Churchill on brevity

Be brief, concise, straight to the key point. Make the rest follow.

While in office Winston Churchill has repeatedly called every member of the Cabinet to write fewer and brief reports, telegrams, notes, etc. Additionally he called for more planned, structured, brief meetings with clear decisions followed by concise minutes containing tasks to be assigned.

After a few years Margareth Thatcher also called for brevity.

I have myself done the same, and lately specially to fight the abuse of emails, long and time consuming meetings, lengthy phone calls, time consuming and confusing mobile messaging and so on. Additionally I am convinced that a phone call is very often far more effective than several emails!

I find this concept inspiring and essential for a company to function well!

Take the example of emails.

People within companies tend to abuse the instrument of e-mails. I have listed below a few of the mistakes that could easily be corrected followed by some suggestions on how to turn email into a more productive tool (the bullet points listed below represent some of the mistakes we should avoid!):

• add too many direct and copied to recipients, who could easily live without the message
• add hidden recipients

For the above two points one should pay careful thought: who should be the recipient? Should I write to more than one? Why?

Unfortunately, too often, employees copy others for the sole purpose of "protecting themselves" for future potential controversies!

The reality is that over 99% of the times the best thing is a one-to-one message without other, copied to or hidden recipients.

• write non significant subject

The subject tells everything! When you receive tens, if not hundreds, of emails per day you have no choice but filter what you are going to read first. The subject is one of the most important filters (after other things such as the sender, for example).

The subject must be concise and should summarise the whole essence of the message, ideally to the extreme point of making the rest of the message redundant! (so why write a lengthy message?)

• use long phrases with little punctuation and without spaces between paragraphs
• lengthy language, too many concepts, too many paragraphs, etc.

When I receive an email containing three or four, or even more, long paragraphs (at times they may reach 30 or 40 consecutive lines!) with hardly any punctuation, I often discard them for later reading. This kind of email requires long, valuable minutes to read and understand and then respond.

For improved readability and higher effectiveness, email messages should contain one or two concepts in one or two, or at most three, short (between one and three lines) paragraphs separated by an empty line. When possible use bullet points.

• unclear or missing call for action

Why are you writing an email to someone? Make it clear!!!

It happens to me very often that I receive an email. Possibly a long email. And at the end of the reading I am puzzled. I am not sure of what the sender wants me to do after reading his message.

If a message is for pure information purposes it is wise to state it. If it requires some action it is also wise to request it directly, possibly in a separate line, in bold face, or in the opening sentence or using any possible method to make sure that the request is clearly noticed.

• repeatedly write on the same subject with not easily identifiable, little or no additional information added in new messages

Too often the same person sends 3, 4, 10, 15, or even more messages on the same day or within just a few days regarding the same matter. Maybe, each time he adds something. Maybe not (although he believes so).

Unless it is a vital matter (and believe me there aren't that many really vital issues!) I tend to discard such repeated flow of messages for later consideration.

A wise emailer to his boss, colleague, customer or supplier should pay careful attention to what he wants to achieve. Usually at most one well thought message on one topic is sufficient. The rest is (potentially detrimental) noise!

The above are only some of the few simple common sense principles that can be applied to emails that call for brevity (there are many more) and can help corporate effectiveness. They are not intended to be applied as strict rules: as I said, common sense should prevail.

The same or similar concepts relating to brevity and concisedness may be applied in several other aspects of business, such as meetings, conference calls, phone calls, presentations, reports, etc...

The result? Possibly better relations and improved effectiveness. Why not consider it?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

J. Sebastian Matte Bon is Managing Partner of Forthalia (https://www.forthalia.com), an international Consulting Company mainly focusing on Strategy, Internationalisation and M&A.

You may follow Sebastian on Twitter (@jsmattebon) and on LinkedIn and Forthalia on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter (@Forthalia)

For reference: the UK National Archive have published a small collection of Churchill's and his staff messages on being brief (there are many more in fact!):

The letter shown below is the original call for brevity that Winston Churchill sent to his War Cabinet Staff in August 1940:

The following are a number of notes, most of them are written by Churchill, calling for brevity (*):

(*): some of the notes shown here have been borrowed from the article linked above, which we highly recommend reading!