Two Writing Styles That Every Business Author Should Know

“Whatever you do, think big!” Those were the words that Jim Hill used to influence me to write my first leadership book. Although I don’t think that’s what he had in mind.

While I’ve written blogs, presented at conferences, and even wrote a dissertation, I’ve never written a book — much less a business book.

Before getting started, I talked to several people to discover what they want from a leadership book. Mostly, they want a lot of structure without dense paragraphs. If I could break a paragraph into a bulleted list, then great! If I could summarize three pages in a table, then that’s even better. Oh, and they want lots of examples to explain how to apply the concepts. Readers like real stories.

I applied these ideas but used an informal and sometimes casual writing style to create the book. I wanted to avoid the stereotypical formal business and academic approach that relies on passive sentences.

In six months, I drafted Nine Practices (this is the abbreviated title. At the end of this blog, I reference the book) followed by about five months of back-and-forth revisions with the editors.

At the time, I didn’t realize that I used a popular writing style that I call deductive. Before contrasting this book with my second one, here’s what I mean…