Simplicity
Earlier this year Warren Buffet released his 57th (!) annual letter to shareholders. The first line: “Charlie Munger, my long-time partner, and I have the job of managing a portion of your savings. We are honored by your trust.” For six decades now, Buffett has communicated in this direct and down-to-earth manner. His style is revered as the gold standard for business writing. Why? Because it’s simple. You’d think plain and unadorned expression would be the norm for naked apes like us, but it isn’t. Three things tend to stand in the way of simplicity: confusion, fear, and pretension.
Confusion: Until you understand what matters, you don’t know what to emphasize and what to ignore. When you haven’t yet worked this out, you think it helps to include more information. You hope the extra material contributes to a stronger whole. You see truth as a white canvass to be filled, and you keep adding colors until there are no blank spaces left.
Fear: Until you feel committed to your message, you worry about blowback. You add clauses and qualifications to protect yourself against potential challenges. You dread the thought of being exposed for a lack of attention to detail, or a blindness to the bigger picture. You see words as a wall protecting your professional identity.
Pretension: Until you’re comfortable with where you stand, you keep striving for a better social position. You ignore the first word that comes to mind because you suspect another could make you look better. Your writing becomes less about forthright expression than image management. It is no longer about shining a light on reality, but about being recognized as the one holding the torch.
These are universal afflictions. I battle against them every day. But each is also a conquerable limitation, and clarity is the key. Confusion, fear, and pretension all recede in the face of clarity of thought. Clarity, however, requires work. This must be why Mark Twain famously said, “I wish I had written you a shorter letter. I just didn't have the time.”