Quick Ways to Improve Team Chat Efficiency

Most people assume communication is about sharing information. It’s not. It’s about making sure the right people actually care and act. And yet, most internal messages get ignored because: - They’re too long (nobody has time). - They’re too vague (what’s the point?). - They bury the key takeaway (no clear action). Want to get leadership’s attention? Your team’s buy-in? Faster approvals? Don’t send long Slack messages or emails hoping they’ll “get it.” Try communicating like an executive: clear, concise, and actionable. How? 1) Lead with the headline. Instead of “Here’s some background on the situation,” start with: “We need to make a decision on X by Friday. Here’s what you need to know.” Decisions happen faster when no one has to dig for the point. 2) Be brutally concise. Instead of a wall of text, write: “Key update: [X]. Next step: [Y]. Need from you: [Z].” If it takes more than 10 seconds to skim, it’s too long. 3) Make action crystal clear. Instead of “Let me know your thoughts,” say: “Please approve/reject this by EOD Wednesday.” If you don’t set the expectation, you’ll get ignored. 4) Match the medium to the message. Instead of sending a complex update over Slack, ask: “Would a quick call make this easier?” Not everything should be an email. Not everything should be a meeting. Your ideas don’t just need to be good. They need to be impossible to overlook. Stop sending noise, and start communicating for impact.

Stop asking people to jump on a quick call. You think you’re being efficient. You’re actually stealing time. Yesterday, I got 5 versions of the same message: “Want to catch up?” “Got 15 minutes for a quick chat?” “Let me know if you’re free this week.” No context. No clarity. No indication of what we’re actually deciding, solving, or progressing. And I get it, I used to be guilty of this too. It felt casual. Efficient. Human. Until I realized: I was outsourcing the mental work to someone else. And lately? I’ve been on the receiving end too. Great intentions. No context. My guess is that these asks were about a C-suite role, a potential investor, a feedback request, and a strategic partnership. All important. All would’ve moved 10x faster with clarity upfront. Here’s what most people don’t realize: When you ask for time without purpose, you create cognitive debt. Now the other person has to: 1. Guess what it’s about 2. Decide how urgent it is 3. Figure out where it fits in their priorities That’s not collaboration. That’s confusion disguised as communication. High-performers don’t operate like this. ↳ Airbnb’s Brian Chesky avoids most 1:1s ↳ Nvidia’s Jensen Huang prefers async updates ↳ Jeff Bezos required written context before every meeting ↳ Mark Cuban only takes meetings with financial outcomes They don’t avoid people. They avoid inefficiency. So do I. What to do instead (and what earns instant respect): ↳ Send 3 bullets. "You can reply voice/text, whatever’s easiest.” ↳ “Want to carve out 20min to align on X? I’ll send the agenda.” ↳ “No ask. Just wanted to reconnect.” Each of these says: I respect your time. And I came prepared. That’s what builds trust fast. It’s not the call that kills momentum. It’s the ambiguity. I care about the people reaching out. And I’d love to talk to everyone. But I have to protect the time and energy required to do meaningful work. What’s your biggest quick call red flag? Repost if you’ve ever lost 30 minutes to “just a quick call.”

😵💫 As companies and teams grow, the demands on alignment and communication grow exponentially. No, not exponentially as a figure of speech. Truly *exponentially* 📈 Please see Yao Choong's iconic visual below of how growth = complexity to the tune of (n^2-n)/2 - and honestly fully remote may even compound this. This blog post may be nearly a decade old (and is maybe the first #bizops explanation on public record) and still holds up 🥇 So what's an #operator to do? If I’m operating in early stage environments, fixing comms is one of my first objectives. Everything from normalizing Slack channel architecture (naming conventions are your BFF) to educating teams on standardized use of platforms. From there, I leverage the following framework to gut check how I show up and, more importantly, how I help shape the flow of communication in organizations: 🏃♀️ QUICK COMMS 🏃♀️ Q: Do I want to send you something non-serious (like a meme) or something that benefits from a quick*, real-time answer? 👉 A: Teams/Slack (*and realllllly get honest about what is actually quick. If it doesn’t change the next hour or two of your workday, it’s probably not “quick” worthy, it's just impatient) Q: Do I need a verbal gut check on something that might get confusing in writing? 👉 A: Team Call/Slack Huddle Q: Is the sky truly falling or we have a very safe working relationship and I know you want to answer/know this thing quickly? 👉 A: Text/Call. Remember, emergency only or with a strong foundation please. Loose boundaries sink ships... or at least your weekend. 🛳️🧊📵. 🤝 COLLABORATIVE COMMS 🤝 Q: Do I not care when you read this and/or do you need to give the thing more than a few minutes of attention? 👉 A: Email. Leave Slack for the virtual equivalent of talking over the cubical wall. OR if it's a Slack-happy culture you can add a caveat: "read this when you have a minute later..." Q: Do I need to give you context that you really can’t get in an email and/or I think this would spur more than a few back and forth notes? 👉 A: Book a meeting. But please, for the love of their nervous system, ADD CONTEXT. "quick chat" is (a) never quick and (b) never clear. 5 seconds to articulate the topic and saves everyone 500 minutes of angst. I didn't make the rules. Q: (Bonus compromise approach) Does it feel more complicated than an email but not quite meeting worthy and/or would require coordinating more than 3 calendars? 👉 A: Try a recorded deck/walk-through. The “talking head” in PowerPoint is my new party trick (yes, I know this is just the delayed corporate Loom. Better late than never.) Q: Do you likely need to work on the request in spurts? 👉 A: Shared doc/sheet (we all agree this only means live links, not attachments right? Attachments should be banned for internal emails, amiright??) The rules aren't chiseled in stone, but the need to align your org's habits SHOULD be. Happy communicating is really the key to happy operating.