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Communication · a life skill

Deliberate Summarizing Decisions

one version, in writing, within the hour

Saying the decisions back catches the mistakes still in the room. The rest drift apart over the following week, one memory at a time. A written recap sent within the hour, with a time for corrections, gives everyone the same version to remember.

  • Moderate to start
  • High impact
  • Learn it: 2-4 weeks
  • Ten minutes, within the hour
one meeting, three memories, and the recap between them
The same launch meeting twice: without a recap, three people remember three launch dates a week later; with a recap at 4:40 pm and one correction, they remember the same one Tuesday 3 pm, a launch meeting. Without a recap, a week later Priya remembers end of March, Sam early April, and Kofi once design's done. With a recap at 4:40 pm, subject “Launch 31 March, if designs are final by the 7th”, two decisions with names, one open question, and corrections by 6 pm. Kofi replies at 5:05: the 10th, the 7th was the draft round. Version 2 goes out at 5:20 with the 10th. A week later all three remember 31 March, designs by the 10th. Without a recap Tue 3:00 pm launch meeting Priya “end of March” Sam “early April” Kofi “once design's done” a week later, all sure they're right With a recap Tue 3:00 pm 4:40 pm to Priya, Sam, Kofi Launch 31 March, if designs are final by the 7th Decided Launch on 31 March. Priya. Decided Final designs by the 7th. Kofi. Not decided Whether a beta goes out first. Corrections by 6 pm, or this stands. 5:05 Kofi “The 10th. The 7th was the draft round.” V2 5:20 Launch 31 March, if designs are final by the 7th 10th Priya “31 March” Sam “31 March” Kofi “31 March” a week later 1 2 3 4 5

The same meeting, twice. Nobody lied in the first version; each memory filled the gaps its own way. The recap took ten minutes, caught one wrong date before six, and left one text to remember.

The habit

Try it now.

  1. Send it within the hour

    While people still remember the details differently enough to notice a mistake, and before the next meeting lands on top.

  2. Put the decision in the subject line

    “Launch 31 March, if designs are final by the 7th”, not “Notes from Tuesday”. Some people will only ever read the subject.

  3. One line per decision: what, who, by when

    Then one line for each thing left open. Leave out who argued what; the recap is a record, not minutes.

  4. Give a time for corrections

    “Corrections by 6 pm, or this stands.” Silence then means yes, and everyone knows it does.

  5. Fix it in public, as a v2

    Reply to everyone with the changed line marked. Never edit the shared doc quietly; the old version is already in three heads.

    If you aren't the right person to send it, agree who is before anyone leaves the room.

When to break the rule: if the meeting decided nothing, don't send a recap that makes it sound as if it did. Send one line: “No decision yet. We meet again Thursday with the costings.”

Draft a recap

Write the recap, and see what it's missing.

Add each decision with who's doing it and by when, then what's still open and a time for corrections. The subject line and the email write themselves, and the checks flag any decision without a name or a real date, and any word that tells readers how you feel about the outcome.

Decisions

Subject

The email

Checks before you send

    Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere. The date check looks for days, dates and times, and the word check is a short list, so read it once more yourself before you send.

    The study behind it

    What you write for someone becomes what you remember.

    In 1978 Tory Higgins and William Rholes gave people a short essay about a man whose behaviour could be read well or badly, and asked them to describe him for a reader who had to work out who he was. Before writing, they were told whether that reader liked him or disliked him.

    People tilted their descriptions toward the reader, which is ordinary tact. The surprise came later. Asked to recall the essay itself, their memories had tilted the same way as their message. The essay hadn't changed; what they wrote about it had become what they remembered. The paper called it “saying is believing”.

    People who knew the reader's view but never wrote the message showed no tilt in memory. Later work by Gerald Echterhoff, Higgins and Stephan Groll found message and memory were most closely tied when writers trusted their reader's judgement.

    So whoever writes the recap will remember the meeting as written. That's the reason to write it straight, for the record rather than the mood in the room, and to let the others correct it while they still remember differently.

    The design of Higgins and Rholes (1978). The same essay; a reader who likes or dislikes the man; a message tilted toward the reader; a later memory tilted toward the message. People who wrote no message showed no tilt. The trait shown is an illustration. The essay Their reader They wrote Later, recalled a man who rarely changes his mind likes him “persistent” persistent dislikes him “stubborn” stubborn either, but no message written nothing no tilt
    The design, with an illustrative trait rather than the study's essay. Higgins and Rholes, “Saying is believing”, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1978; the no-message result as summarised by Echterhoff, Higgins and Groll, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2005.

    The idea

    Why it works.

    A meeting ends with as many versions as there were people, and each one keeps drifting toward what its owner hoped for. A recap within the hour swaps them for one text, while the differences are still small enough to spot.

    The time for corrections does the rest. Silence after it means yes, so the recap stops being your version and becomes everyone's. And sending the fix as a v2, where everyone sees it, tells people that corrections are wanted.

    When it goes wrong

    Habits that help.

    • Write it for someone who wasn't there. They'll read it as the meeting, so it has to make sense alone.
    • Drop the feelings. “Finally”, “unfortunately”, “as I said” tell readers who won. The decision reads the same without them.
    • Keep the same shape every time. Decisions, not decided, corrections by. People learn where to look.
    • Reread it before the deadline passes. If a reply changed something, the v2 goes out before 6 pm, not after.

    Go deeper

    Keep going.

    Practise this in HourLife.

    In Decisions: Context, and what success looks like. Write down a decision, weigh the options, mark the one you chose, and come back later to record how it turned out.

    Download on the App Store Download on the Mac App Store How Decisions works in HourLife