Distinguish yourself at work : write!

Posted by Tad Johnson - Mar 14th, 2008 at 8:03

In college, I was shocked and dismayed by the range of writing abilities in my classes. Some students could crank out a well structured essay in their sleep; others struggled with basic grammar. Due in large part to the years of top-notch instruction offered at my Minnesota public high school, my skills marked towards the higher end of the spectrum. Assuming the university process would run its course, I didn’t dwell too much on this writing ability disparity–until now.technical_writing-1.jpg

My current employer (a very large, global corporation) is in the process of updating its quality policies and procedures. We’re operating in an FDA-regulated industry, so there’s a strong emphasis on written documentation. Therein lies the irony: by and large, the quality documentation we’re creating is low quality. As an organization, we love tracking schedules and cost, but there’s very little emphasis placed on good quality writing.

Just this week, I read through about 200 pages of documentation and found hundreds of errors. Some are benign–spelling errors, stray punctuation, etc. while others reveal a deeper problem: tenses that change mid paragraph (or mid sentence), adjectives that don’t agree with their nouns, over-use of the passive voice, fragmented and run-on sentences. The very documents that are required (by law) to spell out our quality systems and procedures are written such that they’re extremely hard to understand. This is a problem!

Fortunately, there is a very healthy industry built up around technical writers (mostly English majors who decide to seek a pay check). Unfortunately, my company does not seem to recognize or value the skill of clear writing so we aren’t hiring them.

My takeaway from this experience is a redoubled appreciation for strong writing skills. If you’re still in college (or high school), please take more English classes. If you’re early in your career like me, please take writing seriously. Read books (lots of them!) to study the work of other good writers (no, blogs do not count). Write your emails, documentation, and other correspondence with your favorite English professor in mind. Better yet, write a blog–and practice, practice, practice.

We live in an age of information abundance. Sharing that information through writing is a skill that will only increase in value. Do yourself, your colleagues, and our culture the favor of demanding quality writing from yourself and those around you.

3 Comments »

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  1. If any one lands on this page looking for tips on how to write an essay quickly and well, Ned Lawrence posted a great how-to recently.
    http://nedjlawrence.wordpress.com/2008/03/12/how-to-write-an-essay-in-one-hour/

    Erica Nelson has also posted on writing engaging blogs.
    http://www.ericamnelson.com/html/articles_by_erica.html

    @ thevicenarian. I was recently sent a massive document to read before a meeting. This meeting was important to me and I wanted to make a good impression. But it wasn’t possible to read and digest this massive document in time.

    The people I was meeting with understood all these circumstances. This got me thinking. What did they expect me to do? Fake understanding? Not read it? Not care? Ignore the implied disrespect? Maybe there is a positive reaction I could have had?

    It turned out they thought they had communicated well and opened to ask if I had been well briefed. I replied mildly that I had questions to ask. We spent an hour going over what I could have done on my own, if I had received the documents in time to digest them.

    An hour may not seem like much. Its cost is the hourly rate of the people present, the traveling time to the meeting, what was not accomplished at the meeting, rescheduling the work we should have done, delays to the next part of the work, etc.

    At best, it was expensive and left a bad taste. At worst, it left me wondering whether they are in the habit of not listening to each other and what that might mean to the future of our business together.

    Communication policies are part of the HR system. Good command of language helps. People copy the language habits of people around them.

    Good communication is also about thinking through who needs to know what, when, how and why and embedding that understanding in the day-to-day operations of the company.

    I would hazard a guess that 3 things are happening in your firm:

    a) Communication is poor from top down. People copy their leaders.

    b) People at the top aren’t confident of their language skills. People wisely don’t set goals they cannot achieve.

    c) The firm is not as well coordinated as it might be. If you had the figures, you might find you have higher management costs than your competitors.

    One of the great ironies of the age is that the older generation, who is likely to be at the top, decries the changes in language being prompted by texting, blogging and internet use generally. Yet, younger people communicate more often with a wider range of people and their communication skills might be greater than the skills of people who are much more senior.

    It would be good to hear about the experiences of people who set about communicating better. It would be really good to know whether other people start to copy them!

    Comment by Jo — March 15, 2008 #

  2. This inability to write is not only a business phenomena, it’s prevalent in the religious environment as well. Church leaders seek to communicate to members and reach out to potentials. Yet, the average leader writes in a manner completely ineffective for these purposes.

    The blog listed provides a quick reading of “how-to’s” for both the religious and business world.

    Comment by Di — March 16, 2008 #

  3. This inability to write is not only a business phenomena, it’s prevalent in the religious environment as well. Church leaders seek to communicate to members and reach out to potentials. Yet, the average leader writes in a manner completely ineffective for these purposes.

    http://communicatingchrist.wordpress.com/ provides a quick reading of “how-to’s” for both the religious and business world.

    Comment by Di — March 16, 2008 #

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