This device took the form of a detailed e-mail memo accompanying the dense, several-hundred-page plan.
Only rarely does Bill Gates send an e-mail memo to the thousands of employees at Microsoft, the world's largest software company, of which he is chairman.
Citigroup, the biggest financial services company in the United States, announced the policy in an e-mail memo to its work force on Tuesday.
As a result, "Stuff You Don't Learn in Engineering School" includes advice on when to "CC" an e-mail memo and when to "BC" it.
The direct, open tone of the e-mail memo signaled exactly how Levy's management style would differ from that of his predecessors.
"As you are undoubtedly aware, Dewey & LeBoeuf has unexpectedly experienced a period of extraordinary difficulties in the last few days," Steven J. Horvath III, the firm's executive partner, wrote in an e-mail memo.
The importance of trading to Williams is evident in an e-mail memo sent on Wednesday to employees of the company's energy marketing and trading business by Mr. Hobbs, the unit's president.
"It's clear that if we fail to do so, our business as we know it is at risk," Ray Ozzie, a chief technical officer, warned in an e-mail memo to Microsoft employees last year.
In an e-mail memo to I.B.M.'s senior management team today, Mr. Gerstner wrote of Mr. Palmisano, Samm has consistently demonstrated the aptitude perhaps most critical to leadership success: He sets tough targets and then meets them".
That message appeared to be laid out explicitly as a talking point an e-mail memo that surfaced late on Sunday and was said to have been sent by an adviser to Mr. Assad before a December interview with Barbara Walters of ABC News.
But he sent an e-mail memo to all employees to assure them that the New York contingent was safe, that the company's travel agents were still checking to see whether any of its employees were ticketed on any of the affected flights.
