Striving for Better Business Communications? Here’s what to do
A business communication haiku
Kill your darlings,
Walk in reader’s shoes,
Clear and disciplined.
Tl;Dr:
- Discipline: Gain attention and influence through systematic discipline.
- Empathy: Give attention to gain attention.
- Perspective: How does your “writing personality” influence your success?
Why start this article with a haiku? A haiku or other brief message like a tweet forces you to think clearly. Leading industry newsletters embody this understanding. A newsletter’s business model depends on getting its readers to stay — and pay. Business professionals may take inspiration from newsletter exemplars like The Morning Brew.
Newsletter headlines are enticing, capturing the main point of each article within the newsletter. Their content strives for simplicity. One idea or assertion is concisely explored, free of grammatical and spelling errors and is often a pleasure to read. Put yourself in the shoes of an executive — or any of your readers. Consider the number of distractions an executive or other reader faces. What about how little sustained concentration they have in an average busy day?
The less extra mental workload they have to use, the better. Your hard work to clarify and strip out the unnecessary turns a wall of words into a haiku (of sorts). Will your haiku increase the chance they read and act on your message?
After over 20 years of business experience, I still grapple with writing compelling messages. Discipline, empathy and perspective are driving forces behind better business writing:
Discipline
Kill your darlings: Many drafts make a writing process
“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Are you determined to create a memorable message? Spoiler alert: This is unlikely to happen on the first draft. A vast proportion of us believe we are above average in our written communication ability; we have the Dunning-Kruger effect to thank for this. Perhaps we are a product of our incentives? Did our teachers give us high marks and encouragement in writing essays and in dropping the odd large or sophisticated word or turn of phrase? If so, they may have incentivised us away from Plain English and message clarity from simple, well-crafted wording.
Start with an outline. What is your main point? What sub-points serve your main point? The Minto Principle is a powerful way to help you get to the point — and link your supporting points. The .gif images in this article show the Minto Principle at work. An outline like this helps structure your thinking.
Want to adopt a storytelling approach? Adapt the Minto Principle by structuring your message using a simple acronym: SCQA. SCQA stands for Situation, Complication, Question, Answer.
Situation: “Winning an executive’s attention span is tough — let alone their buy-in for your idea.”
Complication: “Executives are bombarded by hundreds of messages daily. Chances are they will ignore your message. Or be annoyed that your message didn’t hit the mark.”
Question: “Then what? Our efforts are wasted, and we may even lose influence through our failed message.”
Answer: “We need to invest in a writing process and system to increase our chances of success.”
With an outline in place, you can furnish each line with sub-points. Once your sub-points fatten into paragraphs from your emerging ideas, your first draft starts to take shape.
Your first draft should be your unvarnished thought collection only. Don’t judge or edit your first draft — let the words flow out onto paper or your screen. Long, complicated sentences are often a symptom of someone trying to convey a complex stream of consciousness onto paper. Second and subsequent drafts allow you to refine your message. But the first step is often the hardest one.
Your second draft helps you clarify your thinking. Let your first draft sit untouched for a short while. Go through your stream of consciousness in your first draft. Break up sentences and use simpler words in your second draft. Tools like the Hemingway app serve as your second draft coach. Will an image or diagram serve your message? If a picture speaks one thousand words, as the saying goes, will your picture distil complexity, illuminate a concept or emphasise? With your second draft serving as a foundation for clearer thinking, how will your audience perceive your message?
Do you have many “moving parts” in your message? Moving parts could be times, assumptions you are making, or critical activities. If you work on projects, many projects or change communications may keep you busy staying on top of moving parts. This is especially the case when these moving parts regularly change.
A single page Gantt chart or online whiteboard may be a valuable online space to convey your ideas to your team. As this method is asynchronous, your team can ponder specific points, question assumptions and respond when ready.
A third draft considers style, tone and active words. Tools like Grammarly.com help you with each. Strip words, especially cliches, filler words and turns of phrase you thought clever. Set a target that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable, such as twenty-five per cent. Now eliminate unnecessary words. Does each word link to your main point?
Speaking with your readers to understand their sentiment about your message provides valuable intelligence. This intelligence may shape word choice, tone and supporting points.
Empathy
Know your audience
If your message is to win hearts and minds, how can you do this without knowing your readers’ feelings and thinking about your message? You want your message taken seriously? Then your behaviours should reflect this. Are you prepared to speak with these executives to understand their views on the topic you are about to convey and how they are likely to receive your topic? What are their motivations concerning your message’s key points? Are they likely to support your idea? Do you need to walk them through essential assumptions and concepts? Sometimes even the simple act of walking someone through the concept may take a few attempts. Yet if you get readers onside beforehand by the time you commit words to paper, the game is already primarily won.
There are two powerful words to remember throughout the writing process — “So what?”.
Apply “So what?” to every paragraph, slide or aspect of your message. “So what?” clarifies your focus — every icon, word or other contribution should be there only in service to your main point.
Check in with yourself
How does your emotional state influence your writing? Avoid career-limiting moves by checking your message’s tone with colleagues. I’m sure you could write a fascinating book by illustrating dozens of emails saved to the “Draft” folders of email accounts everywhere. Does your emotional state come through to others as rigid, angry, sarcastic or condescending? This book on emails from the draft folders would be comedy gold — and occasionally dripping with venom!
Thinking about how you are coming across to others is known as self-monitoring. Self-monitoring is helpful in moderation — you don’t want paralysis by analysis and therefore don’t write. Yet you don’t want to be overly confident either. Checking in with yourself and your readers need not take long but is an investment in your writing process and can be a valuable part of your ongoing writing system.
Sometimes saying less — or nothing at all — is a wise form of business communication. Depending on your circumstance, draft your message when you are calm and focussed, revisit drafts and always think about how your reader will perceive the content and context of your message.
Perspective
What drains you?
Our personality and attitudes towards writing guide our strengths and the challenges we face in producing captivating messages. Do you:
- Enjoy creating the first draft, yet struggle when editing?
- Find that you have to be in the right mood to create?
- Find creation torturous, but find editing your work — and others — fairly easy?
- Get tired by the time you have to apply empathy and perspective to your message?
Everyone has a weakness in their writing process. By considering your writing a process and a system, you can identify areas where you feel weak or drained. Colleagues and tools can help compensate for your weaknesses or disinterest. Make compensation mechanisms an essential part of your writing process and system. Even the simple act of reading your work out loud, or have your computer do this for you, is an important part of your writing process.
For those who struggle to create — try templates. If editing is a draining exercise, consider writing to be a multi-stage event. Sleep on each draft, and approach editing when you are fresh and uninterrupted. Have you tried setting up an approvals chain or inviting a group of colleagues happy to review and comment on your draft? Companies like Amazon take clear thinking to a higher level. You can’t hold a meeting until you have carefully drafted and circulated a six-page briefing document.
Your peer group can make a profound difference to creators who struggle with editing. Ensure everyone is clear on the deadline for comments, and you label points or questions for team attention.
Off the cuff writing seems easy — as is writing without a system or process. But is it the best way if you are seeking executive attention? Do you want to leave it to chance when you want your audience acting on a clear call to action?
The extra effort investing in systematically crafting your message might be unpalatable or even infuriating for a time-poor professional. Yet if you need your words to have power, this article may provide a helpful structure in helping you construct compelling and influential communications.
