Cut to the Bone
Concision is a sign of respect — and of clear thinking.
- ✓Strip hedging, qualifiers, and throat-clearing
- ✓Replace abstract noun-phrases with strong verbs
- ✓Halve a paragraph without losing meaning
Wordiness hides uncertainty and wastes the reader's attention. Concision is not about being terse — it's about making every word earn its place. Most business writing can be cut by a third with no loss of meaning, and usually a gain in force.
Kill the hedges
'I just wanted to', 'I think maybe', 'sort of', 'kind of', 'it might be possible that' — these soften you into invisibility. Hedging signals you don't trust your own point. Say it plainly; if you're genuinely uncertain, name the specific uncertainty instead of fogging the whole sentence.
Verbs over nominalizations
'We made a decision to do an evaluation of' is four nouns doing a verb's job. 'We decided to evaluate' is sharper. Hunt for words ending in -tion, -ment, -ance and ask whether a verb would do the work in half the space.
Cut the meta-commentary
'I wanted to reach out to let you know that...', 'It's worth noting that...', 'As you may be aware...' — these announce that you're about to say something instead of just saying it. Delete the runway and start at the point.
Every extra word adds cognitive load. HBR's guidance on concise writing — cut filler, prefer short words for hard ideas — works because lowering the reader's processing cost makes the point easier to find and act on. At the executive level, less really is more.
Before & after
I just wanted to quickly follow up and let you know that I think it might possibly be a good idea for us to maybe consider revisiting the timeline at some point.
We should revisit the timeline.
The implementation of the new process resulted in an improvement in the efficiency of the team's handling of incoming requests.
The new process helped the team handle requests faster.
Practice
Write a response, then get coached. Revise and re-score as many times as you like — iteration is the point.