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Keep it pithy

The other day I received an email that contained 1000+ words. The purpose of the email was to ask for my feedback on an idea that the sender was working on. The message started by going into deep background and then moved into the different considerations and various viewpoints. It included arguments and counter-arguments that may or may not have actually occurred. 


This is a common occurrence when communicating, especially among more junior engineers. They want to make sure that they have covered all the bases and answered any questions that I could possibly have. It happens more often in writing than in direct discussion for a few reasons. Mostly because, I will generally stop the conversation when I realize what’s going on and ask them to just let me know what they want. I have one thing to say about this - long, detailed emails and communications are not helpful or effective.


It is very difficult to fully comprehend all the background information by just reading an email. To fully understand the email, it must be read multiple times while taking notes. Most of what is written is generally not relevant to the question and is adding noise as I try to understand whether it is information that I need to know or not. I certainly don’t need to understand the entire thought process and all of the different possibilities. If I actually needed to know this information, I should have been involved in the actual process and not just getting an email asking for my feedback. 


How should you write your email? First of all, you have to determine what is your objective in sending it. In other words, what is the result that I want accomplished if the email is read and replied to. If you really believe that this background information is necessary, you should send a very short email describing your objective and ask if the recipient has time for a short meeting to discuss. Most of the time, a short conversation will enable you to clearly describe what you want to say and enable the other person the ability to ask questions and clarify relevant points. This is much more effective than trying to think up all the potential questions that may be asked and and writing the answers in advance. 


If a meeting is not possible or you want to try with an email before asking, try to break down the email into small chunks that can be easily consumed. It doesn’t need to be bullet points, but a short background (4 sentences), the problem you are having (up to 10 sentences) and what you would like from the recipient. This will focus the email on the exact information that you want processed. Don’t try to answer any questions that aren’t asked. It’s very likely that they will never be asked. In cases where additional documentation exists, you can include links that the recipient can choose to read if they are so inclined.


It’s important to realize that encouraging the recipient to ask questions increases their engagement. As soon as they ask the first question, that shows that they are interested in what you are sending. The more engagement you can get, the more interest is being shown. As soon as interest is shown, you can get them excited about it by additional explanations. This can be a dialog, instead of information pushing. In a long, confusing email with all the information that anyone could possibly want to know, there is no engagement and no passion. When you leave out the small details you empower the conversation and you don’t waste the time of people reading the email, who are trying to figure out what exactly you want from them.



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