4 Tips for BETTER work emails
Hi there, it’s Laura!
As it sometimes happens, I was planning on talking about how to write effective emails this week and, ye and behold, the Harvard Business Review beat me by a few days with their article. While I agree with what Scott Stein wrote in his 5 Tips For Writing Professional Emails article, I have a slightly different approach here and there and I also think he missed out on one of the most important elements for a professional email. Hence, this week I’m sharing my 4 tips for writing better emails.
1. Answer the question “So What?”
The HBR article opens with a very reasonable ask: know what you expect from the people getting your email. The advice is to keep that in the back of our minds and let that channel our words. Nothing wrong with this, it’s solid advice, of course. One thing that this unfortunately ignores is the fact that most people write in the same way that they speak. Simply put, if someone’s thoughts are disorganised when they speak, this will translate to their writing, even if they keep in mind an outcome. Having something in mind and conveying that in a way that it gets understood are two different things.
In having written many emails, many of them not very well structured (especially in the beginning of my career), I’ve found that the “So what?” test is far more useful in practice than thinking you know what you want your recipient to do. The test is very simple: read your email - or even better give it to a friend/coworker to read - and ask them if the email answers the question “So what?” or to put it differently “Why are you sending me this email?”.
By far the easiest way to make sure that your email always answers this question is to make sure that you either specify it's just an FYI or to have a request! In practice this can be done by saying something along the lines of:
I'm just writing to inform you of…
Hence, please finish the report by..
Here's an update on the project status…
And many more…If you re-read your email at the end and realize that it’s not clear what you’re asking of your recipients, try to add a last paragraph to reiterate what you want.
2. If things are burning, it's okay not to know
One aspect that I personally think it's overlooked, is the fact that you don't need to have all the answers before you send out an urgent and important email. I’m coining this as the “If things are on fire, it’s okay not to know” mantra. I've heard this concern from the people that I mentor multiple times:
I think there is a big problem but I don't know how to fix it. I can't send an escalation email before I figure it out.
I found an issue that is impacting the bottom line but I don't have all the data yet. I'm waiting to get everything together before I send an email to leadership.
We can appreciate that these folks have the right mindset regarding what a good email looks like, however in these cases time is of the essence! So I'm here to tell you that your leadership would rather get an email detailing the problem, with you admitting you don't know how to proceed, than no email at all. Say things such as:
The problem is impacting our billing. We haven't booked any clients in over 48h. I'm still gathering more data but we need urgent support from teams X and Y to look into it.
I see an issue with our price calculations. I'm attaching the data to explain the wrong behavior but I don't know how to fix it yet. Can you help find someone that knows how the pricing engine works?
Another daily example that we are often faced with is for example, after a meeting where crucial decisions were made. In cases such as these, sending out the meeting minutes (to have a record) is far more important than making sure all the points are clumped together by theme or team. It would be nice to have the talking points organised but if that’s going to keep you from sending the email, then just skip it. You have to understand how to choose between speed and form, based on the situation you find yourself in.
3. Conserve your energy
It has to be said that not every email needs to be an epitome of structure and grammatical flexibility. Conserve your energy and time for the emails that really matter. Just so this doesn’t get too controversial, let me admit that in the ideal world, every email is perfectly written, structured, has the exact data needed to draw a conclusion and there’s not one recipient that isn’t interested in what’s been sent. Alas, we are only human! If you're sending your coworker a file you literally just discussed, it's okay to have a three word email and an attachment. Put your energy towards the emails that:
Have the most impact
Have multiple recipients and not all of them have the same level of context
Go out to a large audience
As you will write more and more emails, structuring them well right away is a skill that you will practice. In the meantime, make sure that you put effort into the emails that matter.
4. Target the HIPPO
HIPPO = Highest Paid Person’s Opinion
As Trixie Mattel has taught us, let me say something controversial but brave: sometimes you need your leadership to read your email above anyone else. Usually this is because you need them to act, support you, assign some tasks and get some things done. In my opinion there is no better tool to do this than the executive summary. An underutilised tool that takes your email from one of many to what gets attention first!
By and large, the executive summary is a section at the very to of your email that, as the name suggests, gives a quick summary of
The problem at hand
The impact
The "so what" call to action
The idea behind it is that executives don't have the time to read through your 700 word email to get to the crux of the matter. They might not need all the detail. This is why you're helping them understand the key points in a brief summary, at the top of the email.
Here's a few tips on g how to write a good executive summary
It should be short! If you're reaching 5 lines or more, see if you can shorten it.
Add the highest relevant data point. For example, if your issue is impacting 5 clients but they're collectively worth 7 million in business, you're going to mention the 7 million, not the 5 clients.
Add your request to the leadership team: do you need more resources? More time? More money to throw at the problem?
Don’t skip this if solving a problem depends on leadership action! After the executive summary, take as much word count as needed to present the problem at hand - if your leadership will want to get more information about this they’ll read on. The folks that might need to act on the details will read on as well.
That’s all for today folks!
Until next time, this is Laura signing off.
