Less is More: Communication for Product Managers

Use fewer words.

Appendix

This is true for anyone writing non-fiction and is especially the case for product managers. Clear and crisp communication is critical to the job. Assessing product opportunities and defining products to be built is of little value if stakeholders are not persuaded or don’t understand what they’re reading. Strategy is unconvincing if it is not communicated clearly and concisely. As Andrew Bozworth points out, Communication is The Job. This is why “communication skill” is always an interview criterion for product managers.

One of my favorite passages comes from “On Writing Well”:

“Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.” - William Zinsser

Does that sound like anything you’ve read? Anything you’ve written? I’ve authored my fair share of documents that match that description. (I'm told this might be one of them.)

Without much hyperbole, effective communication is the biggest challenge facing product managers.

Yet the abundance of poor communication is frequently overwhelming.

Why? There is no shortage of tips and listicles to improve writing and communication more generally. Nevertheless, poor communication persists. The issue is not a lack of recognition of the problem, or access to solutions, but perhaps rather an underappreciation of root causes. To address this, we need some root cause analysis.

Root causes of clutter

Our difficulties communicating stem from four fundamental problems.

Lack of time

“I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.” - Blaise Pascal

There is truth in this counter-intuition. Brevity requires effort. When I write, I start by throwing words and ideas at the screen. Going straight for the pithy end goal is impossible. It stifles creativity and creates writer’s block. That being said, stream of consciousness produces significant amounts of superfluous verbiage and ideas.

Cutting away the cruft takes a lot of effort. Much of this involves grammatical editing. It is, however, much more than that. Simplifying ideas is not only the most difficult part but also the most time-consuming, which leads me to my next point.

Lack of message

We often write without knowing what we want to say. Stakeholders might need a status update, strategy doc or some form of analysis, but we haven’t necessarily figured out what we want to say. We therefore start writing for the sake of writing, which is natural.

In college, one of the smartest people I’ve ever met said to me, “Rather than look at your final paper as a drudgery, consider it an opportunity to share your thoughts.” He was advocating a change in attitude. The problem then became, what are my thoughts? Turns out, this is frequently difficult.

Writing is much easier when you know what you want to say. Without that, the only thing you have is cruft.

To mask the lack of a fundamental message, we fill pages with platitudes, bromides and verbiage. We repeat ourselves by redundantly saying the same thing in different ways. We also resort to pompous frills and meaningless jargon.

Fear

This is a big one.

I have been advising entrepreneurs for over a decade. To this day, I’m surprised when, after listening to an entire presentation and then engaging in Q&A, I still don’t know what the entrepreneur wants to do. The whole purpose of a pitch is to clearly propose a solution to an identified problem. I attribute the poor communication not to a lack of ideas or creativity but to fear of relinquishing optionality.

That is to say, if someone says that they’re going to build A, this means they’re not building B or C. Then what if your audience doesn’t like your product or position? What if they think the opportunity is too small or the logic flawed? Taking a stand eliminates the possibility of pivoting in real-time to something different. It restricts the ability to appeal to a much wider audience. Therefore, keeping it fuzzy and vague has utility. The flawed logic of this approach can be frustrating to the audience.

It is a fear of commitment.

A simplified message also often necessitates a lack of precision. Eliminating outliers, ignoring corner cases and generalizing all involve promoting simplicity over accuracy. This, however, can leave the presenter open to criticism for not considering all the possibilities or going “deep” enough. Making these sorts of editorial decisions requires confidence.

Lastly, there is the fear of looking small and unimportant. If there aren’t many words on the page, perhaps the work isn’t significant. A long document is a demonstration of effort and thoroughness. Maybe we learned this during school when teachers required essays of a certain length. As Blaise Pascal points out above, shorter requires more effort than longer. There is a fear, however, that readers may not appreciate this.

Perverse incentives

This is the worst one, but let’s be honest. The unfortunate reality is that obtuse, jargon-riddled communication often works to the advantage of the presenter.

If the audience is unable to understand what is being said, maybe they’ll assume there’s an important message in there. If there’s a lot of lingo, they might infer the author is smart and give her or him the benefit of the doubt. I learned this lesson at a high school state science fair. Only the biology-related entries received prizes because the inscrutable terminology sounded impressive.

Presenters also don’t have a monopoly on fear. Even in organizations overflowing with talent, many recipients often lack the courage to ask for simpler explanations. No one wants to look obtuse or waste other people’s time. Interrupting a presenter for clarification can break a rhythm or push a meeting long. There is also a natural reluctance to be confrontational. As such, poorly presented communication often goes unchallenged.

Lastly, a clearly communicated, widely understood message is more vulnerable to criticism. A confident presenter will welcome this feedback. A healthy organization will encourage the exchange, rewarding all the parties involved. If the audience has a clear understanding that you are opting for A and eliminating B and C, the floor is open for debate. Not everyone wants this.

Solutions

Having identified four root causes, we can explore solutions.

Have something to say

More difficult than writing concisely is having something to say in the first place.

“When writing, first figure out the core of what you want to say & what effect you want to have on the reader. Only then get into the domain of words. The words will now come a lot easier, and better.” - Shreyas Doshi

This advice might sound obvious, but how often are we communicating for the sake of communicating? Stop. Reflect upon the real message that you want to share. If you can’t find one, you have identified your first problem.

I cannot count the number of times that I’ve stepped back from a document, considered what I really wanted to communicate, and produced nothing. Vague notions like “we did good work” or “this project is important” are weak. The criticality of first identifying the message you want to convey is difficult to overstate.

Once you’ve got it, pour your ideas out. From there, you’ll need to cut.

Less is more

“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” - Michelangelo

I recommend books for product managers, as have others, but "Positioning, The Battle for Your Mind" will set you apart. It's riddled with gems. Keep in mind that this quote was written in 2001, before ubiquitous mobile phones and text messaging, notifications, social media, YouTube and the myriad of other ways we now communicate:

"The best approach to take in our overcommunicated society is the oversimplified message. In communication, as in architecture, less is more. You have to sharpen your message to cut the mind. You have to jettison the ambiguities, simplify the message, and then simplify it some more if you want to make a long-lasting impression." - Al Ries and Jack Trout

Less is more.

Getting there is not easy. It takes time and practice. The Hemingway Editor can help. I dropped this essay in and got “grade 7.” Pretty good. (The lower the grade the better.) There are still red sentences, but it’s impossible to get rid of them all. (I put in a few paragraphs of The Old Man and the Sea. There are a lot of red sentences there, too, and even some passive voice.) Rather, use the tool as a guide to making incremental improvements. Look at the suggestions, understand what gets flagged, make adjustments and iterate.

There is a lot of advice on writing succinctly, but this one and this one are great places to start.

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Organize your thoughts

Those who observe that I have written 2000 words about “less is more” are free to mock me in the comments ??. Nevertheless, I hope you also notice that I have organized my thoughts into a hierarchical structure that is easily skimmed. Without much exaggeration, you could get the gist by just reading the headings. From there, if you see anything of particular interest, you could dig in.

Ritendra Datta writes about how technical documents are better when designed hierarchically. His advice is helpful for all non-fiction writing. He suggests:

1. … write by first designing your doc hierarchically, [so that]
2. a large audience gets your idea at a high level,
3. a smaller but critical audience appreciates the details and then advances your work, and
4. profit!

A summary, or tl;dr, at the beginning of a document is helpful but insufficient.

Conquer your fear

Meta has a collection of different motivational posters hanging around the office. Here is my favorite:

“What would you do if you weren't afraid?”

One thing might be to write shorter documents.

Just saying, “Be brave,” isn’t helpful, however. It is thus important to recognize that bloated communication also entails significant risk. The greater the quantity of information you communicate, the greater the burden on the reader to identify and remember the salient parts, if any. Drowning an excellent argument or achievement in trivial puffery will dilute that message. This will cripple your ability to persuade and motivate.

“The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit.” - Fran?ois Fénelon

Balancing the fear of doing something with the fear of not doing it isn’t particularly motivating but knowing this will hopefully inspire courage. Play the long game. By consistently being that person who offers transparency, clarity and direction, you will establish yourself as not just a solid communicator but a clear thinker.

"The biggest risk is not taking any risk... In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks." - Mark Zuckerberg

If your message is criticized or rejected, don’t look at this as a failure. In an important sense, this is a success because information is exchanged and everyone can move forward. If the proposal is not accepted, hopefully you understand why and can adjust. Sneaking through with a poorly communicated message is, at best, a temporary win. That will come back and get you.

Be clear. Take your lumps now.

Summary

For my last tidbit of advice on effective communication, I’ll share an anonymous quote:

“Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em; then tell ’em; then tell ’em what you told ’em.” - unidentified preacher in English newspaper in 1908

In our overcommunicated society, people do not have the time or inclination to dig through complicated messaging. It’s important to simply.

1. Think hard about the core of what you want to say.
2. Strip away everything superfluous.
3. Organize what’s left so that it’s easy to follow and the reader can choose where to dig deeper.
4. Finally, know that clearly communicating your ideas will pay dividends in the long run.

Good luck!

Thanks to David B. Miller , Kunal Punjabi , Clément Genzmer and Bryan Finkel for assistance with this article.