Communication in the workplace

The blackberry is all the rave at my workplace. All the VP's and Directors have received them in the past 3 months and I am next. Don't get me wrong, I love social media and the Blackberry will make work more efficient and productive. What I currently see with upper management though is hiding behind the blackberry and not having constructive communications.

Case in point this week was an issue this week in our office with on how we should manage our accounts. The entire chain of communication was done over email though we sit about 30 feet away from each other and there were many disagreements among the 6 or so responders. It got the point where on director said, "ok this thread is done, X and Z will manage it from here."

The problem with the last line is what the director said, he did not mean. What he said verbally to everyone but X and Z was "we are changing this and X & Z will do it." Unfortunately X & Z are not changing anything as they interpreted the email differently and thus clarifies my point that communicating difficult conversations should be done in prison.