Sloppy writing: Don't let it hold you back -PART II

Know your audience and tailor your message to the audience

The best written report packed with the right data will not be worth very much if it fails to meet the expectations of the intended audience. Good writers will craft their message to their targeted audience or better yet, a specific person. They way you would write for the company chairman would be very different to the way you would write on the same subject matter to a group of junior executives.

Unfortunately this does not apply to style of writing!

Unfortunately most young executives fail to realise this very important rule and know of only one way of writing to everyone! Of course its easier to do but this is not what people who want to be come Stars should be practicing. There are no shortcuts to creating excellence, effort needs to be put into it.

Make sure you are aware of the prefered formats for the different people that you will be writing to. The format for a Board of Directors paper will be radically different from the format for a memo to your Boss. Utilise your network within the company to find out the individual preference of the various people who you will need to prepare written materials. Some people need to know the details whereas some people are more interested in the ‘Big Picture’ issues.

Azhar  was a young executive who was asked to prepare a discussion paper for a Board of Directors meeting by the Chairman. After seeking the advice of his office mates who had worked with the Chairman before he found out that the Chairman was formerly an academic and was used to a very academic writing style.

Good targeted communications gets good results!

Taking this que, Azhar produced the paper with extensive references listed in the bibliography and included footnotes as further reference in his paper. The Chairman who had not seen such high quality work since he left the academic field was very impressed. Whereas most people would not have taken the trouble that Azhar did, his extra effort differentiated him from the other young executives in the company.

Even a single badly written piece can be potentially very damaging, be careful.

On the other hand , it is an unfortunate fact of life that it is the single, badly written proposal that the important people in your career will tend to remember more, rather than the dozens of good assignments you have delivered in the past. You are only as good as your last piece of work.

Finally the language that you use must be suitable for the audience that you are trying to reach to. A memo to the CEO outlining the key strategies of your latest advertising and promotions campaign will not be written in the same style that you would be writing a memo on the same subject to the corporate communications manager. Whereas it would be acceptable to use advertising jargon with the communications manager, it would not be the case for the CEO unless you have information which suggests otherwise.

Remember, be clear in your mind who you need to communicate to and tailor your message to them and what matters to them. If you like this and the previous article, do come back for parts III and IV or subscribe via e-mail so that you do not miss it. I would also be grateful if you could like and share these articles with you friend who you think may benefit. If you have a point of view, do leave a comment. I would love to hear from you.

Sloppy writing: Don't let it hold you back

 

“Take advantage of every opportunity to practice your communication skills so that when important occasions arise, you will have the gift, the style, the sharpness, the clarity, and the emotions to affect other people.”

 Jim Rohn  American Businessman, Author, Speaker, Philosopher 

Often the very first impression you make on other people you come into contact with at work is through what you write. Think about the way you secured your first job, the covering letter that you sent with your resume and your job application was the first thing the organisation you now work for saw of you. If the HR department was not impressed by what they read, you probably would be where you are today.

Time and again the first thing that senior managers will see of a new young executive is a memo or a report that they prepared. That memo could send the message that this person is a potential 'Star', who would be an asset to the company or it could send the opposite message that this person is merely 'Deadwood' who will not have much of a future with the company.

Many senior managers agree that one of the things that they look for in employees, especially at  mangerial levels is excellent written communications skills. Good business writing is high on the list of key competencies for top quality job candidates. As more and more business communications is conducted via e-mail ( which demonstrates how well you can write concisely) your writing skills will become a differentiator.

None of us are born as gifted writers; good writing is a learnable skill which requrires frequent practice and knowledge of the right techniques to use.

Learning to write well and effectively at work need not be a painstaking and mysterious goal. Even if you have tried and failed before or have never given it much thought in the past, if you conciously make an effort you too can become an good business writer. There are many good books that have been written on this subject by countless authors however you may wish to use these 4 key rules that I have used successfully to this day. For todays blog post I will touch on the importance of a clear objective.

Be clear on what it is you want to say

A common mistake I see very often is that people do not stop to think about what it is that they really want to say, but instead go straight to the Microsoft Word icon and start typing the first thing that that comes to their mind.

Often poor writing is a reflection of poor, underdeveloped thinking. It is important to be clear on the key messages that you want to convey. For example you are writing an e-mail to a potential customer, pause and think about why you are sending the e-mail. Are you trying to start on cement a relationship? Are you sending off a covering letter to accompany a set of catalogues that the potential customer requested? Are you trying to clarify a point raised by the customer during an earlier meeting?

The 1^st Rule of Good business writing is that you must have a clear objective. One tool that I have found very effective when I am starting to write anything from a one page memo to a 20 page discussion paper is a Mind Map.

Take a clean sheet of paper and write the central theme of what you will be writing. From that central theme, write down your key points as the main branches on your map. You then proceed to further develop your key points into the details of what you will be writing, these will be the smaller branches coming from the main branches of your mind map.

The mind map you produce will be the outline of what you will eventualy write. Each branch of the Mind map could be a paragraph or it could represent an entire chapter. Find out more about mind maps here.

It is also good to make sure that you have done the required research to ensure that what you write contains solid substance  (references, quotations, facts and figures,etc) and not merely generalisations. You must be confident of what you are writing and having credible material will help you to show that confidence.

Planning what you want to write before actually doing the writing will significantly improve the quality of your written communications.

Comeback for my 3 other rules of good business writing or subscribe via email to ensure you do not miss them. If you like this or other articles please share via Facebook or Twitter.

Annoying, Pretentious and Useless Business Jargon

If you enjoyed my previous posting on using simple language you may want to give this Forbes article a read as well. Some of the terms may be very North American centric but overall quite an entertaining read. Enjoy!
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10 Presentation 'Sins' : Are You Guilty?

Many of us have heard that 99% of presentations are bad and not effective. Today I though I would briefly look at why so many presentations are so bad, and perhaps suggest how to avoid these common mistakes.

1.     No clear message- When preparing your presentation, you must make sure you are clear on what your objective is. It may be to just inform, to advocate a point of view or you are seeking an approval. Whatever it is, make sure you are clear why you are giving the presentation. If you start with the end in mind the rest should be easy.

2.     Your slides are boring- Unfortunately 99% of presentation slides are really bad and will not be able to grab the attention of the audience. Nobody likes to look at page after page of hardly visible text on the screen, which the presenter is reading like a story book. Generally, less text works better. Simple text with powerful images work best. Remember the slides are there just to help you as visual aids, do not rely on them. You are the ‘star’ who needs to ‘wow’ your audience.

3.     Not enough material/content- Sometime your presentation fails due to insufficient content to make a convincing case for the audience. For example, you did not provide enough evidence to back up your argument or point of view. Another example would be a new business proposal which did not include risks and the mitigating contingencies you will put in place.

4.     Too much material- Just as bad as not having enough material is having too much material covered in your presentation. Firstly, people have a very limited attention span that rarely exceed 20 minutes. Secondly, having too much material to cover will make it harder for you to highlight the key message or objective of your presentation.

5.     Monotonous voice- Nobody enjoys listening to a robot. You need to modulate your voice so that there are times when you raise your voice to emphasise a point and there are times you pause and say nothing, to give your audience time to absorb what you just said. There are times you will speak quickly and times when you will speak slowly to highlight a point in your presentation.

6.     Not rehearsing- The vast majority of people do not bother to practice giving their presentation thinking that they are already quite good at it. Unfortunately, they are not! And that probably includes you too. Even the late Steve Jobs spent a lot of time rehearsing his legendary presentations. Take the time to practice and make it a habit. It will make you comfortable with the material and make you far less nervous. This will create confidence that the audience will be able to spot and makes you case stronger. Alternatively, if you do not practice, you will appear less confident and you will not be as convincing.

7.    Complicated language- Depending on your audience use language that is as simple as possible. The less the audience has to think about what you are trying to say the better. Avoid jargon and complex terminology unless you are speaking to a room full of experts. Use simple words and short sentences, your audience will appreciate it.

8.     Not getting to the point quickly- People hate waiting. Try to get to the point of your presentation quickly. Often it is best to tell them up front what the objective of the presentation is at the start of the presentation. Also another tip is to tell them how long your presentation will take before you begin, this will put the audiences feeling of anxiety at ease. Unless you are told how long a presentation will take, your audience will be speculating and wondering when you will get to the point.

9.       Poor structure- To be effective your presentation needs to be properly structured for the objective you are trying to achieve. Like any good story, it will need a start, middle and an ending. A good basic structure is to start with an introduction of the problem or issue you wish to address, and then go into the implications for the audience of the issue. Only then do you go into introducing the solution and also address any possible concerns relating to the proposed solution. Finally you have a call to action, what you want the audience to do. This is just a basic example; the main point is that you need a logical flow in the structure of your presentation.

10.   Giving out hand outs too early- A common mistake many people do is to give copies of their slides before the present. This is a guaranteed way of ensuring the audience will not listen to you because they will be busy reading your slides and they can read much faster than you can present. They will be on your fourth slide when you are still on the contents slide. Give your hand outs at the end of the presentation so that you will have their full attention.

      Each of these issues is worthy of their own blog post and I have touched on some of them before. If you have any other common causes of bad presentations, please share them in the comments section. I would love to hear what you think.

Say it with pictures: Get your point across visually and tell a story

Two weeks ago I was invited to give a refresher course on marketing to a group of entreprenuers, most of whom had little or no formal marketing training. While preparing my materials I came to a point where I had to touch on the concept of "Marketing Strategy". Below is the slide that spells out a formal definition of "Marketing Strategy".

Wow! That's quite a mouthful. I then thought, how could I explain this visually? It took a while but I then decided that I would use the idea of a battle to illustrate what the above definition of marketing strategy was trying to say. This is the first slide I used.

It show the battle formation of two opposing forces. The army on the left is outnumbered and outgunned but it has a single tank. The tank represents a competitive advantange. Based on the current formation, the army on the left has very little chance against the army on the right which has more resources at its' disposal.

However if the army on the left rearranges its' battle formation and focuses its strength i.e. the single tank that it has on a narrow front with the rest of the army providing close cover, the situation can take a totally different course.

The army on the left could effectively punch a hole into the defensive lines of the army on the right as shown below:

Once the defensive line is broken, the army on the left is then free to charge through and capture the flag and consequenly win the battle.

Instead of just elaborating on each keyword in the definition slide, tell a story around your explanation and make it as graphic as possible. In this example we have taken a very conceptual idea (that was potentially sleep inducing) and illustrated it in a dynamic and engaging way that was easy to understand.

Psychologists have done extensive research that suggests that people are better at remembering what they see rather what they hear. Use this to your advantage the next time you are presenting. This is just a simple example of how the use of simple graphics and images can help you to illustrate complex subject matter in a very short time. You could of course just verbalise an explanation of whatever you need to say.

However, you risk losing your audience which has a very short attention span. The human brain is wired to be as economical as possible and will try as far as possible to minimise its work load. We all have filters in the most basic parts of our brains that constantly scan all information we are receiving, if it looks or sounds like it will take a great deal of thinking to understand and does not threaten your well being in any way, the most common reaction is to shut off and disregard the information.

As far as possible try to weave a story around what you are trying to say. This helps to create a connection with the audience. People love to hear stories and most people love to tell them too. Unfortunately we often forget this when we are presenting.

Remember, always use pictures and images to support what you want to say. Also build a story around what you wish to say to keep the audience who have a short attention span engaged and on your side!

Language- Don’t complicate, Keep it simple!

One of the things I noticed during my career was how people seem to think that if they use jargon and complex sentences, they will appear smarter. Think about it , listen carefully when you are at a high level meeting and the senior leadership is present.  How much of it did you really understand? How much actually contained useful content, and how much sounded like random jargon strung together ?

I find it amusing that we all know how to say something in a simple way, but choose not to. Usually because we do not want to appear dumb in front of peers, so we resort to complex sentences and jargon.( At other times, we do it when we really do not know what to say, and use it to purposely confuse the audience and hope they don’t notice!)

In the movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Captain Jack Sparrow said,

"I am disinclined to acquiesce to your request",

what he really meant to say was simply, “No”. This is of course a rather extreme example but illustrates the point.

Here are some gems that I have heard which you may have heard too.

“We must leverage our core competencies” — which actually means, “We must do more of what we are good at”

“We must critically engage with our customer base” — what he wants to say is, “We must do what our customers want”

“We facilitate an environment of empowerment” —which in simple terms means, “We let you get on with your job”

''Our focus must be on execution excellence in all our prioritized projects going forward'' — which is a complicated way of saying, “We must focus on making a success of our most important projects”

''The implementation of Project X was a learning experience for the company'' — which is a polite way of saying, “We screwed up”

“Moving forward, the outlook is positive” — a more lengthy way of just saying, “Things will be better in the future”

''To remain profitable, we must re-align salaries to the market average'' — is management speak for , “We must ensure that we don't pay our employees more than other firms”

''We have challenging goals in a resource-constrained operational space'' — what the poor fellow is trying to say is, “It will be difficult to meet our targets when we are so short of money, time, and staff”

Do the words you use help the audience to understand what you want to convey? Be clear in your mind what you want to communicate and say it as simply as you can. Remember the saying, “Less is more”. Your audience will appreciate it.

Syndication- Gathering support prior to making the presentation

Many people often shoot themselves in the foot unnecessarily before even showing the first PowerPoint slide by not syndicating the proposals prior to the presentation to a senior management committee or the board. What I mean by syndication is to test or bounce some of the key points in your proposal/presentation to some or all the members of the committee or board before the formal presentation. If the syndication is done properly, more than half the battle is won as you would have addressed most of their concerns during the syndication, so you will be able to better prepare yourself during the actual presentation.

Use the syndication session to gather what issues the committee regards as critical and possible deal breakers. This will allow you to pre-emptively address these issues during the formal presentation. The worst thing that can happen during critical presentations to senior level committees is having the committee caught off guard and surprised by your material. This would put them in a very defensive mode and the will lead to very critical and detailed analytical questions you may not have the time to address effectively or even worse, you may not be prepared to answer those questions.

One of the keys to getting an approval is providing the commitee with some level of comfort that what you are proposing has been throughly prepared and all risks have been mitigated. The 'yes' response is an emotional reaction, not a rational or analytical reaction. Studies have shown that people make decisions in the back of their minds before they consciously aware that they have made that decision. Eventhough conventional thinking assumes that our decision making processes are very linear and logical, the scientific evidence is showing the opposite.

The brain is an amazing organ and it makes thousands of subconcious decisions in a very short time. That is why many people can come to a conclusion whether or not they trust someone in a matter of minutes, hence the importance of the old saying, " You only get one chance to make a good impression".This is more so during a key presentation to senior management.

There are a few strategies you can utilise to maximise your chances of success by doing prior syndications. Firstly, have a clear strategy of the sequencing of people you will syndicate with. Try to start with people who are most likely to be on your side. Also start with the most senior person or influential person on the committee that will be sympathetic to your cause. The more people who are on your side, the easier it will be to convince the more 'difficult' members of the committee.

Secondly, always make sure you customise your syndication content for the person who you will be presenting to. Unlike the formal presentation where you need to cover as much material as you have time, the syndication session allows you to focus on areas that are most likely to be of concern to that individual. Each member will have their own personal areas of interest and expertise so prepare accordingly. If you cover these bases beforehand, they will not raise it during the formal presentation that could take you into directions that may not be favourable to your cause.

And finally, get a few easy 'agreements' before you get to more sensitive sections. Studies by psycologists have shown that people are more prone to say  'Yes' if they have said yes on previous points raised. This also saves you time getting the agreement on the non-critical issues and allows more time to go into more depth with the critical issues.

Remember: Syndicate prior to your formal presentation to get as much support as possible to improve you probability of success. Of course this will take a lot of effort and time but it will be worth it!