Confident Writing

The 5 P's Of Powerful Business Writing: Audio Writing Tips

This month's podcast (5 mins) explores powerful writing within the context of business writing, looking at 5 P's that will help you to write with power, authority and confidence.

The 5 P's of Powerful Business Writing

Purpose: Know what your writing and business purpose is and focus on that as you write.  Your writing will take on a different quality as a result

Passion: We don't often associate passion with jargon filled business writing, but if you focus on what matters to you about the business you're in, the ideas you want to express, the way you want your clients or colleagues to feel, the difference you want to make - that will help to bring your writing to life, to give it more power

Plain English: Chose the plain, simple words and you'll make it easier for others to follow.  Plain English doesn't clutter up or disguise: it provides you with the tools to communicate with clarity, to let the power of your message shine through

Presence: Concentrate on what you're writing and why, on your writing purpose, on the difference you want to make and your readers will feel you present in your words. (Compare that with the machine like quality of so much business writing.)

Personality: Bring something of yourself to your words and writing - tying back in to your writing purpose, the passion you feel for your subject, your (personal) choice of plain words, and your choice to be fully present in your writing.  People will notice the difference and your writing will be more powerful as a result.

As I was recording this I thought of another two: product (taking good care to finish and polish your writing) and pride (in your message, in a well-edited piece of work) but I'm sure there are more.  What other P's can you think of that contribute to powerful business writing?

Postscript: I need to add another P here, a postscript pointer to Karen Swim's series on The Essential P's of Business.  Karen, I did write and record this post and podcast at the weekend before your series started, and I was loath to record another... Hope you don't mind!  Maybe it just goes to show how much we think on the same lines?

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You can listen to the podcast by clicking the play button on the radio box, following this link or going to my gcast page.  You don't need to download to play it - if you click here the piece should start to play by itself (how quickly it starts will depend on the speed of your connection).

Linked posts:

The Ingredients of A Credible Writing Style

5 Ways To Stop Your Words Being Wasted At Work (+podcast)

5 Ways To Put Some Heart Into Your Business Writing (+podcast)

Sidenote: This is the first podcast I've recorded for a little while, though I have been posting other audio material through VoiceThread.  Once a week seems like too frequent a schedule for me to maintain, so I'm shifting to one podcast a month, based on the theme of the month, and with a business writing focus.  (This will tie in with another project I'm working on too.)  This should allow me to keep creating the material to a regular schedule without feeling over-whelmed by the weekly slot.

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Business Writing With Confidence: 6 week e-course with coaching and writing tips to help you write with authenticity, brevity, clarity and confidence at work.  Find out more here

Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count

Leap Before You Write That Letter Of Apology – Guest Post By Brad Shorr

A while back I ran a post offering some technical tips on writing letters of apology.

Technical tips are all well and good, but Joanna’s February focus on taking the leap got me thinking.

Writing a good business apology really does require a few psychological leaps.  Make those leaps successfully, and the words in your letter will quickly fall into place.

# 1 Take the leap and admit you made a mistake

Few of us like to admit a mistake to ourselves, let alone in writing to a customer or business partner. Business is competitive. We don’t like to lose. We don’t like to admit weakness. But have you ever heard a politician or famous sports figure make a public apology that didn’t sound like an apology at all?

How did it make you feel? Resentful? Frustrated? Aggravated?

That’s exactly how a customer will feel if he or she reads a letter of apology that doesn’t apologize. (Let me add that it is not wise to accept responsibility for a mistake that was not yours. That, as my earlier post explains, can lead to trouble.)

#2 Take the leap and explain what happened

People are more likely to accept an apology when they understand why the problem or breakdown occurred.

Yet companies are reluctant to offer details, not only because they are fearful of being viewed as disorganized, inattentive, or incompetent, but because they are uncomfortable revealing the inner workings of their processes and procedures. Get past it. The more transparent you are, the more forgiving customers will be.

# 3 Take the leap and ask for forgiveness

I wish I could say it’s enough to admit a mistake and explain how it happened, but it wouldn’t be true.

Just as sales people must ask for order in orders to receive them, you must ask for forgiveness in order to receive it. It’s a hard thing to do, to ask for forgiveness. But I do believe that in business, as in life, ask and you shall receive.

# 4 Take the leap and give freely

Companies typically offer customers a discount or some other form of consideration to make up for an error – this is good.

However, if the company slips out of apology mode and into negotiation mode in the process – this is bad. Making a gesture of apology in exchange for another order is not much of a gesture, and could have the opposite effect of what is intended.

# 5 Take the leap and do make changes that prevent it from happening again

In many organizations, “change” is a four letter word. But mistakes offer an opportunity for improvement, so embrace them.

Remember – those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. Problems apologized for but left uncorrected will be repeated as well, perhaps until they drive customers into the arms of a competitor.

Don’t let it happen to you! Customers are too hard to find these days.

How do you get ready to write a letter of apology?  And how do you feel when you get a letter from a business that didn’t make the leap?

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Let me introduce you to Brad - although I think a lot of you will know him.

Brad Shorr is a sales and marketing consultant who lives near Chicago, Illinois. His company, Word Sell, Inc., provides strategic consulting, sales training and coaching, and business blog and other online marketing services.  His blog explores issues of interest to small and mid-size business - sometimes quite seriously, but often with a touch of humor. 

Brad's also a long-standing reader, commenter, supporter and friend of Confident Writing - and now the first person to guest write here twice!  His first post was on 9 Steps to Clear Business Writing.

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Business Writing With Confidence: 6 week e-course with coaching and writing tips to help you write with authenticity, brevity, clarity and confidence at work.  Find out more here

Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count

5 Ways To Put Some Heart Into Your Business Writing

Can you see a place for more heart in your business writing?

It's okay, I haven't gone crazy. Although this week's podcast (3 mins 42 secs) is inspired by Valentine's Day and the inevitability of writing something with a heart-shaped theme, I'm not talking slushy fluffy writing here, throwing in a dose of sentimentality or even wearing your heart on your sleeve. 

I'm talking about things you can do in order to:

• Establish a powerful sense of connection
• Create rapport with your readers (employees, colleagues, peers, managers, customers, clients)
• Make your experience of writing at work more enjoyable

I've come up with 5 H.E.A.R.T. shaped ways you can warm up your writing by being:

Human Write as a human being, not a manager, business owner or employee - it'll help you to soften your writing, make you sound more approachable and engaging

Everyday Try and find the plainest, most everyday words for the thing that you're writing about.  It'll help you to connect to the widest number of people - and make you a real master of your subject (most people don't ever bother to do this)

Attentive Focus on the point of the particular piece of writing you're doing.  In an information overloaded world it's easy to be slapdash - but worth spending the time getting clear on who you're writing for and why.  Think about what your readers want to know, what difference your words can make

Real Look for ways to ground your business-speak -in your own experience, in the specifics of what needs to be said and done, in ordinary language that will connect, easily, with your reader

True We can write from a powerful place when we write what we know, believe, feel to be true.  It's easy then for our words to be heart-felt.  If you're noticing a gap between what you're writing and what you hold as true - you'll feel it, you'll be uncomfortable writing at work, and your words won't ring true.  Look to see how you can align what you're writing with your personal and business values, the purpose and intention that drives and supports your work

Do you think there's a place for heart in business writing?  Do you have any tips and suggestions for ways to make it so?

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You can listen to the podcast by following this link or going to my gcast page.

Related posts:

Word Power At Work: Fighting The Zombies (+podcast)

Create A Connection At Work: Writing With 'Ohana

+ an archive of business writing tips to explore

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Business Writing With Confidence: 6 week e-course with coaching and writing tips to help you write with authenticity, brevity, clarity and confidence at work.  Find out more here

Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count

Are these 5 grammar mistakes costing you business?

I've got some confessions to make.

I'm not a fully paid up member of the grammar police.  This might surprise you, coming from a writing coach, but I'm just not one of those people who gets hung up on the detail of grammar points, who piles in to pick holes in a post on grammar to prove my superior knowledge or who goes on about grammar points here.  It's just not me.  I'm a lot more interested in what you've got to say and the person that I hear talking when you write.

However - and I guess you knew there was a however coming - things change when I'm reading with a customer's eyes.  When I'm looking at your material for the first time and I stumble over grammar mistakes it affects the way that I view your business.  It alters the way that I think about you and the kind of service that you might be able to offer me.  And if I'm reading a website that's littered with fundamental grammatical mistakes - well chances are I'll hotfoot straight out of there and take my business elsewhere.

I'm not as pernickety as some.  I can let a lot of grammar points and spelling mistakes wash over me.  I am generally a mellow, forgiving kind of person and I do try to give people the benefit of the doubt.  There are 5 basic grammar mistakes though that are a definite no-no for me.  They have no place in business writing and should have no place on the static pages of your website.

My 5 worst offenders in business writing are:

• Confusing it's and its
• Confusing they're, their and there
• Confusing your and you're
• Using apostrophes to try and create a plural
• Forgetting to use apostrophes to show possession

I know, I know that these are easy mistakes to make because they sound the same.  I know that you probably can't see the mistakes in your text (if you could, I'm assuming you wouldn't leave them there).  And I know that it probably doesn't seem that big a deal to you.

The thing is, it's not you that's reading your promotional material for the first time.  It's not you that's thinking about whether or not to fork out on your service.  It's not you who's trying to figure out what you're like as a company by reading your website.  It's your customers.  And if any of them are anything like me - you might just be losing their business.

It doesn't need to be like this.  You don't have to master every rule of grammar to fix these gremlins.  There are simple things you can do.  Get yourself a plain English guide to business writing.  Get a colleague to check your promotional material - including your static web pages.  Ask me for help.  I can  help you spot the grammatical errors that you can't see, give you tips on how to tackle the recurring (and most damning) errors, and get them off your pages before the next grumpy customer like me happens upon them - and walks away.

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Enjoyed this post?  Subscribe to the Confident Writing feed for future updates or explore these related articles on grammar tips:

How to use apostrophes
How to write without a spellchecker

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Business Writing With Confidence: 6 week e-course with coaching and writing tips to help you write with authenticity, brevity, clarity and confidence at work.  Find out more here

Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count

9 Steps to Clear Business Writing: by Brad Shorr

The ability to communicate clearly is always important, but when it comes to business writing, clarity reigns supreme. In business, words drive decisions and action. Write clearly, and you help colleagues and customers make the right decisions. Write haphazardly, and you lay the groundwork for mistakes and confusion. Since most companies prefer profits to problems, make every effort to turn clarity into your standout writing skill. Here are my nine clarity tips - I hope they help.

1. Say what you mean. Don't beat around the bush when you deliver bad news - out with it! When announcing a price increase, don't say, "Due to a sustained imbalance in raw material availability, we find it necessary to notify you of a 5% price adjustment." Among other things, the writer of such a sentence assumes customers will infer that a 5% adjustment means a 5% increase. Well, customers may or may not infer correctly, but either way they won't enjoy wasting time decoding your message. Don't be afraid to say "price increase" - not saying it won't make it go away.
2. Use facts and be precise. Staying with the example above, we can make the announcement much clearer by simply saying, "Because of rising raw material costs, we are forced to announce a 5% price increase."  But perhaps this is too simple. A few facts and a bit more clarification will give  customers all the information they need to fully comprehend your meaning. Let's try this. "Because the cost of our largest raw material component, steel, has risen 14% since January, 2007, we must increase your price 5%, effective with orders placed January 1, 2008." In business, facts make decisions easier to accept, and more pleasant to debate.
3. State your purpose right away. Did you ever read an e-mail or a business article and get four paragraphs into it before getting your first clue as to its purpose?  If you have memories of such an experience, I'll wager they are not fond. Business correspondence is not a mystery novel. The business reader does not curl up in a chair by the fireplace, savoring every word in eager anticipation of your thrilling conclusion. Let readers know right off the bat what your purpose is, and why they should care.
4. Have a purpose. In sales, everybody talks about customer "touches". Reaching out to customers is indeed praiseworthy, but it needs to consist of more than an e-mail saying, "Hi Jan. Haven't talked to you in awhile. Just wanted to let you know I'm still here." Give your customer a link to a relevant blog post. Offer a piece of industry insight. Talk about a new product or service.  Irrelevant touches grow annoying. Relevant touches grow valuable.
5. Avoid jargon. We tend to get so wrapped up in our specialty we forget that people at large neither know nor want to know our lingo. What's clear inside the corporate box might be incomprehensible outside. For example ... When I was in packaging, I would find myself slipping into sentences such as, "Because this tape has a 3.0 mil, biaxially-oriented polypropylene backing, it's tensile and transverse directional strength are vastly superior to the competition." What I should have said was, "For all practical purposes, this tape is indestructible." You can never go wrong writing in plain English. 
6. Follow the rules of grammar. Am I stating the obvious? Perhaps, but it's equally obvious that poor grammar plagues business writing, rendering it vague, confusing, or flat out meaningless. If you're a business leader, I encourage you to offer the staff basic training in grammar and style. Every writing workshop I've conducted has been well received. Whereas employees sometimes resent being "trained", they unabashedly acknowledge weak writing skills and are eager to improve them. Self improvement? Many excellent writing blogs are at our fingertips. My favorites include Copyblogger, Away With Words, Bad Language, Manage Your Writing, and of course, Confident Writing. What are some of yours?
7. Use a sounding board. Have someone you trust read your composition before you hit "Send". Often, we don't see the forest for the trees. We think we've written clearly, but we've missed a few steps or jumped to a conclusion. My sounding boards have spared me many an embarrassing moment.
8. Be brief. Shakespeare said, "Brevity is the soul of wit." Blaise Pascal said, "I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter." Brad says, "When in doubt, leave it out." Chipping away the excess makes your point as clear and memorable as an ice sculpture.
   
9. Mean what you say. Exaggeration, idle threats, and intentional misrepresentation have no place in business writing. Ultimately, credibility and trust are what make colleagues and customers pay attention to your words.

My list is by no means exhaustive, which is a wonderful thing. What makes writing fascinating to me is that one can always learn more, a fact which explains the popularity and importance of blogs like Joanna's. What has experience taught you about clarity in business writing?

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Brad Shorr is a sales and marketing consultant who lives near Chicago, Illinois. His company, Word Sell, Inc., provides strategic consulting, sales training and coaching, and business blog and other online marketing services.

His blog explores issues of interest to small and mid-size business - sometimes quite seriously, but often with a touch of humor.  Brad is a voracious reader, a blogger since 2005, a sometimes cartoon writer, and one who dislikes writing about himself in the third person. He is a regular reader of Confident Writing

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Business Writing With Confidence: 6 week e-course with coaching and writing tips to help you write with authenticity, brevity, clarity and confidence at work.  Find out more here

Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count

5 ways to stop your words being wasted at work (audio show)

I've been thinking about ways to cut the waste in our words, and the environmental management theme has spilled over into this week's podcast.  It's on

cutting the clutter: 5 ways to stop your words being wasted at work.

It's based on the idea that writing is a product and that there are things we can do the process to reduce the waste in the end result.  Things like:

• A commitment to produce something of value - and getting clear what that is before you start
• The shelf-life for your product (words) - will it be past its sell-by date before the ink's even dried?
• Cutting the waste - watching for excess words before, during and after the writing process
• Watch your packaging - we all hate surplus packaging on products so why bubble-wrap our words?
• Think about your footprint - like it or not, our (digital) words won't go away so make sure what you're writing has some lasting value

It's 4 mins 34 seconds long - even at that I felt it was on the long side - must have been the subject matter I was talking about!  Although I'd love to know what you think - are we more (or less) forgiving of excess words in an audio format?  Do we need some spare words to get the conversational style to work?  Or does the need for the speaker/author/broadcaster to get to the point apply in equal measure?

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You can tune in the show by following this link, or playing (or downloading) it from my GCast page.  If you want to make sure you don't miss future episodes you can also subscribe to the Confident Writing podcast feed.

For other suggestions on waste reduction for your writing try 20 ways to cut your word count

This show is a contribution to my October focus on writing with clarity.  Sign up for the (free) feed to follow the rest of the series.

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Business Writing With Confidence: 6 week e-course with coaching and writing tips to help you write with authenticity, brevity, clarity and confidence at work.  Find out more here

Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count

Word power at work

We've been talking a lot this month about the power of the authentic, human voice.  Writing in a way that makes you sound human can be a really powerful tool in the world of work - especially if you're working in a place that seems lifeless, where everyone seems to be mouthing platitudes and words are all just the same old same old.

When this gets really bad it can feel like you're working in the world of the living dead - as Dwayne Melancon (writing at Joyful Jubilant Learning) illustrates with reference to a zombie movie called Hysterical:

Once people turn into zombies, they continue doing their jobs on autopilot, become devoid of passion (or even basic emotion), and never say anything but, "What difference does it make?" Once zombified the town's people are, essentially, checked out.

Ever worked anywhere where people have no passion, do their jobs on autopilot, and keep saying that their actions make no difference?

He got me thinking about ways that we can change the way that we write in order to make a difference.  I came up with five ways that we can use the power of words to fight the onslaught of the zombies at work... If you want to find out more, check out my second podcast: Word Power At Work.

You can play it by clicking here or by listening to (or downloading from) the Confident Writing page at Gcast. (It's 4 minutes 18 seconds long.)

Happy listening.

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I'm still learning about the possibilities of podcasting - and how best to approach it, but there's nothing like trial and error for learning how to make it work (oh plus audience feedback, of course - but be nice!)

I'm thinking about doing a weekly piece on writing with confidence at work, structured around five points, and delivered in under 5 minutes... Sounds like a challenge?  Yes, I think so! But we'll see how it goes. 

Thanks to everyone who's listened in and fed back so far, and for all the encouragement from fellow loungers at the Writers' Cafe last weekend.

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Business Writing With Confidence: 6 week e-course with coaching and writing tips to help you write with authenticity, brevity, clarity and confidence at work.  Find out more here

Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count

Create a connection at work: writing with 'Ohana

The more I read about managing with aloha the more convinced I become of the power of this way of thinking about, of looking at - or rather of being in the world... to transform the way we do business and the way that we work - including the way that we write when we're there.

This month Rosa Say has been exploring the value of 'Ohana.  Now the meaning of these beautiful Hawaiian  words is multi-storied and multi-layered and I'd be struggling to do justice to it here, but in essence it's a value that means this:

In an ‘Ohana are those who are family, and those you choose to call your family. ‘Ohana is a human circle of complete Aloha, and in managing with Aloha, ‘Ohana is recognized as the best possible form for the association of all stakeholders in a business.

When I first starting reading about 'Ohana I found myself wondering how this could connect to the way that we write - and in particular the way that we write at work.  But Rosa goes on to acknowledge that many people have a 'gut' reaction to the use of the word 'family' (or its Hawaiian equivalent) in a work context, teaching us to widen our understanding of the word and its associations.

So what if we set aside the word 'family' and used some different language instead.  The members of your team.  Not said glibly, without meaning, but with intention.  The members of a team who are in it together. People who work together with a common purpose.  No matter the grade or the salary:  these people are your partners in business.  Your business partners.   And if your aim is to establish a strong and powerful connection with those people who are "in it together" with you - what words can you use to tell them?

Of course words and language cannot change working relationships on their own (you need to walk the talk - and believe the coaching philosophy behind it) but writing with positive intention can reinforce the other things that you're trying to do - and let you down if you don't pay sufficient attention to the words that you use.

So what are some of the things you can build into your writing at work to create a connection - to build a powerful human circle?  Here are some suggestions to get you started:

• Writing to create a sense of family doesn't mean you have to be over-familiar.  Not everyone wants to be familiar at work, and some people find an opening of 'hey guys!' inappropriate and grating, and lacking in respect

• Focus instead on the specific things that connect you together: shared experiences, common language, events that have been significant (good and bad)

• Think about how you use the words "we" and "you".  Are you clear which is which?  Do you know why you're using one rather than the other?

• Use the language of intention: breathe the values that drive your work into the words that you're using and it will become part of the shared currency between you

• Don't fake it: readers can see through fake and phoney messages from 'well-intentioned' managers and will spot insincerity a mile off.  You're better off not saying it than writing one thing and practicing another

• Write like yourself: the qualities of simple, honest writing will pay dividends here - writing with authenticity, demonstrating that you're human

• Be credible: as above, people will spot it if you're faking it.  Don't over-promise or over-hype.  Let people know when things don't turn out the way that you planned

• Don't waffle: that way people can form their own opinions on what you're writing about.  The more excess words you use the more people are likely to think it's camouflage for something else

• Be positive: let people know that you notice the good stuff.  Pay attention to the detail, be specific in your feedback and you'll be letting others know that you care enough to pay attention

• Focus on your positive intention: forget grammar rules, forget the writing style of other manager's (it's normally terrible, honestly), focus on the positive intention that you're trying to achieve and let that drive your writing.

And what do I mean by positive intention?  Well in this context I'd come back to another powerful Hawaiian value: kakou.  Over to Rosa for the explanation:

Kākou is the Hawaiian value of inclusiveness, and means “all of us,” we are in this together. Kākou is very unifying when applied to language, and all are taught to learn, speak, and practice “the language of we.”

Focus on that when you're writing and let it breathe life into your writing at work.  Practice the language of we.  Enjoy the powerful sense of connection that comes from knowing that at the end of the day: we are in this together. 

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One of my writing objectives is to learn more about the spirit of aloha and how we can breathe it into our writing.  There's no better way to learn than writing about it!  You can read my introduction to learning to write with aloha here.  My aim is to explore a value month by month as Rosa teaches them to us.

If you are interested in the values and philosophy of aloha I would urge you to read the work of Rosa Say, author of Managing with Aloha, currently writing about her coaching practice at Managing with Aloha Coaching, plus tons of fascinating back articles at Talking Story

You'll find a few articles on 'Ohana in business on these sites.  One of my favourites is this piece: The 'Ohana in business is a place for business partners

Explore the confident writing at work archive for more suggestions on business writing with confidence.

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Business Writing With Confidence: 6 week e-course with coaching and writing tips to help you write with authenticity, brevity, clarity and confidence at work.  Find out more here

Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count

The ingredients of a credible writing style

Honesty, trustworthiness and credibility are all vital to a good business reputation.  You may be used to reflecting these values in what you do and say at work, but what can you do to inject them into the written word?

I started thinking about this on the back of a piece by Rosa Say on keeping your promises in business.  There's something about the focus of Rosa's work on values, of breathing those values of aloha in everything you do, that starts me wondering about how we might manifest this approach in our writing too.

Of course there's no getting away from honesty of purpose and intention - but if we take that as read what else might we identify as the ingredients of credibility and honesty in the way that we write? 

Use plain language.  You're trying to reduce the distance, the gap, between the words you use and the thing that you're describing in the real world.  The plainer the language the easier it is for your reader to make sense of it in their own terms, and to make their own judgements.

Use short sentences.  You don't have to write staccato style but shorter sentences help readers to follow what you're saying.  It allows them to keep up.  To form their own opinions.  Not to get lost (or worry about being misled) in your breathless prose.

Avoid jargon.  Jargon throws readers because they don't know exactly what it means.  It leaves the writer with 'wriggle room' to define the words the way they choose.

Don't over-hype.  Readers will be (naturally) suspicious of what sounds like exaggerated promises and over-blown claims.  Try and find the words that are as close to what you're describing as possible.

Cut out excess words.  Too many superfluous words can look like a smokescreen.  A camouflage.  Readers might wonder what you're trying to hide.   Cutting out excess words will help you get to the point, and help your readers form a clear picture of the point you're trying to make.

Be specific.  Again this is about giving your reader the power to form a judgement on what you're saying.  Cut the waffle.  Be specific.  What specifically should your readers expect from the service, the product, the event, the training, the occasion that you're writing about?

Follow through.  There's no point working on your writing style if your actions don't match your words.  Apologise if you break a promise.  Follow through on your commitments.  Explain if you can't.   

Changing your writing style won't allow you to 'fake' honesty - but paying attention to your words will help your credibility and authenticity to shine through.  Keep cutting away at the flannel, the waffle, the sales pitch, the jargon - and reveal, with confidence, a closer picture of the truth that lies within.

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Explore the confident writing at work archive for more suggestions on business writing with confidence.

Business Writing With Confidence: 6 week e-course with coaching and writing tips to help you write with authenticity, brevity, clarity and confidence at work.  Find out more here

Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count

What I learned from writing at work

Most of the writing that we have to produce and consume happens at work. 

Maybe I've had more experience than most with jobs writing correspondence, notes of committee meetings, briefing papers, annual reports, speeches, policy papers, press releases, statements for parliament, e-mails, internal memos... in various jobs in the large bureaucracies of central and local government and smaller voluntary bodies. 

Just running through that list is reminding me of the paper mountain I've now escaped from, but what did I learn about business writing after nearly 20 years producing words at work?

1. People write when they should talk.  E-mail has made this problem a thousand times worse.  People send notes, memos and e-mails when it would be quicker, easier and friendlier to lift the phone or go and talk to a colleague.

2. People write to impress.  There are always some folk in organisations who will use fancy words, jargon or beautifully polished prose to try and impress you with their knowledge, intelligence or rank.  They are trying to communicate something about themselves, rather than making a connection with their reader.

3. Words get used as camouflage.  We're all familiar with this one.  Weasly words are used in place of plain English to hide what's really going on.  At a more everyday level, people use lots of words to disguise their confusion at what to say - like the record of a meeting where lots was said but nothing much happened.  It's hard to record that as the outcome!

4. Anxiety doesn't make for good prose.  When people get stressed and nervous their ability to think clearly goes out of the window.  Again this tends to lead to more words and less clarity.  Managers need to coach their staff first to relax and then extract what they really need or want to say

5. Readers get forgotten.  Again this is a familiar complaint about writing in large public sector organisations.  The words might make 'sense' in the culture of the organisation but mean nothing to the person who's going to end up reading it.

6. Good writing needs a voice.  Hard in bureaucracies but clear, quality writing needs to convey something of the 'voice' of the writer - their style, vocabulary, syntax, character and humour.  Think of the bits of paper that have made the most impact on you at work - I bet they had the personal stamp of the author on them somewhere

7. Writing needs to be structured.  Most people are suffering from information overload at work.  Help them to value your words by structuring your writing.  That can be as simple as beginning, middle and end.  Stick to making just three points - it's easier to remember.  Use signposts to help people navigate the text.

8. Writing by committee doesn't work.  I've been part of countless writing projects that have included contributions by dozens of authors.  The only way to get the writing to flow is to have one or at most two people writing and editing.  Use the rest of the material as quarry or background research, or edit and slot it in once you've worked out your own structure.  Otherwise you'll create a camel when you were trying to write a horse.

9. Words count.  I worked in an environment when the precise words mattered a great deal and were often contested.  Being clear about your choice of words, checking the meaning of words, searching for alternative words to find a way out of a linguistic log-jam are all skills that can help you at work.

10.  Less is more.  The combination of all these factors means that most people are at work are spewing out far more words than are needed.  Individuals and organisations are swamped by words, drowning in paper.  It takes more confidence to write less not more but you'll always be thanked for it.

All of these factors contribute to the paper mountain and the deluge of words.  But you can make a difference by going for clear simple language, stripping out unnecessary words, and remembering the needs of your readers - including your flustered, overworked, overwhelmed colleagues and staff. 

So there we go, the main things I learned from writing at work.  I pulled together this list as a contribution to a group writing project run by Middle Zone Musings on 'what I learned from the world of work' . There's still time to contribute if you'd like to join in.

Meantime, I'd love to hear your own experiences of the best and worst examples of writing at work...

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Business Writing With Confidence: 6 week e-course with coaching and writing tips to help you write with authenticity, brevity, clarity and confidence at work.  Find out more here

Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count