I started to follow this approach [1] 6 month ago and it is amazing how much clearer my own thoughts in communication have become.
1. Subjects with keywords. The subject clearly states the purpose of the email, and specifically, what you want them to do with your note.
Keywords: ACTION, SIGN, INFO, DECISION, REQUEST, COORD
2. Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF). Lead your emails with a short, staccato statement that declares the purpose of the email and action required. The BLUF should quickly answer the five W’s: who, what, where, when, and why. An effective BLUF distills the most important information for the reader.
3. Be economical. Short emails are more effective than long ones, so try to fit all content in one pane, so the recipient doesn’t have to scroll. use active voice, so it’s clear who is doing the action. If an email requires more explanation, you should list background information after the BLUF as bullet points so that recipients can quickly grasp your message. Link to attachments rather than attaching files. This will likely provide the most recent version of a file. Also, the site will verify that the recipient has the right security credentials to see the file, and you don’t inadvertently send a file to someone who isn’t permitted to view it.
> use active voice, so it’s clear who is doing the action.
Using the active voice is neither necessary nor sufficient for clarity as to "who is doing the action". Just make sure it is in fact clear, and write as understandably as you're able. It's true that sometimes people use the passive voice inappropriately, but that's no reason to mangle your writing to avoid it.
1. Keep the message as short as necessary but no shorter.
2. Put the most important information at the top of the message.
3. If it email is for an ask, call out from who you need the response and put it at the top of the message.
4. If you need to send a long email with many details, put the most important information at the top (ie. what the reader needs to know) and then fill in the body with details he/she can choose to indulge.
Example
Hey Jane, I need your input on how to prioritize my current work. Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?
Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.
>>Hey Jane, I need your input on how to prioritize my current work. Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?
>>Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.
>Hey Jane, I need your input on how to prioritize my current work. Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?
>Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.
>Lemme know.
Pss, amateur. That's way too many words.
Hi Jane,
should I keep fixing bug XYZ or focus on feature 123? Vendor ABC is taking longer than we thought to fix their stuff.
Bill
And sometimes add a smiley so they know you're not made of circuits yourself too.
I think you missed a key point in your example which you demonstrated but didn’t explain. The last sentence of the email should be an action for the reader. Don’t make them scroll back up.
For #1, what I have found works best is to nix the huge amount of text you'd otherwise write in the email and put it in a link. A document maybe, or better yet a beautiful portal that works on desktop and mobile.
That way the email is short AND the link can be reshared!
As a manager or senior <anything> a huge part of your job is communication and distributing information, and email is one of, if not, THE core method of doing this.
The author has decided to provide poor communication because she can’t handle her inbox. One word replies can be extremely misleading and will cost her more time overall than reading and replying to her emails properly. I would be fuming if I was her boss or worked for her.
> The author has decided to provide poor communication
On the contrary! The author has decided to provide efficient, immediate, communication, instead of vaguely planning to send a more detailed reply later if she maybe gets around to it.
If everybody treated email this way it would be 100x more efficient. If her reply doesn't contain the info you need, just reply back asking for the info you need, and she'll reply within minutes.
I'm a big fan of the "executive summary" approach. Give a one or two sentence overview, followed by the details if anyones interested.
I once worked with a senior engineer who would write incredibly long, detailed emails to the point that his manager would ask, how do you have time to write these and not complete this (underspecified, unrealistic) task? He ended up getting PIP'ed and fired. I counseled him many times to keep his emails to 4-5 sentences tops. He just couldn't do it.
I like it. As an employee, it also takes the pressure off for me to be verbose and match the formality of my managers emails. And a simple explanation like "I use short emails because they are quick and easy. Please don't read too much into the tone" the first time around would allay an employees concerns.
It leaves some things unsaid, but better to say them once. Like I sometimes reply "OK" or "got it" to a long request by a manager when I have nothing further to say, but if i DO have questions/concerns, they know I will say more. With that shared understanding, receiving an "ok" saves us both time and energy. Its really great.
Came here to say this. It's great if you're the boss, but did you notice that in the article he says "I just assumed I understood what Mark Cuban meant in the one word reply"
If that assumption is wrong and involves millions of dollars or hundreds of person-hours, what happens to your company? This is only good if the response CAN be brief and still be adequate.
A counter example is Nintendo, where Sakurai was literally recorded, so people wouldn't be confused about the project status and what he told them to do.
I agree in general, single word emails either are or run the risk of being ambiguous and in many cases end up requiring followup to extract the necessary information. However in some cases they're all that's needed;
"Hey boss, here's a quote for the thing we buy, can I please get your approval for the spend?"
"approved"
That's perfectly sufficient, and it's a single word.
Also I've found single word replies are a nice way of telling if it's actually the big boss that's replying to you, or their PA :)
This doesn't work. I've gotten many bad reviews, because people thought I was being "curt" or "mean" because I was replying to their question with short replies.
None, of my emails were intended to be mean, I just didn't see the point in fluffing up my emails, and only responded with the required information, but I guess people require the fluff or they get their feelings hurt.
You're right, only the most high-powered people in an organization can get away with terse responses that leave recipients guessing at what their precise intent was.
"Fluff" is a highly subjective term. What may be fluff for you could be critical signalling for others. Stripping everything down to the bare-bones of what you (or I) may think answers the request sounds intentionally flippant and dismissive. If we fail to address the recipient in a context they understand and share with us that is taken as an offense.
With a little effort, however, it is totally possible to be cogent, compact, AND polite.
Alternately, your definition of "fluff" was everyone else's definition of "required communication." A short reply can still be ambiguous, which requires clarification, which then wastes time.
Given your many bad reviews, do you think it might be worthwhile to revisit your data?
Problem is humans are multiplexing both data and job security signals across the single channel of email. For the boss, the latter doesn't matter (much) so they can focus on data. For peers and underlings, it is unwise to ignore clues that let you know when your job might be at risk because you pissed off your boss or peers, so getting a clear signal is important.
I think I'm fairly clean and direct in my emails, but that doesn't mean you can't pay attention to how your communication comes off. A friendly opening, ("Hey bob"), and closing ("Cheers, {initials}") should be sufficient to make you not sound like a monster. Maybe throw in a smily face once in a while to remind them you're human.
It works, but as a general rule, you need to include more fluff than the person above you in the hierarchy unless you know they're fine with you being shorter. The trick is figuring out just how much more fluff is ok.
But what will come across as "curt" or "mean" is if your e-mails are substantially less fluffy than those of your boss or your co-workers. You need to adapt to the style in use in the business, not because it is objectively curt or mean, but because people judge whether or not you're being curt or mean subjectively based on their base of comparison, and that is your co-workers.
I use short responses only for people I work with regularly every day (direct team members).
For everyone else I throw in the fluff to keep things amicable. When I do that - sometimes I feel like I'm wasting time - but in the end I believe it protects you from people thinking you are a jerk - or worse introducing bias into decisions that might be made that could go against you or your team.
My experience has been that a lot of people are surprisingly uncomfortable writing. This includes people who have gone to the best universities --- people with excellent educations. They can write well enough to get through school, but they don't enjoy it, and they don't feel they are really expressing themselves in writing.
Personally, I feel like my writing skills are better than my verbal skills, so I default to email, because email plays to my strengths. But over the years I've been taught that I'm in the minority on this. Many managers and co-workers greatly prefer to have a conversation. Often, they feel like they are not getting the facts when they engage in written communications. Apparently they need to see my face and read my body language. Apparently this is true even when the subject is deeply technical, like talking about the APIs our microservices use to talk to each other.
I feel the same way. Recruiters are also bad about this. With email, I have time to think through my response and (maybe more importantly) think of a nice way to say no. On the phone, faced with a salesy fast-talking recruiter, I am definitely at a disadvantage. I'm more likely to be talked into further calls and whatnot. I'm pretty sure they know this.
I think the author suffers from a perfectionism problem. She wants to sent the perfect reply. When asked for advice, she sets a bar that’s much higher in her own head for what the reply should be than what the person asking likely intended. Bosses and CEOs don’t seem to suffer from these anxieties, and have no problem sending back short, decisive, and sometimes imperfect replies.
I have always disliked the massive over-use of e-mail, and when I first heard "Email is where keystrokes go to die" [0] it really resonated with me. E-mail is temporal, but far too often used for things of long lasting significance. Though it's somewhat of a necessary evil for communicating externally, I don't use it internally for anything more than I have to.
Here's my take:
Anything long-lived belongs on wiki, ticket system or other shared storage location. E-mail a notification to say there's an update, but the official version doesn't belong archived forever in everyone's inboxes -- well, everyone other than employees who happened to start after it was sent, of course.
Quick questions are better done over chat, if for no other reason than the single-line interface tends to encourage single-line questions.
Long conversations are better had in person or by video chat. How many times have you been on an e-mail thread that included several angry paragraphs written back and forth because of an incorrect assumption or simple misunderstanding?
My ideal interactions start with a chat message or ticket, switch to in-person/video if needed, and document the result (if relevant) in a ticket or wiki page. No e-mail involved.
I think author is missing the point of "emailing like a CEO." It's not about being terse, it's about clarity. Yes, emails with clarity are often short, but not all short emails are clear. I wrote about this just yesterday: https://www.gkogan.co/blog/clarity/
When I see the phrase "emailing like a CEO" I imagine mainly not asking for opinions or decisions rather making statements of fact or decisions. For example, I got into the habit of not asking for vacation, rather I say "I am taking time off from day X to day Y", or declaring my design decisions instead of asking for opinions.
In the case of asking for time off, my rationale is to avoid making someone spend time evaluating if my request is acceptable.
Well CEO can do it because she is a CEO. If any employee would use this method it'd be considered poor communication and the person considered as lazy and incompetent.
What I have realized is some people are just naturally good at this. They are able to get to the nub of the issue, anticipate a pointless back and forth and get things done.
It's not simply an issue of length, its communication and I guess maturity, experience and savvy.
Of course if you already have authority then it's no longer a communication thing but a power thing, as things will anyway get done and some are inevitably waiting for opportunities to suck up to you. So no point aping a CEOs style if you are not a CEO.
> I wanted to know, did you always email this way, or did you only start once you became the boss? His answer (over email): “Yes.” I’m going to assume the yes was to the first part of the question and he skimmed over part two.
This isn't something to emulate. People who only read the first few words of an email before replying make communication harder for everyone else. Sometimes things can't be accurately summed up in half a sentence.
We had external trainer here some weeks ago and at one point he mentioned(boasted) that he had inbox of 4000+ unread emails. On the last session he wrote his email on the board and said that we can just contact him for further questions and of course no one wrote it down.
I would say, do your best to imagine the receiver’s Inbox and help them.
I wish that E-mail clients didn’t give so much control to senders. (Oh, you picked a crappy Subject line so now I need to use that in my list forever? Oh, you rambled for the first 1-2 sentences so now my message preview is useless. Oh, you mark every E-mail “high priority” so now that sort column doesn’t really organize things usefully.)
Perhaps the problem is attempting to review emails at a time when you can't formulate proper responses, i.e. on the phone. If it comes by email, it's probably not urgent enough to justify looking at them at a time when you can't respond.
On the flip side, they probably deserve more than a casual glance and a two word response.
I once heard a CEO's job is to make decisions and communicate them. This article seems to reinforce that. I'm not a CEO, but I try to be as concise as possible when I communicate by email. Two things I do are not mentioned in the article. I always address the recipient by name if possible. And, I always add my signature, which on my computer includes my address and phone number. Addressing the recipient by name gets their attention better. And, having my contact info in every email makes it easy if they want to communicate with me via another medium. Also, I always say Please and Thank you. In terms of email management, I use the Getting Things Done method, which works well for me.
Some people get anxiety when email piles up in their mailbox and may spend a considerable amount of time sorting and categorizing their emails, some go as far as making zero inbox a thing.
I would hazard to say most people don't care about their inbox. I for one don't mind at all if an email I didn't read festers in my inbox for years, after all if it's not urgent enough to call or physically reach out to me about it it's not that big a deal.
[+] [-] splittingTimes|8 years ago|reply
1. Subjects with keywords. The subject clearly states the purpose of the email, and specifically, what you want them to do with your note. Keywords: ACTION, SIGN, INFO, DECISION, REQUEST, COORD
2. Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF). Lead your emails with a short, staccato statement that declares the purpose of the email and action required. The BLUF should quickly answer the five W’s: who, what, where, when, and why. An effective BLUF distills the most important information for the reader.
3. Be economical. Short emails are more effective than long ones, so try to fit all content in one pane, so the recipient doesn’t have to scroll. use active voice, so it’s clear who is doing the action. If an email requires more explanation, you should list background information after the BLUF as bullet points so that recipients can quickly grasp your message. Link to attachments rather than attaching files. This will likely provide the most recent version of a file. Also, the site will verify that the recipient has the right security credentials to see the file, and you don’t inadvertently send a file to someone who isn’t permitted to view it.
===
[1] https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-pre...
[+] [-] dllthomas|8 years ago|reply
Using the active voice is neither necessary nor sufficient for clarity as to "who is doing the action". Just make sure it is in fact clear, and write as understandably as you're able. It's true that sometimes people use the passive voice inappropriately, but that's no reason to mangle your writing to avoid it.
[+] [-] bshimmin|8 years ago|reply
Oh no, have we introduced "the fold" into emails too, after a decade of forlornly trying to persuade people it doesn't exist on the web?
[+] [-] egfx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MichaelMoser123|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hnrodey|8 years ago|reply
1. Keep the message as short as necessary but no shorter.
2. Put the most important information at the top of the message.
3. If it email is for an ask, call out from who you need the response and put it at the top of the message.
4. If you need to send a long email with many details, put the most important information at the top (ie. what the reader needs to know) and then fill in the body with details he/she can choose to indulge.
Example
Hey Jane, I need your input on how to prioritize my current work. Can you provide guidance on where I should focus?
Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.
Lemme know.
[+] [-] drb311|8 years ago|reply
>>Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.
>>Lemme know.
Yes
[+] [-] tekkk|8 years ago|reply
>Bug XYZ was assigned to me and it's taking longer to complete because we have a dependency on Vendor ABC completing a change to their web service. This is impacting the commitment to my team on Feature 123 because we are near the end of our sprint.
>Lemme know.
Pss, amateur. That's way too many words.
Hi Jane,
should I keep fixing bug XYZ or focus on feature 123? Vendor ABC is taking longer than we thought to fix their stuff.
Bill
And sometimes add a smiley so they know you're not made of circuits yourself too.
[+] [-] canadianwriter|8 years ago|reply
Eg. @stacey - can you get me the numbers on whatever?
[+] [-] styfle|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EGreg|8 years ago|reply
That way the email is short AND the link can be reshared!
[+] [-] sdenton4|8 years ago|reply
"Hey Jane; let's 1:1."
Or, if you think face to face communication is a waste of time,
"Hey Jane; pick one for Friday: feature 123 or bug xyz?"
[+] [-] IncRnd|8 years ago|reply
Vendor ABC is blocking Bug XYZ. This gates Feature 123.
How do we prioritize?
[+] [-] Sir_Cmpwn|8 years ago|reply
XYZ is blocked by Vendor ABC. Feature 123 is affected.
[+] [-] sdm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] albertgoeswoof|8 years ago|reply
The author has decided to provide poor communication because she can’t handle her inbox. One word replies can be extremely misleading and will cost her more time overall than reading and replying to her emails properly. I would be fuming if I was her boss or worked for her.
[+] [-] jstanley|8 years ago|reply
On the contrary! The author has decided to provide efficient, immediate, communication, instead of vaguely planning to send a more detailed reply later if she maybe gets around to it.
If everybody treated email this way it would be 100x more efficient. If her reply doesn't contain the info you need, just reply back asking for the info you need, and she'll reply within minutes.
[+] [-] le-mark|8 years ago|reply
I once worked with a senior engineer who would write incredibly long, detailed emails to the point that his manager would ask, how do you have time to write these and not complete this (underspecified, unrealistic) task? He ended up getting PIP'ed and fired. I counseled him many times to keep his emails to 4-5 sentences tops. He just couldn't do it.
[+] [-] zaptheimpaler|8 years ago|reply
It leaves some things unsaid, but better to say them once. Like I sometimes reply "OK" or "got it" to a long request by a manager when I have nothing further to say, but if i DO have questions/concerns, they know I will say more. With that shared understanding, receiving an "ok" saves us both time and energy. Its really great.
[+] [-] sailfast|8 years ago|reply
If that assumption is wrong and involves millions of dollars or hundreds of person-hours, what happens to your company? This is only good if the response CAN be brief and still be adequate.
[+] [-] LeeHwang|8 years ago|reply
A counter example is Nintendo, where Sakurai was literally recorded, so people wouldn't be confused about the project status and what he told them to do.
https://www.polygon.com/2013/11/20/5127488/a-day-in-the-extr...
[+] [-] hota_mazi|8 years ago|reply
I've found this to be less and less true these past years with the rise of Slack.
These days, most of my email inbox searches come up empty because what I'm looking for actually happened in Slack.
[+] [-] synicalx|8 years ago|reply
"Hey boss, here's a quote for the thing we buy, can I please get your approval for the spend?"
"approved"
That's perfectly sufficient, and it's a single word.
Also I've found single word replies are a nice way of telling if it's actually the big boss that's replying to you, or their PA :)
[+] [-] baby|8 years ago|reply
I see that as efficient communication. No BS
[+] [-] IncRnd|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] account0099099|8 years ago|reply
None, of my emails were intended to be mean, I just didn't see the point in fluffing up my emails, and only responded with the required information, but I guess people require the fluff or they get their feelings hurt.
[+] [-] crispyambulance|8 years ago|reply
"Fluff" is a highly subjective term. What may be fluff for you could be critical signalling for others. Stripping everything down to the bare-bones of what you (or I) may think answers the request sounds intentionally flippant and dismissive. If we fail to address the recipient in a context they understand and share with us that is taken as an offense.
With a little effort, however, it is totally possible to be cogent, compact, AND polite.
[+] [-] mfringel|8 years ago|reply
Given your many bad reviews, do you think it might be worthwhile to revisit your data?
[+] [-] mLuby|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] therealdrag0|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vidarh|8 years ago|reply
But what will come across as "curt" or "mean" is if your e-mails are substantially less fluffy than those of your boss or your co-workers. You need to adapt to the style in use in the business, not because it is objectively curt or mean, but because people judge whether or not you're being curt or mean subjectively based on their base of comparison, and that is your co-workers.
[+] [-] buxtehude|8 years ago|reply
For everyone else I throw in the fluff to keep things amicable. When I do that - sometimes I feel like I'm wasting time - but in the end I believe it protects you from people thinking you are a jerk - or worse introducing bias into decisions that might be made that could go against you or your team.
[+] [-] lkrubner|8 years ago|reply
Personally, I feel like my writing skills are better than my verbal skills, so I default to email, because email plays to my strengths. But over the years I've been taught that I'm in the minority on this. Many managers and co-workers greatly prefer to have a conversation. Often, they feel like they are not getting the facts when they engage in written communications. Apparently they need to see my face and read my body language. Apparently this is true even when the subject is deeply technical, like talking about the APIs our microservices use to talk to each other.
[+] [-] dceddia|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rwc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drb311|8 years ago|reply
1. Reply now
2. Do the best you can in the time you can spare
It's email. If people need more they can ask for it.
At least now they know you'll reply.
[+] [-] gregmac|8 years ago|reply
Here's my take:
Anything long-lived belongs on wiki, ticket system or other shared storage location. E-mail a notification to say there's an update, but the official version doesn't belong archived forever in everyone's inboxes -- well, everyone other than employees who happened to start after it was sent, of course.
Quick questions are better done over chat, if for no other reason than the single-line interface tends to encourage single-line questions.
Long conversations are better had in person or by video chat. How many times have you been on an e-mail thread that included several angry paragraphs written back and forth because of an incorrect assumption or simple misunderstanding?
My ideal interactions start with a chat message or ticket, switch to in-person/video if needed, and document the result (if relevant) in a ticket or wiki page. No e-mail involved.
[0] https://jamesclear.com/keystrokes
[+] [-] gk1|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThomaszKrueger|8 years ago|reply
In the case of asking for time off, my rationale is to avoid making someone spend time evaluating if my request is acceptable.
[+] [-] uladzislau|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw2016|8 years ago|reply
It's not simply an issue of length, its communication and I guess maturity, experience and savvy.
Of course if you already have authority then it's no longer a communication thing but a power thing, as things will anyway get done and some are inevitably waiting for opportunities to suck up to you. So no point aping a CEOs style if you are not a CEO.
[+] [-] hashkb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] parenthephobia|8 years ago|reply
This isn't something to emulate. People who only read the first few words of an email before replying make communication harder for everyone else. Sometimes things can't be accurately summed up in half a sentence.
[+] [-] mgv11|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glorkk|8 years ago|reply
Never change, Buzzfeed.
[+] [-] makecheck|8 years ago|reply
I wish that E-mail clients didn’t give so much control to senders. (Oh, you picked a crappy Subject line so now I need to use that in my list forever? Oh, you rambled for the first 1-2 sentences so now my message preview is useless. Oh, you mark every E-mail “high priority” so now that sort column doesn’t really organize things usefully.)
[+] [-] seniorsassycat|8 years ago|reply
https://www.quora.com/Whats-it-like-to-receive-a-question-ma...
[+] [-] falcolas|8 years ago|reply
On the flip side, they probably deserve more than a casual glance and a two word response.
[+] [-] joshuaheard|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonmaydie|8 years ago|reply
I would hazard to say most people don't care about their inbox. I for one don't mind at all if an email I didn't read festers in my inbox for years, after all if it's not urgent enough to call or physically reach out to me about it it's not that big a deal.