WHAT YOU ARE SAYING
WHAT YOU NEED FROM YOUR AUDIENCE (RESPONSE OR DECISION OR ACTION ETC)
As time goes on, often I say (to myself) "forget that", and write all the detail that is needed anyway, even in email. But only for audiences that may care about the detail (or otherwise are safe to skip the email altogether).
But who uses email at work anymore, anyway, right? I guess some organizations.
Always - as long as it makes proper use of paragraphs and doesn't have too many spelling/grammatical errors.
> Good: Action needed today: approve revised offer Decision needed: pricing for Client X Update: contract signed with Acme Risk: launch delayed by one week
Some of these are good, but a lot of it depends on company culture. It sounds like he's barking orders at people, which may be received poorly. Some of it borders on sounding like Kevin in The Office when he tried to eliminate words from his speech to save time.
works when the recipient is attuned to it. when the recipient is attuned to flowery/over-polite language i've found they can get upset/assume you're being rude/dismissive.
Subject: feature X dropped from v4.4
Body: we all know this feature is delayed and will cause the release to slip. Marketing gave us the OK to defer it to 4.5
I stopped reading write there. He's plain wrong about much (the majority?) of the world.
And then I reached:
> 10. AI is fine. Generic language is not.
> It is fine to use AI to draft or review an email.
> But edit it until it sounds specific and human.
Ok, maybe we shouldn't take advice from someone, who authoritatively states it is fine to put slop in the email?
Subject: [Action, Decision, Update, Risk]: [topic]
[First sentence: the ask or punchline.]
[Two to five lines of facts, with names, numbers, and dates.]
[Recommendation or next step.]
[Owner and deadline.]
Dollars to donuts the next generation of AI models will use this template as is, humans will forget to replace the placeholders and you’ll start getting a ton of emails with some of the placeholders verbatim.
Please reply by 3 pm today so we can confirm with the client.
in my experience when an action relies on somebody 'coming back' ESPECIALLY if it's a client. (do you want this, or that?)
It's best to tell them what you are going to do, unless they confirm otherwise.
e.g. We will proceed with removing feature Y to meet deadline of Mar 19, unless otherwise directed by 3pm today.
This avoids the limbo situtation where a team can't progress because they don't have clarity on X or Y.
Not always applicable but I find it works a lot of the time.
After sending emails to suppliers, they would often answer the first point in the text but ignore later points. This speaks to the send only 1 thing in an email, but if you have a few questions about something then put them in a numbered list.
I found response quality went way up when i did this, and often the responses were along the lines of :
1. do this 2. yes that's right 3. ok we note that
which i'm sure helps them becuaes the email is easier to read and parse in the first place and easier to write a reply to.
The immediate-response-rate goes down even more if the input being sought is not framed as a question ("I've been trying to figure out how to handle this situation" versus "Which do you think is the better route?").
Of course, some people will still respond regardless, but I've found that in both personal and business emails, keeping an email short and finishing with a question mark is the best way to ensure a rapid response.
I live and work in France, and oh boy... It's just cultural. Every email is like a letter to the King. "Would you be so kind enough to consider my humble request that is described hereafter in next three paragraphs". Funny thing: I welcome AI summaries on those.
My other pet peeve: meeting invitations. Half of the meetings in my calendar are called "Point" in French (loosely translated as "Topic"), the other half has no descriptions but the headlines. I tried the "I am not going unless I know why I am invited" thing to no avail - you cannot win this against the entire org.
So, you guess from the list of invitees. Or ask the organizer at lunch. Then go with them to the meeting to discuss the Topic for 15 minutes. Which could have been easily discussed at lunch, but lunch time is reserved to discuss food, not work.
Oh well. I love our cuisine, though. And the culture, and people, everything really. Just not how we write email.
I think you're right.
Or people screw up the placeholder content and call you by the wrong name, wrong job title, wrong company, whatever (off by 1 errors in some columns in their automation sheet?).
It's already happening with outreach messages on LinkedIn. Gets an instant block.
Ha! When I was in grad school, we had a brilliant French student in our team. He did his MS, and decided halfway he hated the US (understandable at the time) and would return to Europe for the PhD.
When he started applying for positions, he would just keep cursing. When I asked what was wrong, he said he'd gotten used to the (more) direct American approach, and was finding it burdensome to write formal, sycophantic emails to people in France.
https://old.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/4dmufm/how_tech_writ...
Why the email then? Wouldn’t a record of the decision (not via email , but in some confluence-like space) be enough? If the confirmation is really needed then a default action wouldn’t be possible, ofc
I’m going to McDonalds what do you want— a big mac meal sure no problem.
Get there. Oh wait what did he want for a drink? Coke? Coffee? Water?
Send a text what you want to drink?
No answer — what do you do?
Instead text should be saying ‘getting u a coke unless you let me know’
No answer in time, so you just get a coke for your friend and if he doesn’t like it tough.
So in that sense i guess yes its a polite notice. But it points to failures in the process .
You should have known what he wanted to drink before going.
You have or now create a policy that states in cases of unknown drink or default is coke.
If your guys ‘don’t’ know whether they can drop feature X or ship late they have been failed by the level above that should state shipping is priority. Therefore dropping a feature is the only action that they can take.
But in take the other point that you do need some authority . Without it progress will stall, and this becomes management issue again. They didn’t ensure you had the info or resource to do the thing.
In one team I did this all the time even though I didn't have the decision power. I did it to force people to respond.
Prior to my adopting this strategy, I'd send an email saying "We need a decision about this by X", and the most common response was ... sorry, there wasn't any! The majority of times people didn't respond, and I was stuck.
So I had to switch to "This is needed by X. I'm going to go ahead with Y, but let me know if you have other ideas."
And I would ensure that Y was a poor solution. I would get really rapid responses saying "Don't do Y! Do Z!"
Even though I've moved to other teams, I often use this technique (except if the team acts in good faith, my solution Y is actually my best attempt at solving it).
By very direct analogy, I think there's a dictum in the US military to the effect that a bad plan executed quickly can be better than a perfect plan that's executed too late.
ETA: ... and you're potentially speeding the decision/action by giving leadership the opportunity to confirm/redirect on receipt of the email.
This is not about grammar. It is about speed, clarity, and judgment.
We write emails so the reader can understand the point in seconds, decide quickly, and forward the message without extra explanation.
The first sentence should say the ask, decision, risk, or update.
Do not warm up. Do not build suspense. Do not tell a story.
If something is wrong, say it early.
Do not hide the problem behind context or politeness.
Every sentence should earn its place.
Delete filler, repetition, and softening language.
Say exactly what you mean.
Do not use sarcasm, hints, irony, or coded language.
Do not make the reader guess.
Use names, numbers, dates, and facts.
Bad: There were some delays.
Good: Vendor X missed the March 12 deadline. Launch now moves to March 19 unless we reduce scope.
An email should mainly do one thing: ask, decide, update, escalate, or confirm.
If you have three unrelated topics, send three emails.
Say who needs to do what by when.
If you want a decision, say the deadline.
If you want feedback, say what kind of feedback.
Facts are what happened.
Judgment is what you think it means.
Recommendation is what you think we should do.
Keep those distinct.
If something is uncertain, say that clearly. Do not present a guess as a fact.
The email should still make sense if someone forwards it to another person with no extra context.
That means the topic, names, dates, and decision should all be clear inside the email itself.
It is fine to use AI to draft or review an email.
But edit it until it sounds specific and human.
If a sentence could be pasted into any company, it is too generic.
Avoid phrases like: I hope this email finds you well I wanted to reach out Please be informed Kindly Just circling back Revert to me
Use normal words instead.
Aim for an email that can be read on one screen.
If it must be longer, put the punchline first and then add short sections underneath.
Be respectful, but do not hide the truth.
Direct is better than vague.
Clear is better than polite but useless.
Reply on the same thread only if the topic is still the same.
If the topic changes, start a new email with a new subject line.
CC only people who need to act or know.
The subject line should help the reader triage the email fast.
Good: Action needed today: approve revised offer Decision needed: pricing for Client X Update: contract signed with Acme Risk: launch delayed by one week
Weak: Quick question Following up Hi Update
Subject: [Action, Decision, Update, Risk]: [topic]
[First sentence: the ask or punchline.]
[Two to five lines of facts, with names, numbers, and dates.]
[Recommendation or next step.]
[Owner and deadline.]
Weak:
Hi John, hope you are well. I wanted to reach out regarding the vendor situation. As you know, we have been discussing timelines internally and there have been a few complications on their side, so I thought I would share some context before getting your thoughts. Please let me know what you think.
Better:
Subject: Decision needed: vendor delay on onboarding
Vendor X missed the March 12 deadline. If we keep the current scope, onboarding moves to March 19.
My recommendation is to remove feature Y and keep the March 15 launch.
Please reply by 3 pm today so we can confirm with the client.
Weak:
Just wanted to flag that there may possibly be some issues with the campaign performance and we may need to revisit the targeting.
Better:
Subject: Risk: campaign under target this week
The campaign is 18 percent below target after four days.
Likely cause is narrow audience targeting.
Recommendation: expand targeting today and review performance again tomorrow at 2 pm.
Do not use email for long back and forth, unresolved debate, or high emotion.
Use a call or chat when speed matters more than record keeping.
Then send a short email summary with the decision.
A good email does not try to sound smart, warm, or impressive.
It makes the reader understand the point fast.