It’s time for people in business to stop using words as a screen to hide behind, and to start writing as if we were humans writing for other humans. I’m focusing here on the internal writing we do – the emails, reports, memos and presentations – which are intended to inform and motivate, but generally just engender a sense of tedium. The fact is that dry, convoluted, passive sentences that seem to issue from a machine rather than a writer, are extremely old-fashioned. For many years, corporate tone has been moving towards the personalised and informal. This is especially true in the age of social media, where people are unafraid to wade into any topic in an unabashed way. Yet we keep writing things like “attached please find the requested report” in emails. Who is to do the finding? Who requested it? What on earth is wrong with: “Here is the report you asked for”?
Fear of failure
Canadian corporate communication consultant Elaine Stirling, in her suitably lively book The Corporate Storyteller: a writing manual and style guide for the brave new business leader, used to ask participants at the start of her workshops to name one frustration they encountered over and over in business communications.
“The answers were pretty much what you’d expect them to be: unclear messages; aggressive tone; lack of direction; bad spelling; lousy grammar. “Then one day … I asked them to discuss their frustration in small groups and present a collective answer. To my amazement, the answer from every table was the same, and it consisted of one word. Fear.”
At last, she wrote, she had found the reason why intelligent, articulate people wrote like Philistines: fear, of standing out mostly, of being read too closely. So we hide behind bloodless bullet-points that are no more than lists, unnecessary jargon, long sentences in which readers bog down, and pompous phrases. Good writing, the sort that engages readers and gets them going, takes courage: the courage to have clear ideas, and to express them in a clear and human way.
The power of storytelling
Note that Stirling made her point by recounting an anecdote. How much more effective this was than simply outlining her theory of business boredom, because narratives draw us in and they involve real people reacting. For many years, some wise firms have realised the power of corporate storytelling, including 3M, Nike and FedEx. Too few. As the world’s top corporate storytelling guru, Stephen Denning, (who was born in Sydney), discovered when he worked at the World Bank, a simple anecdote about a man in Zambia helped to transform the bank from a purely lending organisation to one that shared with the world its vast knowledge about how to fight poverty. But stories don’t all have to be about the big ideas. A story about a success in one team can teach a lesson to everyone in the firm. A story about someone who went the extra mile to serve a client can inspire a whole company to better customer service. A personal story from the managing director can throw light on how she thinks in a way to which people can relate.
Other ways to bring your words to life
Storytelling is one of many ways to invigorate your words. Another is as simple as using we and you rather than the cold third person (“please let us know if you hear something” rather than “information gained should be reported to the team.” Try to paint word pictures, to find revealing metaphors, to use tact where necessary. Your aim should be to communicate warmly; to appeal to people’s hearts. To do this successfully requires honesty and a sense that relationships are as important as facts. People need to get a feeling for a course of action, not just an intellectual understanding, or they will not be fully motivated. Above all, choose your words carefully, taking pleasure in the craft of good sentences that are full of energy and, where necessary, inspiration.
