zlacker

>>tagoll+(OP)
Nuance is hard to convey in groups, but I believe that *a small part of the problem is a lack of design*. Many peoples' eyes glaze over when they see a wall of text in an email and they just skim rather than read. Some simple things to enhance communications can be the following.

* Use a few bullet points to put attention on the main points you want to convey.

* Without going overboard, use a tasteful amount of graphic design (bolding one key sentence or whatever).

* Break up a giant nuanced email into sections.

* If something is critical, make it visual: a picture, explainer video, or an infographic can be really useful for something key.

This is harder than it looks. A quote attributed to Mark Twain is "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." It's a lot easier to go overboard than to distill what needs to be conveyed into the core elements.

>>logica+ac
How much do you want to bet most people will read your first bullet point, ignore the rest, and drop all the nuance?

Hell, I've learned not to ask more than one question in an email. The first one is the only one to get answered.

>>mcguir+2p
It's easier to consider this question with empathy: imagine times where you replied to emails partially, answering some (one), but not all questions. Ask yourself why you did a partial reply. Then, when you ask questions of others, apply those learnings.

For me, I tend to 'jump' to the first answer that comes to mind, without reading the full nuance, likely because I'm optimizing at replying sooner, so I can move onto the next task, because I have many tasks I need to do. I quickly pattern match and move on.

>>889135+SE

    imagine times where you replied to emails partially

It will be hard for someone that always replies to the first thing only to empathize with this but: This has literally never happened to me. As in, I have never replied partially to something in an email. You will get an answer to each of your items. Granted, you may not get the answer you were looking for but I will answer each and every one, even if it's just a "I will have to look into this one and get back to you" so that the other 6 items can get answered right away.

Why do the thorough people always have to empathize and not the other way around?

>>tharku+VI
What’s the opportunity cost of your thoroughness?

>>gkop+KL
That will depend on circumstances obviously ;)

I also never said that I will answer your questions right away. Just that I will answer all 7 of them once I do reply. The opportunity cost of looking at my email inbox might be way too high at a particular moment and so I might not even see your message for a full day to begin with. Same w/ a slack message. I might not see your particular message for some time or I might see it and decide that it's not a message I can deal with on the side while in a meeting and mark it for later consumption e.g. for when the meeting ends early etc.

FWIW I've so far never seen anyone try to 'use' my thoroughness to create a denial of service attack against me. If that ever did happen, I would definitely change my stance. But it won't be to answer the first question each time. It would be to stop talking to them. Like I ignore any "Hi, can I ask you a question?" messages. Even some directors have tried that and just gotten ignored (first time someone does it, I will let them know they can just ask away. Second time they get ignored until they learn).

>>tharku+ET
Have you ever faced a volume of questions that you could not reasonably answer to the degree of thoroughness you prefer? How did you deal with it? I mean, you mention at least one tactic in the sibling thread, but what I don’t understand is your apparent unwillingness to attenuate your thoroughness based on circumstances. Probably I am taking you too literally, but am curious, is your position absolute?

(I too appreciate thoroughness, but also believe that for some things in business “worse is better”. IE 90% thoroughness might cost 1/10th as much as 99% thoroughness, it’s certainly possible to over-index on the quality of the answers one provides)

You asked

> Why do the thorough people always have to empathize and not the other way around?

“Answers questions thoroughly” is a behavior, not part of a person’s identity. If someone gives you a partial answer, that may be optimal behavior for the circumstances, you don’t know, that’s where the empathy comes in. Of course empathy should be mutual, but you can’t be blocked on that to obtain a favorable business outcome. Empathy is a tool in your toolbox.