In every office, there’s that one person whose causes you to cringe when their name pops up in your email inbox.
That person sends George R. R. Martin worthy epics full of intrigue, shady characters, mysteries, and technical specifications for your current engineering project. Like clues to Jon Snow’s parents, somewhere in that email hides information that you need for your job. Uncovering it, though, requires attention to detail and a fresh cup of coffee.
The main differences between your co-worker and Mr. Martin are
- when you finish a Martin book, you’re ready for the next
- when you complete your coworker’s email, you’re hoping that their keyboard breaks
and
- your co-worker sends a couple of these epics a day
- Mr. Martin takes 2 to 8 years (or more, come on Winds of Winter!) per novel
Of course, if you don’t have that person in your office … ahem … it might be you. So, how can your coworker (ahem … you) send less painful email?
Put the Email’s Purpose in the Subject
The second thing a person sees when looking at their email is the subject line. Yes, we’ll get to the first thing someone sees a little later.
Let your reader know the purpose of the email, not just the subject. This also helps set an expectation for the kind of response you need. Best of all, this can be accomplished using a single word at the beginning of the subject line.
- REVIEW – I need you to review the email or attached document and I need a response.
- PREVIEW – The email or attached document is a preview of something I’m about to send to someone else. You’re being given a preview, but I’m not waiting very long for a response before I send it. (Put the deadline in the BLUF below.)
- FYI – This is just for your information. I don’t care if you read it or not. But consider yourself informed.
- ACTION – I need you to do something. It might not be fun. If it were fun, I would have started with the word FUN.
- FUN – I’ve never used this in a subject line. Maybe I should do that sometime.
- REQUEST – I need your permission (or at least your blessing) to do something. Please read and give/deny permission.
- QUESTION – I have a question (not eleven.) Please answer it.
- DECISION – I am providing information to you and need a decision from you.
- PROBLEM – Something went horribly, horribly wrong. You need to read this immediately. Further instructions are in the email.
Examples
- REQUEST: Engineering Conference in Austin
- DECISION: New Network Services Vendor
- PREVIEW: Weekly Status Report for 2019-11-18
Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)
Open the body of your email with a short (one sentence, if possible) summary of the email and the expected action on the part of the reader. Since BLUF is a common military acronym that would not be understood at my office, I usually start my BLUF with “Executive Summary.” But you could caption it with “Bottom Line,” “Purpose,” or some other term of your liking.
After reading the BLUF, the recipient can decide if they need the additional detail you provided below it.
Examples (matching the subjects above):
- Executive Summary: As part of my company-sponsored continuing education, I would like to attend a project management conference in Austin on January 9 to 11. Total cost is appx $1800.
- Executive Summary: I recommend hiring ARL Network Solutions as our new network services provider. Analysis of four local vendors included below.
- Executive Summary: We completed milestones 7 and 8 this week. Detailed weekly status report below.
Embrace Email Brevity
Martin doesn’t embrace brevity in his novels and I’m not complaining about that. Email, though, is a different kind of dragon.
Keep your email as short as possible while still providing any needed information. Needed is the key word. There may be lots of interesting yet extraneous details. Leave them out.
For example, a story about a grammar lesson you learned from your high school English teacher and how you explained it to your spouse last week is way too long and not at all helpful. The very brief “Please fix this” is also not helpful as a response to my 17-page report. However, “You need an Oxford comma on page 3, third sentence, after cookies” is perfect. Maybe include a link to the Wikipedia article on Oxford Comma in case I don’t know what you’re talking about because I’m an engineer and (thankfully) clepped out of all my college English classes.
Your Name is the First Thing They See
Yes, the second thing they see is the subject. The first is your name. If you consistently send long, dreary, meandering, painful, un-George-R-R-Martin epics, people will cringe when they see your name.
Fix that by following the suggestions above and break the chain by promising to send better emails. Consider starting that processing with a concise email like the following:
IMPORTANT – Better Emails Coming
Hi all,
I realize that I’ve sent long, painful emails in the past. That is going to stop doing that. Please give my emails another chance.
Thanks,
Tracy
Bonus Tip: Stop CC’ing Everyone You Know
Half of my inbox is simply CYA (cover your ass) emails. I’m CC’d, along with a dozen others, just so that everyone possible has received this important message. Here’s a recent example:
From: [name withheld]
To: [17 people spread across three companies and a freelance consultant]
Subject: API Document
Received
Sweet. Thanks. Now we all know that you know that you received the API document. Awesome. Why did [name withheld] send the API to 17 people anyway? I guess that’s a question for another day.
Final Takeaway
Since reading this HBR article, I’ve tried to follow this process and extended it a bit to make it my own. Some months I’m successful, some months I’m less so.
Email is like meetings. It’s here to stay whether we like it or not. And let’s face it, most of the time we don’t like either. The best we can do is to try to make email less painful for everyone involved. As a bonus, that will give us all more time to check Martin’s website for news on his next book.
Author: Tracy Thomason
Agile project manager by day, craft beer drinker by night, and sometimes guilty of sending long, dreary emails.
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Featured image by Muhammad Ribkhan from Pixabay