Concise vs. Succinct
We often mix being concise with being succinct.
Being concise means being as brief as possible but comprehensive. It does not mean short or succinct.
Being succinct also means being brief but expressing things clearly. Succinct has nothing to do with completeness or comprehensiveness.
When To Be What
When you are trying to convey a thought, explain something, or give a summary update about something complex or important, it is far better to be concise than succinct.
The rest of the time, being succinct is fine.
Example of concise email to CEO:
“The meeting with Partner X went well. They will be committed to reselling our product beginning next quarter. I have already reached out to sales readiness and training. Our papers have not reached you as of today due to some minor agreement terms we need to iron out. It’s with Steven (GC) now. Partnership will require us to make small deal registration adjustments and move around our reps. I will schedule time to go over my plans with you re: latter. See you at 3pm.”
Example of a not concise email to CEO:
“We just ended our meeting with Partner X and it was terrific. Just as we anticipated. They are more committed to reselling our products than any other partner in recent memory. I did try to pry into why they’re suddenly so enthusiastic and it turns out their business isn’t suffering from Y taking market share away but, rather, they’ve taken on some large customers and need to fill in our piece in preparation for a major service launch. The joint synergy is going to be powerful and we need to publicize this partnership big time as we discussed the other day. We should also do a 3-way PR around driving that service launch. I’ll talk to marketing about it.
In the meantime, it’s all hands on deck as we have the sales readiness and training already engaging their field SEs and reps at this very minute. The partner agreement isn’t ready to be signed yet due to both sides’ legal red lining. We’re still going back and forth on the legalese and negotiating minor terms. We’ll pull you in if anything threatens to delay it beyond tomorrow but I’m not anticipating any issues. On our end, we do have some work to do in our partner portal, craft internal communication on the importance of this partnership to all staff, and make some adjustments with rep territories. I’ll have an update on all of that and more in our next 1:1 at 3pm so I can get your thoughts and suggestions”
You can see how painful the not concise message is to read for a CEO who has a hundred things being processed in their brain at any given time. The message is written from the perspective of what the messenger wants to say - not what the messenger thinks the recipient needs to know. Want vs. need.
Now, what would a succinct version of the above email to the CEO look like?
Email of a succinct email to the CEO:
“Meeting with Partner X is done. They’ll be a great partner. Paperwork is with GC. Making some changes to partner portal and deal reg. Will also move SE rep into Central due to this deal. See you at 3pm.”
You can see that things are stated clearly but it can also raise a lot of questions. Why is the paperwork taking so much time? What changes to the portal are necessary? How will moving the SE rep into Central impact them? What about the Central team? Are there any new risks? However, the succinct email is a lot better than the lengthier email that is not concise.
Here is what the CEO will think after receiving these three emails.
Concise email: “My Sales VP is on top of everything. We need to figure out how this impacts our forecast for the back half of the year.”
Not Concise email: “WTF is all of this? I’ll just need to get an update in-person at our meeting this afternoon. I don’t have the time to read this.”
Succinct email: “I have so many questions but I’m glad this thing is kicked off”
You can see how adding or removing a few sentences can have a dramatic effect on how the recipient will interpret the message.
Being concise is a superpower skill. It’s what every current and future executive needs to constantly work on.