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Comment by cachestash | Hacker News Reader

Miltary parlance does not always translate well to civilian. His first example email

~~~

Shannon,

Bottom Line: We will reduce the number of days that employees can work from home from three to one day per week effective December 1st.

Background:

* This is an effort to encourage team morale and foster team collaboration

* All members of the management committee supported this decision

~~~~

A lot of people would take that for what it is, orders and not like it at all. In the military diplomacy is not so strongly needed as there is a clear chain of command. Things are not so set in the corporate world.

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Yes, this seems like it’ll cause resentment and arguing unless Shannon is already bought in. She reads the first line and maybe thinks “but why? I don’t like it!”. She only gets to the reasoning after she’s set against the decision and looking for reasons to disagree. The other way round, she reads about increasing team morale and thinks “oh, good, I agree”, then is more likely to agree with the decision.

If the boss can tell Shannon to deal with it like in the army, no problem. But in an office Shannon has lots of coworkers and bosses to formally complain to! Giving bottom lines which are in any way controversial in this manner will probably backfire imo.

But couldn't this be improved by just adding the 'condensed version' of the reason in the bottom line? For example:

'To improve team morale, we will reduce the number of days that employees can work from home from three to one day per week effective December 1st.'

I would have put that the other way round

" In order to encourage team morale and foster team collaboration, the management committee have decided to reduce the number of days that employees can work from home from three to one day per week effective December 1st."

I’m exclusively talking about the suggested structure. The tone of the communication is up you. That said, if you have instructions to give somebody, it’s probably best to make sure there isn’t any ambiguity about it.

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