By Josh Bernoff
Bad business writing reflects poorly on the writer and confuses the reader. By contrast, good writing expresses coherent leadership and boosts productivity. Consider:
- Vague writing dilutes leadership. Yahoo! has suffered from unfocused management for a decade. Now CEO Marissa Mayer has agreed to sell the company to Verizon. In one paragraph from her e-mail message to staff about the sale, she used “incredible” or “incredibly” four times.
Compare that excess with Apple CEO Tim Cook’s crisp, jargon-free defense of the company’s decision earlier this year not to crack the encryption on a terrorist’s iPhone.
Managers from the CEO on down must set an example by communicating exactly what they want in the first two sentences of everything they write.
- Clarity in marketing tells customers—and workers—that they can trust you. Are your marketing materials and news releases filled with industry jargon and meaningless superlatives?
Here’s what Google writes about how it treats customers:
“Focus on the user and all else will follow. Since the beginning,
we’ve focused on providing the best user experience possible. Whether we’re designing a new Internet browser or a new tweak to the look of the homepage, we take great care to ensure that they will ultimately serve you, rather than our own internal goal or bottom line.”
Every customer can understand that, and it rings true. It inspires employees, as well.
- Fuzzy writing allows fuzzy thinking. Good writing uses well-organized, active-voice sentences to explain what’s happening, what ought to happen and what people need to do. Conversely, inexact and passive language reflects gaps in thinking.
Encouraging direct, active language has two benefits: It forces writers to think through what they really mean and the arguments that support it. And it makes smart people stand out.
- A culture of good writing makes managers more productive. Senior managers should lead the change to a corporate culture that prizes brevity, clarity and directness. Thus, everyone in the organization—especially management—can become more productive.
Josh Bernoff is the coauthor of Groundswell.