The business hierarchy is built on the assumption that you can do your job.
We know that's often not the case,* but that's the assumption. If you are in a leadership position, your job is to make decisions up to your level and provide that decision to those above you or anyone making a request of you. The understanding is that it is your expertise that your decisions are based on, and therefore, the reasoning and details behind your decision do not necessarily need to be made known unless someone specifically asks for it to understand the situation better.
I've seen some horrific emails over the years, many of which were mine. It's one thing to wander around a thought in a blog post narcissistically but quite another to do it in business communication (particularly email).
We all know the rules. Really, we do:
Be clear and concise.
Organize and structure the content logically.
Be professional in tone and grammar.
Know your audience.
But what we get are winding novels with no punctuation or a wall of text that only arrives at the important bit, the lede, at the end.
If you are a manager, your job isn't to let everyone know how much you know. It's to use your knowledge and skills to make decisions and provide your final decision with the bare minimum of context needed by those asking you for something. It is not your job to ramble on for months and years explaining how you arrived at a decision. It is not your job to preemptively answer questions that have yet to be asked. You answer the specific question, no more, no less, and respect the other person's time.
The problem is that long-winded talkers—even if their grammar is all in the proper place—think they are doing an excellent job at communicating and have no clue that busy people get frustrated when they ask a question and get War and Peace as a response. Regarding business communication in a busy company, quality definitely trumps quantity.
Be honest. Which one of these would be your answer:
Q. "We need to do ____."
a. "Your request for ___ won't be possible due to concerns about ____. We could offer ___ as an alternative. If you have any questions, feel free to ask."
b. "On June 9, 1982, the first attempt to ___ happened and that caused a law to be passed that lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
So that's why we can't meet that request, although it's possible we could offer an alternative. For example lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. If you'd like us to do that instead, let me know."
Answer a) provides actionable information a busy person can use to make their own decisions others are demanding of them. Answer b) wastes time and makes it more difficult for those higher up to make decisions, which will reflect poorly on you. Remember, a) they still leave the door open if they want more information, but it doesn't drown them in it if they don't ask.
In newspaper writing, you start with the lede.
This opening salvo contains the essence of the story. Not only does it hopefully get the reader to keep reading, but it also accounts for busy people who might not read the whole story and want to get the Clif's Notes version of it.
You don't bury the lede in the middle or at the end because people might not read that far. And more than anything, you want to be sure you control the message you're trying to send, so you put it at the start so no one reads partway and assumes they know enough, walking away with the wrong idea.
Business communication, particularly through email, should have the following:
A useful and appropriately formatted subject line that serves as a very brief lede. Use no more than seven words specifically relevant to the topic at hand.
Appropriately professional (but brief) greeting and salutation.
Start the body of the email by stating the purpose of the email.
Use no excess language; when possible, use bullet points that are brief lists or small, manageable paragraphs.
Provide a call-to-action at the end, i.e. what you want the recipient to do (call, reply, provide information). If you are answering a question, your CTA lets them know they can ask more questions if necessary.
If you can't do this on your own but have miraculously realized you have a problem:
Get a tool like Grammarly or something else and adjust its settings for professional communication and serial killer levels of editing junk content.
Drop your email into an AI tool like Claude.ai, Perplexity.ai, or even Microsoft's built-in CoPilot and ask it to reduce it to one or two sentences. (As long as your company allows you to use AI in business comms.)
Ask a co-worker or fellow manager who is better at concise communication to edit your emails before you send them.
Please stop writing a book every time you send an email. Whether it stems from being too generous with information, fear that people will question your decision, or an inability to think privately and answer simply in public, you must get it under control.
I can promise that if you become known for rambling and long communications, everyone in the company knows, and all you've done is train them to skim and scroll your emails, go to someone else who answers directly, or delete everything that comes from you.
*This idea is based on Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull's 1969 book The Peter Principle, which posited a management theory that says employees in hierarchical organizations tend to rise to their "level of competence" and then stop when they are at a level of incompetence. The fundamental concepts of this theory are:
Promotion is based on current performance and their success in their current role instead of their potential to excel in a new position.
The rise to incompetence happens because promotion continues until they reach a position where they aren't competent because their previous skills aren't relevant.
The employee reaches Peter's Plateau, or their final placement, stuck in a position of incompetence and is therefore no longer promoted.
Over time, the organization that continues to do this ends up with a hierarchy filled with employees (managers) who are incompetent and can't do their jobs.
The inevitable outcome is frustration for everyone involved, including the person trying to operate in a role of incompetence. It is especially noxious if the person isn't fully aware they are incompetent but only aware of frustration without knowing its source or if the person has no innate desire to improve skills through professional development or inclination to gracefully step out of the job and be demoted back to a level of competence.
The Peter Principle is only alleviated when people are promoted based on skills rather than current success or longest-hired. Continuous professional development and training must also be required, with measurements to make sure they are happening and sticking. For people who do not have the skills, desire, or fit for managerial positions, other options for career advancements or opportunities should be available so that their success continues to feed the organization and you don't lose otherwise great employees who aren't manager material but don't want to stick around in a dead-end job.
Comments