Some say that, in business writing, brevity and clarity are king – and everything else is padding. Forget the waffle, cut the crap, and get straight to the point.
Flying the colours for this position is a recent piece in the Harvard Business Review, How to write email with military precision by US Navy veteran Kabir Sehgal. Sehgal describes how writing emails for the military taught him how to get his message across in as short and concise a way as possible.
In a world of lengthy emails that have had very little thought or editing, it’s tempting to respond to Sehgal’s no-nonsense advice with a resounding hallelujah. Unfortunately, if you follow his advice, you may ruin your professional relationships and fail to communicate accurately.
INFO: Writing in military code is not always best
So how do you make your email as clear as possible? Sehgal recommends putting your intention in block capitals at the beginning of your subject lines, followed by some extra information.
So if you wanted information, you’d write a subject line ‘INFO – Status Update’; and if you wanted a decision, you’d write ‘DECISION – Tender application’.
I think Sehgal’s attention to writing good subject lines is admirable. As he notes, getting clear on your subject line can make you clear on what it is you want to achieve with your email.
But even here, this schema isn’t necessarily best. I don’t think ‘INFO – Status Update’ answers the recipient’s questions. They’re usually more interested in what the information is about, and it’s that which should be spelled out in the subject line. For example, ‘Acme Ltd project latest’ or ‘Nov/Dec marketing figures’ are far more informative than ‘INFO – Status Update’.
And writing in your own code (INFO, REQUEST, DECISION etc) is also questionable. It’s one thing when this is done in a context where it’s a shared habit or code – mutually agreed to, even passively, as with military personnel.
But most recipients in the corporate world don’t share this code. And if they spend all day being shouted at by their inboxes, they’re going to feel like squaddies who don’t remember ever actually signing up.
Don’t cut out the human element
Sehgal says we should use as few words as possible when writing emails. And I agree. One tactic he recommends is to use the active voice. I (mostly) agree with that, too.
But your goal to keep your messages short shouldn’t translate into leaving out any of the human element of emails.
This isn’t just an appeal to your desire to be a good person. Even if you’re the kind of hard-headed, borderline sociopathic professional who’d eagerly sign-up for The Apprentice, leaving out all acknowledgement of another person’s feelings doesn’t make business sense.
We’ve seen first-hand how a lack of politeness can go wrong. A recent client asked for training in improving the tone of their team’s emails because, although the content was accurate, they were coming across as brusque and unfriendly. This resulted in a failure to establish rapport with their clients, and it ended up costing them business.
Shannon’s story
Ironically, the example that Sehgal picks demonstrates this clearly:
Subject: INFO – Working from home
Shannon,
Bottom Line: We will reduce the number of days that employees can work from home from three to one day per week effective December 1st.
Background:
* This is an effort to encourage team morale and foster team collaboration
* All members of the management committee supported this decision
To begin with, there’s no salutation. One of our readers memorably called this ‘one up from “oi”‘.
In the next line, Shannon learns that she can no longer work from home for more than one day a week. Sehgal says that ‘Shannon knows that no response is required because it was marked INFO.’
Wait a minute. Everyone you send an email to is a person. So let’s sketch out Shannon’s life a bit.
Perhaps Shannon works from home because she likes to browse Reddit and gorge on news websites when no-one can see. Getting into the office is good for the office and it’s good for team morale, so she has no grounds for complaining.
But maybe Shannon cares for her elderly father, and has found working from home the crucial bit of flexibility that lets her cope. Without it, she has no idea how she can hold down her job while also caring for someone she loves. How is she going to cope now? What should she do?
Well, the writer of the email has decided there’s no need for Shannon to respond. It’s INFO, remember – no response required.
Imagine you were in a similar position and you received that email. Would you want to work at a company like that for very long? Would you want someone like that as your manager?
As any manager will tell you, Shannon’s story isn’t a fanciful or uncommon example – and any advice that fails to apply to situations like this is drastically oversimplified.
Building relationships
Sehgal has a point that cutting to the chase and removing unnecessary padding is essential.
But the opposite extreme of endless padding fails to communicate your message. Too much brevity makes it sound like you’re ordering everyone around as if they’re in a military drill, rather than talking to people who are colleagues, clients and business partners.
And that’s the core of the problem with Sehgal’s approach. It’s just not true that communicating only the facts is all you need to do. Another crucial part of what you want to communicate in any interaction are your intentions and attitudes towards another person. So much of human life is about communicating these crucial things – from saying hello and goodbye to looking at whoever is talking to you. Why strip your email of any sign of the written equivalent of these signals?
What does this look like in practice? Have a look at the difference between the two approaches:
Subject: INFO – Q4 figures
Find attached the figures you requested during our meeting.
Rob
Compared with:
Subject: Q4 figures you requested
Hi Jane
Great to catch up earlier.
I’ve attached the figures for Q4. Let me know if anything is unclear.
Best regards
Rob
Both of these emails are to the point and easy to understand. But one builds a relationship, whereas the other doesn’t.
Of course, these differences are small, but add them up over the course of the 121 emails that people receive over the course of their working day, and it becomes the fabric of the relationships we build and the cultures we create. In business, as in life, these are fundamental to success and happiness – and a little too important to just be edited out.
Image credit: Amy Walters / Shutterstock
Subscribe
Expert advice to your inbox
