When and why we write in business (and when not to write)
Written memos are a powerful tool, in the right situations
Why is it that some companies or organizations ask their employees to write memos? Memos are a huge investment of time and energy. Why bother writing when you could instead just say it, or put together a PowerPoint?
Why write memos
The first and most important reason is to strengthen your thinking, and the thinking of whoever else is working with you. Theoretical physicist Richard Feynmann was famous for his technique to learn complex topics like quantum mechanics. After conducting normal due diligence, he would then pretend to teach the subject to a child. If you’ve ever tried this before, you’ll know that teaching is hard, and a great way to figure out all the things you don’t know.
Memo writing is another way to apply the Feynmann technique. Take generative AI as an example. Maybe you’re excited about the potential of Llama2, but how do you convince your CEO to take action? Hint: it has nothing to do with the 70 billion parameters or the 85 TriviaQA benchmark score. You’re going to have to answer a different set of questions: What are the specific use cases applicable at your company? Can using a generative model really beat out alternative solutions like traditional ML? How will you handle inaccurate responses, and how will you deploy new models to replace existing human processes? The process of writing a memo forces you to think through and clearly articulate answers to these and other important questions. Writing helps you avoid the hype and bias that something like AI tends to, well, generate.
Writing memos isn’t just an individual activity either. Answering questions like how to incorporate GenAI requires a coalition of engineers, data scientists, and business operators. Good memo writing processes get everyone in the coalition involved in authorship early and often, so that each person can similarly benefit from this learning journey.
This brings us to the second reason we write memos: to influence and teach others. Like Feynmann, your job as a memo author is to help the children (sometimes known as ‘executives’ or ‘board members’) see eye to eye with what you know, and go along with your team’s proposals and decisions. Memos give everyone a chance to process the same information, with sufficient time to reflect, and focus on relevant facts instead of presentation antics.
It’s possible to do this with something like PowerPoint, of course - but your success with PowerPoint is determined just as much by how you present and the visuals you display, as it is by the actual content. Not to mention, putting together great visuals is hard, sometimes harder than just writing a document! For complicated topics like technology, this leads to bad decisions. It is more important for your company to achieve common understanding and make decisions, than to walk away wowed by someone’s speaking skills.
When are memos effective?
Some of my former colleagues at Amazon might say ‘any and every meeting’. I’m obviously a fan of memos, but I never liked that answer. Let’s not forget that memos are expensive to put together, and they are ultimately just a means to get to an outcome. If you can get to that outcome faster through a different way, do it instead. There are some situations where memos are awesome, and some situations where they are not. Let’s start with some examples of the former.
Your company needs to make a high-impact or irreversible decision. These decisions are ones where the consequences are material to your company’s reputation, customers, or business results, and where you cannot easily backtrack if you had it wrong. A few examples from my current team today: should we pay an external vendor a bunch of money to support the tools used by our global operations team, or should we build tools in-house; are we ready to announce this new product launch to the general public, and what solution do we put in place to meet these legal obligations set by our regulators. To use the vendor selection decision as an example, as a decision-maker I want to assess:
Who are the available vendors (reputation, solvency, responsiveness, customer testimonials)
How good is their software (code quality, architecture, user experience, feature coverage, security, privacy and data sharing)
How expensive is the software (licenses, software integration, support)
Can we potentially build some of this software in-house (internal talent, timelines, costs, risks)
That’s a lot of detail! But, we need to select major vendors carefully; the cost of getting it wrong is high. My teams have also spent years of their lives unraveling bad vendor selection decisions, not to mention millions of dollars in outbound fees. Can you imagine making an informed decision without a written document? I can’t either.
You need to gather advice or feedback. I once had a great idea to support new mom-and-pop type Amazon sellers. Many of these sellers would launch their business, but then learned they didn’t have the right product fit yet, so they would close shop. Our policy was to refund their $40/month fixed selling fees. Why not let sellers do all of this with a one-click tool? This was important for Amazon because we had an entire team of call center agents fielding calls from these sellers, and we could redirect their efforts somewhere else.
At the time, I had little background in payments or financial fraud. Luckily for Amazon, someone suggested that I should get this proposal reviewed with a team who could assess the risk, and so I put my proposal into a memo explaining how the customer experience and financial flows would work. Turns out that my plan would have exposed the company to hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud!
Sometimes, you need a detailed business plan or product proposal so that you can get advice from others. Memos are great for these situations. These memos are not about selling an idea or getting funding. They are about laying out the facts objectively so you can get an objective assessment in return.
You need to hold others accountable. Building a business or a new technology takes work from many teams and individuals: line engineers, field operators, marketers, customer service, supply chain professionals, QA testers, etc. In order to execute, you need the right deliverables from the right people, at the right time.
Novice program managers will scramble daily going to each of these teams and asking for status updates. This approach sometimes works, but only if those teams are as committed as you are to the final outcome. I’ve found that well-written memos, going up to the CEO or executive sponsor, are a better way to secure these commitments with less effort. Instead of asking someone for a timeline, ask them to write it in your executive update: By November 15th, Ethan’s team will deliver widget XYZ to support our project. Widget XYZ will do A, B, and C. The memo in effect becomes a tool to help you manage commitments, and reviewing the memo with your sponsors gives your stakeholders a chance to share what help they need to remain on track.
You need to keep your stakeholders or leaders informed. Leaders and executive sponsors don’t want to keep asking you for updates to find out how your project is going. This feels like micro-management and it isn’t fun for anybody. The solution is simple. Keep them in the loop with proactive updates. Memos written as program reviews, and sent out on a predictable cadence, are a great tool to build trust. These memos can work even if they aren’t reviewed in a sit-down meeting. Email updates can work perfectly fine, as long as they answer the right questions: What are your goals? Are you on track? What are the upcoming deliverables and who is accountable? What are your biggest risks and how will you mitigate? There is a deep rabbit hole I can explore on how to get these updates right; more in a future post!
When should I not write a memo?
Not every decision, program update, or feedback gathering session requires a separate memo. Like any investment, don’t pony up when the return isn’t there. Here are some common situations where the right solution is not a memo.
When you need to make a low-impact decision. In the engineering world, an example is whether we should fix a minor bug or add a small feature. In the business world, it may be whether to grant a customer concession. These aren’t worth a memo. Either do the work, or move it to the parking lot and do it later. At most, summarize it in a line or two in an email: The engineering team will fix XYZ bug by September 30th.
This also applies to decisions that are easily reversible. For instance, if you are releasing a new website feature to just 1% of visitors on your website, and you can easily dial that change back to 0%, it may be better to just launch and revert quickly if things don’t go your way.
When human connection or support is needed. This may be obvious, but even if you work in a document culture like Amazon, you don’t need to write a memo for each of your 1:1 meetings. Savor the ability to have a back and forth conversation.
When visuals or demos convey the message more effectively. If you are a UX designer for instance, and you’re ready to share a new set of exciting mockups, there’s no need to put it down in a written memo. Just share the deck. I’ve found that sometimes including a short written artifact that outlines your design objectives and goals is helpful, but let the visuals be the star of the show.
When presenting to external clients. If you’re trying to make a sale, then you’re best off communicating in the medium that resonates most with your clients. Maybe some clients prefer white papers, but most do not. Even Amazon sales teams use PowerPoint.
Getting Started
You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. -Richard Feynmann
I end with this quote because it reminds me why I personally have learned to embrace writing. I’m a slow thinker. I like to noodle on topics in deep thought, and I struggle to answer questions right away. When I do produce answers, I immediately start to regret them for hindsight reveals better responses. Writing helps me level the playing field against myself. It’s a process, one where I get to reflect on my ideas and challenge my beliefs. I love being wrong, and writing is a safe space to do so. Whether you are writing for your own personal reasons, or simply because you have to in order to succeed, it doesn’t matter - I look forward to continue working with you on this journey.