Joshua Liu

When I was in Grade 3, the province of Ontario implemented mandatory testing for Reading, Writing and Math.

Students were graded on a 4 point scale. I scored a 4 on Reading, a 4 on Writing and a 3 on Math. Surprised that I didn’t do better on Math, my parents asked the school if they could see my test.

The school showed my parents my test, and then a copy of the “answer key” which showed examples of “Level 4 answers”. I got most of the answers right, but I was docked a bunch of marks because my “answers were not long enough”.

There would be questions where you were given an entire blank page to use for your answer. I would write a few sentences, and then get to the answer. I looked over at the “Level 4” example answer – the entire page was filled with text. I had no clue what useful information could possibly fill the whole page.

Three years later, it was time to get tested again. But this time I was ready. I remember doing the Math section. I kept writing until the entire boxes were full. I decided it wasn’t enough, so I started writing outside the lines too. I’m sure most of it was not meaningful. But I got a 4 anyways.

Over time, I continued to believe incorrectly that communicating more was communicating better. And I’m not alone in this. It’s usually the most accomplished students who send me the longest emails.

I started to think differently near the end of high school when my English teacher told me, “Always say what you want to say, in as few words as possible”.

It would take years for me to understand the power of that statement. Today, I can’t live without it.

Much of my learning has come from exposure to incredibly successful people and observing how they communicate. It’s usually fast and concise. One word emails (“yes” or “no”) are common. Responses often within just a few minutes.

They’ve recognized it’s more important to communicate clearly and quickly, and not be a bottleneck, than to be cordial.

Don’t get me wrong, one word answers are not always the most effective. But the best communicators know that being clear and being concise are not mutually exclusive. In fact, using fewer words forces you to be more clear.

Why does this matter?

First, you can accomplish more in the same amount of time. For example, every additional but unnecessary word you write in an email is wasted energy and time that could be spent on the next email. Some people avoid responding immediately because they “need time to figure out the optimal response”. Besides in exceptional cases, stop doing this. Respond quickly and concisely, and empower your colleague to execute faster.

Second, too many words is overwhelming, and people will defer action. No one wants to wade through long documents to figure out what you want – so their default is to ignore and then forget. The other day I got an essay-long email that, once I knew it wasn’t urgent, I instantly deferred. When I finally got time to read it a few days later, I realized it only needed a few minutes to reply. But I wasn’t going to invest the time to figure that out upfront.

This happens more than you would think. If you’ve recently reached out to someone for the first time and haven’t heard back, check how long your email was. If it was more then five sentences, that might be why. I bet there is a strong correlation between “length of initial email” and “time it takes to get a response” – regardless of what you were requesting.

If you want to be more effective at what you do, start communicating more while saying less.