A five-word email. Simple question, simple answer. Then someone asks: “Should we copy the manager — just in case?” Suddenly four people are huddled over a keyboard debating the CC line.
It’s funny because it’s familiar. And it’s worth taking seriously, because the CC line is one of the most honest culture surveys you have.
Transparency, or self-protection?
Copying people on routine emails is usually described as keeping everyone informed. More often, it’s insurance: if this goes wrong, nobody can say I didn’t tell them.
That’s a cover-yourself culture, and it is a trust problem wearing a transparency costume. Every unnecessary CC adds to inboxes that already swallow a large share of the working day, slows decisions down, and quietly tells people that owning a decision alone is dangerous.
Speed is a by-product of trust
You can’t mandate speed with a memo. In my years in large corporations, the fastest teams weren’t the ones with the tightest processes — they were the ones where people trusted each other enough to act.
Think of a football team. Players who are afraid of making mistakes pass backwards. It’s safe, and it never scores. A team that trusts each other takes calculated risks forward. CC-ing the boss is a backward pass.
Culture is what you tolerate
Culture isn’t what an organisation celebrates on posters; it’s what it tolerates in its processes. If every decision needs three sign-offs, the real message is we don’t trust you — no matter what the values wall says. Cass Sunstein calls this kind of unjustified friction “sludge”.
There’s a second trap. Many organisations reward firefighting — the dramatic rescue — and ignore the quiet prevention that meant there was no fire. That teaches people that visibility matters more than foresight.
Three things leaders can do
- Cut the sludge. Remove sign-offs that exist “just in case”. Design policies for the many capable people, not the rare bad actor. Give teams small budgets they can spend without asking.
- Reward prevention, not just heroics. Recognise people who saw problems coming and dealt with them early. → Prevention Spotlight
- Be the thermostat, not the thermometer. When someone copies you unnecessarily, reply privately: you don’t need to copy me — I trust your judgement. → The Trust Reply
Fear fills whatever space trust leaves empty. Every reply you send either widens that space or closes it.