clarity-and-concision

Read [runtime](../../content/RUNTIME.md) and [advisory rules](../../content/policies/advisory.md) before applying this skill. Other Foreman layers and the catalog are in `../../content/`, relative to this SKILL.md. # Clarity and Concision Consider a mid-sized company where 200 professionals each write an average of 10 internal messages per day, each message averaging 150 words. That is 300,000 words produced daily -- roughly three novels. Now suppose that 30% of those words are unnecessary. The organisation is generating 90,000 wasted words every working day. At an average reading speed of 250 words per minute, that is 360 person-hours per day spent reading words that should never have been written. Six full-time employees, year-round, doing nothing but reading padding. The financial cost of corporate verbosity is not metaphorical. It is measurable, and it is staggering. Clarity and concision are not aesthetic preferences. They are economic imperatives. --- ## The Framework ### Clarity as Courage Clarity is a double-edged sword. When a writer takes a position or recommends a course of action, the writing is clear -- and the writer is exposed. People who do not want to commit make their writing muddy on purpose. They leave room to claim credit for good outcomes and deny responsibility for bad ones. Readers, however, perceive this not as strategic ambiguity but as spinelessness. Clear writing requires taking a stand. The test for clarity is simple: show the draft to a ...