where you absolutely can't get the communication between you and your colleague to work.

It is a bad signal - it says "me and him can't get along, or can't work efficiently, so I need help from a grownup". Be a grownup, solve things yourselves. If you can't, I would prefer to speak/email to either bosses directly, and not CC them - it just looks bad.

This answer was written after I've "done the CC" a few times in my carrier. One time, I actually got told bluntly by that employee that it's considered rude to CC at this stage, and she convinced me. Since then, I hardly ever CC for this reason. (There are other, legitimate reasons to CC a manager)