I’ve been thinking about this tweet since I first saw it. When I examine my current and past relationships, it really does come down to this: all the good things are about the ability to communicate. All the bad things come down to the inability to bridge the gaps between us.

As you peak in the middle of the curve, […] you can’t necessarily communicate that information. You’ve integrated it for you, but that doesn’t mean you’ve distilled it down to a meaningful, concise story for someone else, someone still at the left side of the curve. The place you land on the right — the simplicity on the other side of complexity — is often super obvious in retrospect. That’s sort of the point: it’s made obvious to others because you did the heavy lifting of getting through the mess.

Hi. I’m pinging you to see if you respond in a somewhat realtime fashion. […] If you respond fairly quickly, then I’ll respond with my question so we can kick off this little session.

Failures in an organization larger than 1,000 people are attributable to failed communication. The question mark is underused, the exclamation point overused. Treat headings as the structure of your argument, not your document. So only show [numbers] after you are done presenting your main point.

This is a false dichotomy because communication is a technical skill. The ability to articulate complex ideas is a hallmark of deep understanding. ​ In other words, they are commended for having to deal with the debris of leftover chaos they usually didn’t create, nor had very much control over. ​ Communication skills allow an individual to understand and be understood. They combine self-awareness, empathy, active listening, speaking, and observing into a cocktail of abilities that grease the wheels of every interaction, but often go undetected. Dissociating communication and technical skills, while seemingly innocuous and even pragmatic, can create a harmful dichotomy, one that stunts corners of the industry. ​ Lexical double-booking ​ let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do. ​ but it also allows incompetence to hide behind unnecessarily intellectualized terminology. ​ Those with strong communication skills are capable of using domain-specific language appropriately while also being capable of context-switching to adapt their message to their audience. ​ Being clear is not about being dumb, but, as Eugenia Cheng said, about identifying a problem with the precision and clarity that is appropriate for the context. ​ The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.

Assume your company is going to be around for 25 years, and treat the first few years accordingly. In other words, give yourselves room to change and grow, and take the lessons you learn during the next few years to heart. If something isn’t working for you, be honest with yourselves and your clients. If something is working well, keep doubling down on it until it doesn’t.

“They had to develop cultures of safety. That often means specific social safeguards. Those ‘ossified corporate structures’ that Silicon Valley hates so much because they ‘keep you from moving fast’? Yeah, a lot of them exist to keep top brass from doing hideously stupid things.”

“This is in line with the internet's idea that it's up to every individual to "protect" themselves with their own filters and settings I don't believe full responsibility should be on the receiving end. I wish our tools gave responsibility to senders for how they communicate.”