* 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.
Hell, I've learned not to ask more than one question in an email. The first one is the only one to get answered.
How hard would it be to have a shared todo list where the team can put every blocking question which needs answering, and everyone who needs to answer can either do that or delegate the decision or approve skipping it? (And I don't mean a sluggish Jira / Electron / Teams / helpdesk which needs 50,000 fields entered to raise a ticket, either).
I suspect it isn't done because nobody can usefully make all the decisions which other people want to push off onto other people, it would take inhuman amounts of time and attention. And that part of the reason "answering only the first question" happens is to drop most questions on the floor, with the idea that important ones will be raised again, as a way to filter out the huge number of unimportant questions. And as a way to deal with the fact that answering one question can change all subsequent questions - if the answer is "that's waiting on finance approval" then it might be about to have a budget cut, or be cancelled, or be delayed until a new financial year, and answering other questions is a waste of time.
Still, for when the other questions are needed, it should be something computer people, programmers, IT specialists, can have machines keep track of without absolutely awful interfaces - and maybe involving automated email and replies if needed, like forum posts and newsgroups have had for decades.
(for PRs its the joy of having a sequence of dependent changes, and needing to make sure people review them step by step even though the whole packet is done).
Oh hell yes, this is definitely a thing with lots of people. It's one of those WTF realizations that everyone who works in a corporate environment gets slapped in the face with really hard.
There are certain people for which you MUST give 1, maybe 2 sentences at a maximum, address them by name, AND, make sure that they're the only person in the "to:" field. Anything different and you risk ghosting or first-thing-only response.
If there's other folks in the cc who I know may actually read for context, I will add a '"*** details ***"' separator after a few blank lines and then write up normal paragraphs. I know the "details" stuff will get ignored by the target, but that's OK. It's just there for reference and for others who may chime in.
> If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now.
~ Woodrow Wilson, as quoted in The Operative Miller 23
1) Assume no prior knowledge of a situation.
2) Provide some context for intent, objectives etc..
3) Greatly simplify the thrust of the message and initially provided only the most highly relevant details.
If you do that - then 'everything else is a detail' - meaning, if someone has a basic understanding of what the situation is, they can go into detail as needed.
If context is not provided, people have no idea what is going on and their professionalism, conscientiousness and curiosity is wasted.
I like the AMZN approach but I'll gather it could be done in a different way.
But there are some people you can't get through to, no matter what.
Since (almost) no one wants to admit they don’t have enough decision making capacity or can’t prioritize using it for whatever you’re asking (at least now a days it seems, since someone will post them saying they don’t care on social media and they’ll get fired), you will often see defacto rate limiting or pushback in other ways.
Common ways you’ll see in real life:
- only responding to the one item they want to respond to.
- ever increasing delays in responses or ‘missed emails’ (when you try again they’ll respond)
- half responses which don’t actually address the problem or answer your question (but are easy to generate).
- redirection to another - hard to reach - authority even if not appropriate (as they aren’t spending the time to figure out what your actual question is)
- straw manning your question/request as something else they already have an answer to and then answering that.
- adding your question/request to a backlog they aren’t responsible for and then ignoring it forever since it’s now ‘on the list’
- making up increasingly more complicated paperwork/procedure hoops with increasingly less pleasant user experiences
And many more. For non-decision making backlogs/overloads, there are also the
- ‘decades long queue’ method of shedding load like the old eastern bloc (and some healthcare systems)
- ‘you need a permit’ (but there is no actual perform form)
-‘we only work during (impossible hours here)’ etc.
It all boils down to they can’t care enough to get you want you want, so you either have to make them care (which will be met with generally well earned hostility), or find a way to get them to care (which may be impossible). In many countries, getting someone to care requires a bribe.
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.
Don't communicate weightless, measureless, abstract fluff. Give clear goals, a utility function to combine them, deadlines or other time incentives (discounting or bonuses for being early), gather feedback, align with personal affinity, break down responsibility between groups (SREs, infra and platform teams provide the reliability, others build on that).
Set budgets and fix the constraints, draw up the solution space and let the people work.
It's not a mystery.
imagine times where you replied to emails partially
Why do the thorough people always have to empathize and not the other way around?
Help your readers triage. They already get too many emails.
As the recipient, it's more challenging to receive the future promise of an answer with no SLA.
If I receive an email and it’s something I can quickly answer on my phone while waiting for the bus etc., I’ll do so and you’ll get a quick answer. If the email requires me to sit down and compose a long response (or worse, read a paper, or find and run some code) the email gets put on a priority queue to deal with during dedicated email-answering time.
If I receive an email with multiple questions, and one of them I can answer quickly, I might fire off a partial answer (under the theory that a partial answer now is preferable to a complete answer much later).
I had this recently with something I wanted to order online. I asked two questions, the second was answered, the first was ignored. So I had to send a second email to ask the first question again.
I'm really curious if it's a symptom of limited modern attention spans, or if you'd find the same issue in vintage hand-written letters.
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.
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[1] https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-pre...
I agree that if there's no explicitly stated SLA and no implicit SLA given the relationship history between the two of us (e.g. I might know you're usually going to get back to me within 24 hours on such items), then this is practically the same.
I do not operate under such circumstances though. If I tell you that I will get back to you, then I will get back to you within a reasonable time frame and you will know from our previous interactions that I'm good for it in most cases and that it's totally OK for you to ask again after a day because I might have forgotten. I'm not perfect.
Since this was an example answer only, it is also possible that for one of your 7 questions the answer will simply be that I cannot get that answer to you within any reasonable amount of time at this point because of other priorities I have and that you should find someone else or I might point you towards someone else. In any case, you will have all of your 7 points answered. I won't just ignore them.
When this happens it screams corporate communication / fluff piece to me, and I generally skip it entirely.
What would help more is if we didn’t get so much pointless information in our mailbox.
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).
(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.
Think about those download websites where you have to find the download link in the middle of all the ads that are masquerading as download buttons. There's a lot of information on those pages, but people become really adept at spotting the real download button. The rest of the information gets ignored.
I think this is why some people insist on verbal communication when you're trying to teach them something. If they get a text guide then they will gloss over things and skip steps leading to failure. With verbal communication you're effectively there to keep them at least mildly focused so that they don't gloss over things.
That's a necessary part of having more than one goal. If they weren't in conflict, you'd only have one goal.
- Don't pick the first bullet point, pick the best :)
1. People tend to skim and a question could be lost even in a two-sentence paragraph.
2. Email's structure means people tend to reply "at the tip" and branching conversations are difficult to understand.
Contributing to this latter problem are:
a. SMTP (to/cc are too flexible, each message is it's own "thing")
b. POP (deep conversations are just a stack of messages some people may not have the "original" and can't easily reply higher up the tree without breaking client threading)
c. Email client visualization of message threads are generally bad. I haven't seen a single client do this well. Outlook can, but out of the box has a very "flat" view.
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So, people tend to read at the bottom and if someone missed something early in a thread you have no chance of getting it addressed a few messages in.
IMO something more akin to newsgroups or even reddit/HN tree-view threads could be a better fit for business discussions, but I haven't seen anybody try it.
Maybe it's not entirely clear what I mean with thoroughness here. I am talking about not just ignoring someone's questions. It doesn't mean that if you "ask" me to answer 7 questions that will each take a day of work to answer that I will be "thorough and do those 7 things immediately to get you your answer". I will simply ensure that I read all your 7 questions and tell you that each will take me about a day to answer as it would require certain checks and that I do not have the time for that at the moment. However, if your questions are so urgent vs. the other things I have on my plate, you are welcome to talk to my boss/my product owner/etc on getting your items prioritized higher. I have a finite amount of time per day that I do work and while the exact amount can vary from time to time I will not start working 80 hour weeks or start ignoring your questions.
I find this to be very true when learning new programming techniques. Most learning resources start from a significantly more basic starting point than most learners are at, so I'm liable to skip until I start seeing things I don't already know how to guess. The problem is that there are often important subtleties buried amidst the obvious knowledge.
I am sure that's often the case but I still find it rude and dismissive.
In the end it doesn't really matter for me as long as I can get my point/request across in a sentence or two (and cover my ass with an "optional" details section).
You're absolutely right that voice or face-to-face is essential for certain communication.
Near as I can tell, we’ve all been deluding ourselves about our own human natures too. Nearly everyone is exhausted and on the edge of burnout.
It causes predictable behaviors in everyone. Trying harder to make it not true just makes the inevitable reckoning worse.