Writing And Communicating

It's not easy writing a column or newsletter. The problem isn't trying to come up with something to write about, though writer's block is common among many writers. Personally, my problem is that sometimes I'm a great communicator; sometimes I'm not. Most of the time I use the same language in all situations, but I've always been able to change what I'm saying based on the audience I happen to be speaking to. I don't write the same way I talk all the time; if I did I'm not sure that all audiences would be able to follow what I was saying.

If you're not afraid to talk to people, face to face communications are always the easiest. You can see the person's body language; you can see their face; you can change the inflection of your voice; you can sometimes use graphics; you can gesticulate. Everything you can do, the person you're talking to can do also. Being easier doesn't necessarily mean you're always effective. I have seen many CEOs of companies who have turned out to be the worst communicators, even if they have the best vision. I'm of the opinion that more businesses fail because there's a breakdown in communication somewhere along the line, and most of the time it's between the most immediate levels of employment. And if those levels are breaking down then there's no way that upper management would ever be able to get their ideas across to all employees.

When you're using writing skills to communicate with others, you're using the hardest medium to get your message across. If you remember, my last newsletter was talking about hands off managers. I received a few responses back commenting on trying to work with people like that and their responses to working with those types of people. However, I also received one response that had nothing to do with the topic at hand. Rather, the comment was on the little story I began the conversation with, my interaction with another consultant. What made this person comment on that part was because she had an experience in her past that had led her to a point of view she wished to convey to me, even though it caught me off guard because it wasn't what I was talking about. It reminded me that you never know how your words will impact someone else's thoughts, because you often have no idea where their minds are when they're reading what you wrote. In this particular circumstance I knew I had to quickly respond while the article was still fresh in her mind to try to make sure see understood the rest of what I'd written; lucky for me, she had.

Below are 10 quick points to try to consider when you're writing something for others to read:

1. Use proper English. Not all of us are perfect at grammar; I'm certainly not. However, I also don't use phrases like "these ones" and "don't got" when I write. Every once in awhile we all miss inserting a word here or there because we think faster than we write. But if you want to make sure you're communicating in the best possible way you'll find that writing as proper as you can will help to make whatever you write more easily understood.


2. Don't use abbreviations that aren't generic to your business. In today's chat room environment there are many shortcut abbreviations that people use to get their points across quickly ("brb", "lol", "ty", and "wb" are some examples). For most of you, it wouldn't mean anything if I wrote EOB when I was talking about an explanation of benefits, which of course is what you receive from your insurance company when they pay a medical bill for you. If you're trying to communicate and people have to keep asking you what something means, you're wasting time.


3. Get to the point as quickly as you can. If you're not writing a story or a newsletter, something where you can get away with a little bit of artistic license, it doesn't do you any good to throw in a lot of extra information when it doesn't have anything to do with the point you're trying to make.


4. Don't write too little. Though it may seem to counter what I wrote for #3, it does no such thing. If you're writing a new procedure that you want people to follow and they don't have any knowledge already of what you're talking about they're going to fail, and you'll have failed them. If you have an idea of something you want to implement and don't explain to people why you want to implement something, they may be confused as to your reasons and your plan may fail because they haven't bought into it. Sometimes you have to go the extra step; people won't follow you just because you say something most of the time.


5. Try to avoid using language that can take on more than one meaning. The rise of email is a blessing and a curse at the same time. Based on the moment you're writing something and how you write it, and based on the mood of the person you're writing to at the time, your words can come across as either praise, instruction, or criticism. As eloquent as I wish I was, there have been times in my past when someone has misinterpreted something I wrote as being negative. I now make sure to add as many niceties as I can when I write to people who don't know me personally all that well to try to avoid any misunderstandings of that nature. They may not understand my point even now at times, but it's rare that anyone thinks I'm demeaning to them in an email these days.


6. Write for the audience you're talking to. If you're writing something for your employees to understand make sure you don't use a lot of words they may not be familiar with. If you're writing for your peers don't write as though you're talking down to them. When you have the luxury of knowing who your direct audience is, you need to make sure you're targeting that group. If you're trying to look scholarly, every once in awhile you can throw in a sesquipedalian type word (that wasn't nice, was it?). And if you don't know each and every person you're writing to, just do the best you can; don't worry about being perfect.


7. Capitalization and punctuation! Every time you start a new sentence the first word is supposed to be capitalized. If you have an extremely long sentence try throwing in a comma every once in awhile. Colons, semi-colons, quotation marks, dashes, dots,… break up the monotony every once in awhile. I don't know if they still teach this in schools, but I was taught that if you were speaking the sentence you're writing and needed to take a pause, that's a good place for a comma. Names, places, organizations,… capitalize.


8. Spelling. This one is crucial, but it's as bad as #7. Typos are one thing, but it's a bad thing if almost every other word is misspelled. It gets worse if your misspelling actually ends up being an actual word. There's a world of difference between dessert and desert, hate and hat. There's also a world of difference between "there", "their", and "they're".


9. Reread what you write. You may be able to immediately look at something as you're writing and notice errors. Sometimes you may have to step away for a few minutes, then go back to look at what you wrote. It's been proven that human minds have the capacity to insert words and images where something is missing because you know what's supposed to go there. However, your audience may not. We all make mistakes, but they can be minimized if you take the time to look at what you wrote one more time.


10. Keep it as simple as possible. Unless you're trying to show off or you're writing a scholarly tome, you don't do yourself any favors by trying to look educated if you're writing to a crowd that has no idea what you're saying. Also, if you're not comfortable with some of the words you might be trying to use, you'll avoid putting yourself in a bad light by using words in an incorrect manner. Taking everything else into account from above, your main objective should always be to get across what you're trying to say. If it takes a lot of words, use a lot of words; if it takes fewer words use fewer words. But use words that are most appropriate to your topic whenever you can.

Oh, one final thing. "Sesquipedalian" means the use of large words; literally, it means "foot and a half long" words. Just thought I'd share.



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