Don’t write like you’re still at university
Your writing affects C-suite efficiency. Be concise, well-structured, and audience-centred. This enables busy, time-poor executives to understand and use information quickly.
Remember, your reader’s time is more important than yours.
Get the attention of C-suiters with these methods:
writing in active voice
crafting action-oriented headings and subject lines
cutting redundant words.
This blog helps you adopt a more active writing style. Look at subsequent blogs for our tips on the other essentials for writing to senior executives.
University writing doesn’t translate well to the workplace
Most people recall assignments requiring them to reach a word count. Copious information outranked brevity, and long sentences trumped bullet points.
Academic writing is passive and never about getting to the point quickly. Instead, it provides supporting detail, discusses relevance and neutralises perspective. Too often, graduates replicate this dispassionate reporting of the past in their business writing.
So, what’s the impact of this on your communication with senior executives?
We regularly audit the writing of recent graduates and others in the workplace. Their style often sets them up to fail because it’s passive, hard to skim, lacks clear advice, and is too long.
Active sentences work best
They are more succinct and easier to understand. Active voice creates a sense of immediacy, improves your writing pace, and portrays confidence.
Voice is the characteristic of a verb (a doing word) that tells us where the subject of the verb is performing the action of the verb (active voice) or where the subject is acted upon (passive voice).
See for yourself which sentence is easier to read.
Original:
The CAPEX reporting guidelines have been updated by the finance team.
Rewrite:
The finance team updated the CAPEX reporting guidelines.
Tips for making sentences active
Look for the word “by”, which usually indicates a passive sentence. The subject of the sentence will appear after “by”.
Move the subject to the start of the sentence. Delete “by” and other unnecessary words.
Place the verb immediately after the subject, and then the object after the verb.
Forms of the verb “to be” create passive sentences. These include: was, is, am, are, have been, has, will be, being, and will have been.
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.