Writing Can Make or Break Your Career
Most of us dread writing in some way
Tom LeBlanc glances at his watch and then back at the empty screen
in front of him. The ticking of the wall clock grows louder, and a
siren outside the window makes him lose his train of thought for
the second time. The right words are just beyond his reach.
His mind wanders to the next day''s appointments and to the movie he
is going to see with Elaine that evening. A ringing telephone
brings his attention back to the memo he wants to write. "I''m just
not getting anywhere," he thinks. "I know pretty much what I want
to say, but I can''t get those first words out."
Tom stands, straightens up his desk, and wonders if a cup of coffee
will wake him up. "Maybe I''ll just let it go until tomorrow," he
mutters.
An enormous percentage of the people we work with tell us that they
regularly feel the way this manager does. Whether writing a long
report or a short memo, they find themselves staring at the blank
page or screen more often than they''d care to admit. At those times
the process can seem so overwhelming that many will do anything to
avoid getting started.
Writers get into this trouble because most of them were not taught
an effective, step-by-step approach to writing. They were often
told, with bright red pen, what they were doing wrong, but few
teachers ever said, "Write this way!"
Convenient distractions
In the office there are many distractions: the phone rings, an
associate drops by, or there''s e-mail to check. Here is a list of
obstacles to writing mentioned by participants in a
Better Communicationsr business-writing workshop:
-I need to clean my desk before I can start writing.
-I can''t find the time to do my job and write this proposal,
too.
-My manager called a special meeting.
-No matter what I write, it will be ripped to shreds.
-I don''t understand why they want me to put this in writing.
-I need to check my messages first.
For those who dread beginning or who are embarrassed about their
skills, almost any other activity will win out over writing.
Our mass-media society sabotages good writing skills
These days it''s easy to communicate with a minimum of writing. The
Internet gives us business information, news, and entertainment.
Family, friends, and business associates are a phone call away.
E-mail barely counts as writing anymore-much to the detriment of
clear communication. People read dramatically fewer books than they
did 50 years ago, and it shows. As we read less fiction or
nonfiction, we are becoming far less comfortable with the written
word.
No wonder many people say that writing is the part of their job
they like the least. In fact, most of them would probably be happy
to see other methods of communication replace writing
completely.
Today''s biggest writing challenges
Our clients tell us that they are faced with several challenges
that they are aware of. After listing these, we''ll add a couple
they may not be aware of.
No time
The first and most daunting task most businesspeople climbing the
corporate ladder experience is the need to write twice as quickly
as perhaps five years ago. In a company that has experienced
downsizing, these people must be able to do a job that two or three
did in the past. If they are slowed down by their writing
responsibilities, their daily success and possibly their careers
will suffer.
The good news: This book has a solution that works for improving
writing efficiency. At Better Communications we measure the writing
productivity of over 4,000 graduates each year-and all report
writing 30 to 50 percent faster after taking one of our
workshops!
Writer''s block
The inability to get started can have many causes: not knowing who
your readers are or how to approach them, lacking a clear vision of
where you want to go with your message, negative past experiences
that shook your confidence.
The good news: There are many more causes of writer''s block, but
our strategies will help you overcome them all. According to our
graduates, even years after one of our workshops, their start-up
speed keeps improving.
Constant interruptions
It''s frequently impossible even to reply to an e-mail without three
phone calls and two drop-ins slowing you down. This, on top of the
two challenges we have already discussed, can grind you to a
halt.
The good news: This book offers several step-by-step processes that
can guide you through writing any type of document, from the
simplest e-mail to the most complex of presentations. If you are
interrupted in Step 3, it''s all right. You can go back anytime,
finish that step, and move on to Step 4. You always know where you
are in the writing process and what to do next.
It''s Hard to persuade and influence
There are specific techniques for convincing readers that your
ideas are the right ones. Some are simple-good for quick e-mails,
for example. Others guide you through the process of constructing
persuasive arguments built on inductive logic. These arguments can
be inserted into more than one type of document.
The good news: You can find strategies for influence and persuasion
in this book.
Building your professional image-and your career
There are two challenges of which corporate writers are often
blissfully unaware. The first is professional image, how you are
perceived by your managers and peers. We are constantly surprised
at how many corporate writers, especially emerging ones, don''t
understand that their casual "instant messaging" approach to
business e-mail is doing them a grave disservice. They just don''t
believe that taking the time to write a professional-sounding
e-mail makes a difference. Managers, however, are constantly
telling us that they judge others negatively for this failure.
Indeed, managers doubt other aspects of their coworkers'' skills
when they receive careless, error-filled e-mail.
Second, if you work in a large company and are known only on
e-mail, you face the challenge of how to differentiate yourself and
advance your career. With the ever-greater use of phone and
Internet conferencing, many meeting participants have never met one
another. Do you judge others a bit harshly if they send you a messy
e-mail riddled with errors? Are you sure that yours don''t look the
same? Do you take the time to use spell check and grammar
check?
The good news: "Energize Your E-mail" in Part 4 will help you avoid
these all-too-common errors. Part 5 focuses on the rigors of
editing and lets you quiz yourself to see how much you already
know.
Writing skills will always be vital to business
success
Most businesspeople we meet are not happy with their writing
skills. On top of this, they spend hours reading and replying to
ever more e-mails a day. They must make decisions about graphics
and page layout-tasks that are alien to most. No matter how
technological the workplace may become, real power will still have
its source in the written word.
Good writing skills are in demand by employers. Skill in writing
correlates highly with the ability to think well-to analyze
information, weigh alternatives, and make decisions. Writing
ability is also one of the core competencies necessary to climb the
corporate ladder. Our experience consulting with executives
verifies that, these days, no one gets to the top without being
able to write well.
Why business documents fail
No matter what the topic, most of the writing we coaches and
editors see suffers from one major flaw: it is written more from
the writer''s point of view than from an angle that will appeal to
the reader. One of the greatest challenges to writers is to get
outside of their personal interests to present their ideas in a way
that will answer every reader''s four biggest questions:
1.What''s this about?
2.Why should I read this?
3.What''s in this for me?
4.What am I being asked to do?
We will be explaining more about reader-centered writing and how to
achieve it as we go through "Six Steps to Reader-Centered
Writingr," "Writing Presentation Documents”," "Challenges of
Persuasion," and "Action Through Words." You''ll see how the
reader-centered approach will make your writing more persuasive and
help you achieve the results you want.
Why use a process?
How do efficient writers write? Some seem to have a natural flair,
while others develop the skill through practice. Most of the
participants in our writing workshops confirm that their writing
improves when they begin to look at it as a manageable process,
rather than as an irritating chore. How can you make this shift in
attitude? By breaking the writing task into its components.
The different steps we offer for various types of documents make
efficient writing easy to learn. Using a systematic approach, you
can always pick up where you left off in the process, even after an
unexpected interruption. This is an especially important skill if
you''re working on more than one document at a time.
A writing process benefits the writer in surprising
ways
One manager wrote a long document developing an idea for a new
business direction. As he worked his way through the writing
process, he changed his mind about the value of pursuing the new
approach and actually recommended aborting the project. "The
writing process helped me see the facts more objectively," he told
us. Because he had been so emotionally tied to his great idea, he
wasn''t able to think it through clearly until he systematically
approached the task of writing it down.
Writing is thought on paper, a tool for creating and organizing
ideas. When writers transfer random ideas from the brain to paper,
they begin to understand their own thoughts better. As they
continue the process and develop a ...
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