Quote of the week
“Nothing frustrates me more than reading words I don’t need in order to find the words I do need.”
This reaction from a business leader captures a pain point of many executive-level readers. Would any of your readers say something similar about you or your team?
Business writing directly influences perceptions, productivity, and decision-making. Too many words sabotage all three.
Although it’s regarded as a soft skill, business writing has hard-edged implications. Our blog on business writing ROI discusses research showing 10–15% of most people’s writing is redundant. The annual cost of writing and reading unnecessary words is at least $4,000 per employee. Now, isn’t this a problem worth solving?
The key factors that cause people to write too many words are:
1. School and university encourage more words, not fewer
While formal education builds knowledge and critical thinking skills, word counts and page lengths are unfortunately still a key component of assessment rubrics. Remember the times you checked draft assignments to make sure they reached the word limit? And the times you searched for that extra quotation or restated a finding in order to bulk up the words?
School and university essays and other assignments typically follow this structure.
The business-preferred structure truncates and flips the education structure. Most time-poor readers, especially senior executives, need to know the:
If your reader wants more information, provide it. Don’t assume they want the “A to Z”. Overwriting isn’t a sign of scholarship; it’s often a sign of laziness.
If all teachers encouraged school and university graduates to convey their ideas and concepts effectively and succinctly, they would enter the workforce with business-ready writing skills.
2. Covid & REMOTE working foster rapid but sloppy writing
The Guardian UK reported in February 2021 workers in Europe are clocking on for an extra two hours a day at home and facing a bigger workload than before the Covid pandemic hit.
Our clients in other regions are also experiencing longer, busy workdays.
What’s happening in these expanded hours?
More meetings – in person and virtual – and more phone calls. In an earlier blog we reported the explosion in web (Zoom, Teams) meetings and their impact on personal effectiveness and productivity.
People are writing much more. Email and instant messaging volumes are up but content clarity is down. In the past 12 months, we’ve reviewed hundreds of emails in our coaching sessions and we see a clear trend of people writing as they would speak.
People often fire off emails and other written messages immediately after some form of verbal communication. This sometimes causes the writing mind to be stuck in speaking mode. Unnecessary words are frustrating when spoken, but they are annoying and alienating when written.
Competing deadlines and working remotely make it more difficult for managers to give feedback to their team members on poor writing. Too often draft documents are passed upwards for input and approval, changes quickly made, and final versions issued. Too rarely are draft and final versions compared and lessons applied for next time.
3. Task switching thwarts clarity and accuracy
Managing your time effectively is crucial.
In December 2020, University of Connecticut management professor Nora Madjar found many professionals reported being interrupted every three to 11 minutes. Most business emails, according to the research, are opened within six seconds of being received, and employees check their emails up to 36 times an hour.
“Competing demands and interruptions have become a way of life as employees juggle multiple responsibilities, work on multiple teams, and manage many projects,’’ says Professor Madjar.
“When an employee must repeatedly switch his or her focus of attention, this often reduces the time available for deep, quality work. When that worker loses his or her train of thought, it takes time to start over and re-focus on the original task.’’
In our work, we also find people routinely lose focus on the intended outcomes of their written communication. A clear purpose should guide every document from start to finish. Without this, people risk mistakes – writing too much or leaving out essential content.
SIMPle HABITS TO cut the clutter
Training and coaching are the best ways to sharpen your writing skills. These tips will help get you started.
1. Start with the end in mind
Set a clear purpose for everything you write. You can do this with two bulls-eye questions.
What do I want my reader to think, feel and do as a result of this communication?
What’s the essential information needed to help my reader?
Have the answers nearby as you write. We recommend writing them on a Post-it note to ensure you stay on track. You should calibrate every sentence and paragraph against your purpose. It’s also a useful technique when assessing the value of attachments, charts, diagrams and slides.
2. Don’t write as you would speak
Every word costs time to choose, write and read.
Watch out for overworked modifiers. “Very”, “really”, “totally” and other modifiers add little or nothing to the meaning of a sentence.
Be alert to long clauses. Spoken communication might say: “Karen has put together a summary for improved customer engagement.” It reads better as: “Karen has summarised improved customer engagement.” Likewise, “the person leading the operations group was responsible for making this decision” might sound OK, but reads better as “the operations group head decided this”.
3. Read aloud to spot redundant words
It’s the best technique for spotting superfluous and repetitive words. If you rely on your eyes and your internal dialogue to proofread, then you’re likely to overwrite and not spot other errors.
Hearing your words also helps detect:
inappropriate tone
grammar mistakes
missing information
clunky or fuzzy words and phrases.
reader attention is earned not assumed
The volume, velocity and complexity of business communication means every piece of writing – regardless of its length and delivery method – must be audience-centred.
Clear, concise and outcomes-focused messages are the best weapons in the information overload war.
BTW, the business leader quoted at the top of this blog is now a Communicate For Impact client. We’ve trained and coached his team, and he sees across-the-board improvements.
Communicate For Impact can help you and your team develop active writing skills to better connect with senior executives. Contact us here for individual coaching and team workshops.