Smart Brevity: The Power of Doing More with Less

Anyone who is familiar with Lean Communication knows how important it is to be brief and prevent waste.  So, of course I was intrigued by the title of a new book, Smart Brevity: The Power of Doing More with Less, and read it immediately on receiving it this week.

My assessment? Well worth reading, but could have been shorter.

You write too much for the way your readers consume information. No one has the time or patience to read everything they are sent, so it is likely that most of what you write goes unread.

This matters to you personally because, as a knowledge worker, your contribution, influence and credibility depend on being heard, or in this case, being read. It matters to the organization when important information slips through the cracks and things happen—or don’t—as a result.

Smart Brevity will teach you how to grab attention and keep it, and so ensure that your message gets across crisply and clearly. The authors share a formula which they have developed over their work in print and electronic media. As you see in this review: tease them with a good subject line, craft a short opening sentence that tells the one big thing, explain why it matters, and then go deeper as necessary. Simple and effective.

As the author of Lean Communication, I am pulling for this book to take off, because it carries such an important message. But I do have to point out one caveat. The book could have been shorter by about 20%. There is too much backstory and puffery about Axios, the company the authors founded and run today, and after a while you get the feel that you are reading a corporate or product brochure.

Remember: write tighter, write better.

By the way, if you haven’t read Lean Communication, you may wonder which book to read first. If you want to focus solely on your writing, read Smart Brevity. If you want to focus on spoken communication, Lean Communication is the book for you.