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Yes, no, or speak
David Ogilvy built one of the most successful advertising agencies of all time, and Warren Buffett kept calling him a genius. Before Ogilvy started his own company, one of his bosses taught him the importance of the terse memo. When Ogilvy sent his boss a question about a project, the reply came back as yes, no, or speak.
Speak meant come see me, because talking it through was faster than writing it out. Stripping a reply down to its essence is the same instinct behind Christopher Nolan's screenplays, which he enjoys writing because they are very stripped down, simple documents, and the more stripped down they are, the better.
How did Ogilvy build his advertising agency?
David Ogilvy founded his New York agency in 1948 with a small group, and it later became Ogilvy & Mather. He built its reputation on research and on striking ads, including the 1951 Hathaway shirt campaign featuring a man in an eyepatch. His 1958 Rolls-Royce ad ran with a headline about the loudest noise in the car coming from its electric clock. Ogilvy wrote the headline's long body copy himself.
Why does brevity speed up decisions?
Short messages are faster to read and leave less room for misunderstanding. In August 1940, Winston Churchill circulated a memo titled Brevity, asking officials to keep reports short and to the point. He wanted reports to set out the main points in short, crisp paragraphs. The memo is still cited as a model of clear government writing.