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Communication | Clever with Words ...Clever with WordsTotal Word Count: 1034 Author Rating: NA  Rate this article
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Make your communication more compelling - value writing as a skill and see the difference that it will make to your business.
Clever with words Jamie Jauncey, co-author of Room 121 Why is it that businesses don’t value writing as a skill? It’s something practically everyone has to do at work, an essential strand in that web of human communications that make the business world go round. Yet writing is considered to be a given, a natural product of education, a life skill that everyone arrives with on their first day at work and so needs no further attention. Yet if there really is a given, it’s only that the majority of people in employment are functionally literate. Beyond that it’s all up for grabs. An education doesn’t make you a good writer any more than it makes you good at management, marketing, finance, operations, development, customer service or anything else you do. You need to be trained to do those things, yet whichever of them it is, fifty percent of the job is likely to involve communicating with other people. And a good percentage of that will involve writing, even if it’s only emails – but no one thinks to train you in writing. Actually, the big issue here is not so much the words as the thoughts. Writing is always the product of thinking. Good writing is always the result of good thinking. The converse is also true. So when you read a piece of typically flabby, dull, convoluted business writing, you’re being offered a window into the mind of the writer. Is that really how they’re thinking? And if it is, how well are they doing their job? People in business naturally like to learn from the best in their field, whatever the subject. Yet this is a lesson they don’t seem to have learnt when it comes to writing. In our new book, Room 121: a masterclass in writing and communication in business, John Simmons and I argue that business has everything to learn from the people who write best – be they poets, novelists, playwrights, screen writers, journalists, biographers. These are the people who do it for a living and their craft, the skill they bring to that job, is absolutely relevant to the world of business. The advertising guru David Ogilvy once said words to the effect that those who rose furthest in his company, Ogilvy & Mather, were those who wrote best (because they were the clearest thinkers). And they certainly weren’t all copywriters. In our book we cite the US TV drama The West Wing as one example of ‘creative’ writing that does everything good business writing ought to do. It takes complex subjects, often with subtle underlying messages, and puts them across simply and engagingly, in ways that everyone can understand, without losing any of their power. What business doesn’t want to be able to do that with its brand messages or shareholder information – or, no less importantly, its employee communications? Communication is such a vital part of most businesses these days that they really can’t afford not to take writing seriously. There’s a double benefit if they do. It forces them to sharpen the underlying thinking – what are we really about, what do we stand for, where are we going? And it then enables them to communicate those messages to customers, associates, suppliers, staff, stakeholders in a much more compelling way. What follows naturally is more sales, stronger brand loyalty, more engaged staff, more supportive shareholders – all from paying attention to the words. For more information about the authors and the book, visit room121book.co.uk or business-bookshop.co.uk. ArticleSource: ArticlesAlley.com
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