Phrases to avoid

  • Managmenet cliche
    • think outside the box
    • low hanging fruit…
  • jargon, fancy words, and acronyms.
    • Even if only 10% of audience don’t know them, don’t use it
  • Sign of making massive assumptions/curse of knowledge
    • Of course
    • as you seen, you will have seen,
  • Meaningless words
    • think, feel, believe,
    • just, sort of, extremely, absolutely
    • “My name is”, “i am writing to tell you that”
    • to the degree that, in the case of, in nature, of the fact that
  • Turn -ion, -ment, -ing, -ance into verb
    • Please submit your application - please apply
    • here is the report for approval - please approve this report
  • Avoid FYI messages.
    • If there is no action needed, most likely it is not important and no need to send it. Frame it into AIs

Clear & Concise

  • When assigning, be clear on AI, assign DRI, no “teams”, “someone”, or cc everyone
  • Active voice + strong verb means taking responsibility. This is difficult but increases credibility and builds trust, and vice versa
  • Use passive you want to move on and don’t want to point fingers
  • If there is no time to write it short and concise, then don’t bother wasting your effort
  • Remove same sentence and words multiple times in the paragraph
  • There is always more you could say, cut them down to what you should say, and finally to what you must say just to one message. one acts as a foundation for another

Email

  • Summarize the purpose of the email,e.g., including key deadlines, [action required] is ok. Ok to label the most important issues. Expand immediately after the subject line. AIs in simple sentences.
    • ACTION by Friday 1pm: healthcare speech
  • Smoothing over conflicts is for face-to-face. Harder to say no when in face to face. Email is the lowest cue so harder for reader to digest

Mindset

  • Mirroring: reflect your audience preference of communication
  • Readers implicitly have more expectation with written communication
  • Think hard about the goal/what you want from your writing, have an outcome objective and work backwards.
  • Peronsal connection - not as systems, focus on the impact on the readers. Work hard to ground the reality. What would actually mean the reader? Talk about people, and give reader a picture of what is happening
  • good writings come from editing and rewriting. Writing block is the fear of writing it bad. Embrace it
  • better clear rather than brief when you have to make a trade off
  • Main types of business writing
    • Informative. “As a result of this message, I want my audience to know X “
    • Persuasive
    • Negative/Show goodwill

Persuade

  • Starting with the word “you” sets the tone that the message is important to the user
  • So what?
    • Use tension. Show the audience where they could be now and where they could be - a user story
    • Justify solution.
    • Frame your proposal with “you view” From the audience with the you view “You will get this if we do that” instead of “I need this because…”. Show the bleak reality and show them what it could be if they follow your advice
  • Be direct with requests. Conditional phrasing will water down the message.
  • Reader’s attention is valuable and finite. Attention getter at the beginning + audiences remember last
  • build evidence
    • credibility - different from showing off
      • What you feel creditible may not be so to others
      • What my reputation? How much people know me?
      • How much background information we need
      • credentials we could use
      • Speaking the language we use
      • Quote is a way to borrow credibility
    • logic
      • aside from data, stats, use metaphors and comparable examples
    • emotion
      • Stories is order of magnitude more effective than facts
      • Fact is only 50% of persuasion. Emotional appeals - use anecdotes when possible, personal story is the best.
  • anticipating readers’ questions and answer them with facts and emotional appeals

Process

  • Starting with body, because beginning and end of the message are the hardest. Quantity over quality
  • Use writing to clarify the thought means that the document is confusing in structure and message. Need an extensive edit
  • Re-read your entire text. Re-read both questions and answers. If it is awkawrd to read aloud, then the text requires revision
    • have ear plug may help reduce embarassment
  • 25% planning, 25% producing, 50% polishing, but it is not a linear or waterfall model
  • Polishing: Think, revise (on the global issues, 45% of time), proofreading (5%, local issues). Works backwords from deadline

Structure

  • First sentence should contain a summary of the message and the action you want readers to take. It should be self-contained for the user to make a preliminary decision.
    • You have 30 secs to deliver the message, so try to reduce background because the reader can get back to you for more info. Leave background and details to the back
  • Order by the decreasing importance. Don’t build up to the most important part.
  • Summary should be <= 5 sentences. Main point + all AIs. Repeating info from summary section is OK, reinforces the impression.
  • Focus each paragraph on 1 main idea, can be only 1 line.
    • 8 lines or less or each paragraph
    • 1 topic sentence + 2-4 other sentences
    • Add a new line between paragraphs
  • Avg 15-20 words per sentence
  • 1-pager doesn’t need intro or conclusion.