The Game of Leslie

Leslie O’Flahavan has been teaching people to write well at work for decades, and this week on the podcast she teaches me — and you — about the skill of conciseness in support.

You really should listen to (or watch) the whole episode; it’s full of great advice. I’m going to follow that advice right now, though, and give you my three key moments right up front.

Relevance Before Brevity (3m40s)
Leslie thinks of concise writing as being first relevant information, and secondly delivered with brevity. That order matters, and she explains why.

Action Trumps Context (7m34s)
Leslie believes support teams should favor information that helps people take action, above providing deeper context. Both are important, but “Do” matters more.

The 10% Game (15m34s)
Leslie runs this simple game in training sessions: Take an answer you’ve written and lose 10% of the words. Mostly you can do that without changing the scope of your answer at all.

Why not pick a saved reply or an answer from one of your more thick-skinned team members, and ask everyone on the team to give you a 10%-less version this week? I bet you’d all learn something.