what does it mean if you write s from bottom to top
What do businessmen answer when they are asked, "What'due south the most troublesome problem you take to live with?" Frequently they reply, "People just can't write! What do they learn in higher now? When I was a boy…!"
There is no demand to belabor this betoken; readers know well how true it is. HBR subscribers, for example, recently rated the "ability to communicate" equally the prime requisite of a promotable executive (encounter Exhibit i).1 And, of all the aspects of advice, the written form is the most troublesome, if only because of its formal nature. It is received cold, without the communicator's tone of vocalism or gesture to help. Information technology is rigid; information technology cannot exist adapted to the recipients' reactions as it is being delivered. Information technology stays "on the record," and cannot be undone. Further, the reason it is in fact committed to paper is usually that its bailiwick is considered also crucial or pregnant to exist entrusted to casual, brusk-lived verbal form.
Businessmen know that the power to write well is a highly valued nugget in a peak executive. Consequently, they get ever more conscious of their writing ability as they consider what qualities they need in order to rise in their company.
They know that in large business today ideas are non exchanged exclusively by word of oral fissure (as they might exist in smaller businesses). And they know that even if they get oral approval for something they wish to exercise, there will be the inevitable "give me a memo on information technology" concluding remark that will transport them back to their office to oversee the writing of a carefully documented report.
They know, also, that as they rise in their company, they will have to be able to supervise the writing of subordinates—for and then many of the memos, reports, and letters written by subordinates volition become out over their signature, or exist passed on to others in the company and thus reflect on the caliber of piece of work done nether their supervision.
Even the new data-processing machines will non make business whatsoever less dependent on words. For while the new machines are fine for treatment tabular or computative work, someone must write up an eventual analysis of the findings in the common parlance of the everyday executive.
Fourth dimension For Action
Complaints near the inability of managers to write are a very common and justifiable refrain. But the problem this commodity poses—and seeks to solve—is that it is of very little use to mutter about something and stop right there. I think it is about time for managers to brainstorm to do something about it. And the commencement step is to ascertain what "it"—what good business organisation writing—actually is.
Suppose you are a immature managerial aspirant who has recently been told: "You but can't write!" What would this hateful to you? Naturally, y'all would be hurt, disappointed, perhaps even alarmed to have your ain nagging doubts well-nigh your writing power put uncomfortably on the line. "Of form," you say, "I know I'one thousand no stylist. I don't even pretend to be a literarily inclined person. Only how can I meliorate my writing on the job? Where exercise I brainstorm? Exactly what is wrong with my writing?" Just nobody tells yous in specific, meaningful terms.
Does this hateful that you lot can't spell or punctuate or that your grammar is disastrous? Does information technology mean that you can't call back or organize your thoughts? Or does it mean that even though yous are scrupulously correct in grammar and tightly organized in your thinking, a report or letter from you is always completely unreadable; that reading it, in consequence, is like trying to butt 1's caput through a brick wall? Or does information technology mean that you are so tactless and boorish in the homo relations attribute of advice that your messages actually build resentment and resistance? Practice you talk "downward" too much or exercise you talk "over your reader's caput"? Simply what practice you exercise wrong?
Merely beingness told that yous can't write is so basically meaningless and so damaging to your morale that you lot may end up writing more ineffectually than ever before. What you need to know is: "What are the elements of expert business writing? And in which of these elements am I proficient? In which do I fall down?" If only the boss could break his complaint down into a more meaningful set up of components, you could brainstorm to do something most them.
Now let's shift and assume that you are a high-ranking manager whose chore it is to supervise a staff of assistants. What can you do virtually upgrading the writing efforts of your men? You remember of the time lost by having to exercise reports and messages over and over before they go out, the feasibility reports which did not look so feasible later on having been befogged by an ineffectual writer, the letters presented for your signature that would have infuriated the receiver had y'all let them be mailed. But where are y'all to start?
Hither is where the interests of superior and subordinate run into. Unless both make it at a common agreement, a shared vocabulary that enables them to communicate with i some other about the writing jobs that need to exist done, nobody is going to get very far. No oversimplified, gimmicky slogans (such as, "Every letter of the alphabet is a sales letter"; "Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative"; or "Write every bit y'all speak") are going to serve this purpose. No fractional view is either—whether that of the English language teacher, the logician, or the social scientist—since good business organization writing is not just grammar, or clear thinking, or winning friends and influencing people. It is some of each, the proportion depending on the purpose.
Total inventory
To know what constructive business organization writing is, we demand a total inventory of all its aspects, so that:
- Top managers tin can say to their preparation people, "Are you sure our training efforts in written communications are not tackling just part of the problem? Are we covering all aspects of business writing?"
- A superior can say to an banana, "Here, look; this is where you are weak. See? It is one matter when you write letters that y'all sign, another when yous write letters that I sign. The position and power of the person nosotros are writing to make a lot of deviation in what we say and how we say it."
- The young manager can apply the inventory as a guide to self-improvement (peradventure fifty-fifty enquire his superior to go over his writing with him, using the writing inventory as a means of assuring a common critical vocabulary).
- The superior may himself get a few hints nigh how he might amend his own performance.
Such an inventory appears in Exhibit two. Observe that it contains 4 bones categories—readability, definiteness, appropriateness, and thought. Considerable effort has gone into making these categories (and the subtopics under them) equally mutually exclusive as possible, although some overlap is inevitable. But fifty-fifty if they are not completely exclusive, they are still far less full general than an angry, critical remark, such as, "You cannot write."
Furthermore, y'all should understand that these four categories are not listed in order of importance, since their importance varies according to the abilities and the duties of each individual. The same thing is true of the subtopics; I shall make no attempt to treat each of them equally, but will simply endeavor to exercise some practical, commonsense highlighting. I will begin with readability, and discuss it near fully, because this is an area where half-truths abound and need to be scotched earlier introducing the other topics.
Readability
What is readability? Nothing more than a clear style of writing. It does non upshot absolutely (as some readability experts would have you believe) from mathematical counts of syllables, of sentence length, or of abstract words. These inflexible approaches to readability assume that all writing is existence addressed to a general audience. Consequently, their greatest use is in forming judgments about the readability of such things equally mass magazine editorial re-create, newspaper communications, and elementary textbooks.
To prove this indicate, all yous need do is to selection up a beautifully edited magazine like the New England Journal of Medicine and try to read an article in information technology. You as a layman will probably have trouble. On the other hand, your physician will tell you lot that the article is a masterpiece of readable exposition. But, on second look, you will even so find it completely unreadable. The reason, apparently, is that you do not take the background or the vocabulary necessary to understand it. The same thing would concur true if you were to take an article from a management science quarterly, say, one dealing with return on investment or statistical decision making, and requite it to the physician. Now he is likely to judge this one to be completely incomprehensible, while you may find it the most valuable and clear word of the topic you accept ever seen.
In situations like this, it does non brand much departure whether the sentences are long or short; if the reader does non take the groundwork to sympathize the material, he just doesn't. And writing such specialized articles according to the mathematical readability formulas is not going to make them clearer.
Nevertheless, it is true that unnecessarily long, rambling sentences are wearing to read. Hence y'all will detect these stylistic shortcomings mentioned in Exhibit ii. The fob a author has to learn is to judge the complexity and the abstractness of the material he is dealing with, and to cutting his sentences downwards in those areas where the going is specially difficult. It also helps to stick to a direct subject-verb-object construction in sentences wherever it is important to communicate precisely. Flights of unusually dashing fashion should be reserved for those sections which are quite full general in nature and concrete in subject area matter.
What most paragraphs? The importance of "paragraph construction" is often disregarded in business organization communication, but few things are more sure to make the heart sink than the sight of page afterwards folio of unbroken type. One old grammar book rule would be especially wise to hark back to, and that is the topic sentence. Not just does placing a topic judgement at the beginning of each paragraph make it easier for the reader to grasp the content of the advice quickly; it also serves to discipline the writer into including only one main idea in each paragraph. Naturally, when a discussion of one idea means the expenditure of hundreds (or thousands) of words, paragraphs should be divided according to subdivisions of the main thought. In fact, an most arbitrary division of paragraphs into units of four or v sentences is ordinarily welcomed by the reader.
As for jargon, the only people who complain about information technology seriously are those who do not empathize it. Moreover, it is fashionable for experts in a particular field to mutter about their colleagues' utilise of jargon, merely and so to turn correct around and employ information technology themselves. The reason is that jargon is no more than store talk. And when the person being addressed fully understands this individual linguistic communication, it is much more economical to use information technology than to go through laborious explanations of every idea that could be communicated in the shorthand of jargon. Naturally, when a writer knows that his message is going to be read past persons who are not familiar with the individual language of his trade, he should be sure to interpret equally much of the jargon equally he can into common terms.
The same thing holds true for simplicity of language. Simplicity is, I would think, e'er a "adept." True, there is something lost from our language when interesting but unfamiliar words are no longer used. Only isn't it true that the shrines in which these antiquities should be preserved lie in the domain of poetry or the novel, and not in business communications—which, afterwards all, are not baroque cathedrals but functional edifices by which a task tin be done?
The simplest fashion to say information technology, so, is invariably the best in business writing. Simply this fact the immature executive does not always empathize. Frequently he is eager to parade his vocabulary before his superiors, for fright his boss (who has never let him know that he admires simplicity, and may indeed adopt a pretentious and ponderous style himself) may think less of him.
Leading the reader
Simply perhaps the well-nigh of import aspect of readability is the one listed under the subtopic "reader management." The failure of writers to seize their reader by the nose and lead him carefully through the intricacies of his communication is like an epidemic. The job that the writer must do is to develop the "skeleton" of the certificate that he is preparing. And, at the very beginning of his communication, he should place the skeletal structure of his paper; he should, in outcome, frame the discussion which is to follow.
You lot will meet many of these frames at the beginning of articles published in HBR, where the editors have bully pains to tell the reader quickly what the article is virtually and what specific areas will come under discussion during its progress. In every business organisation document this initial frame, this statement of purpose and direction, should appear. Furthermore, in lengthy reports in that location should be many such frames; indeed, nearly major sections of business concern reports should begin with a new frame.
There should also be clear transitions between paragraphs. The goal should be that of having each element in a written message carry a close relationship to those elements which have preceded and those which follow information technology. Frequently a section should stop with a brief summary, plus a sentence or two telling the reader the new direction of the article. These rather mechanical signposts, while frequently the bane of literary stylists, are always of valuable assist to readers.
The concluding attribute of readability is the category that I call "focus." This term refers to the fact that many communications seem diffuse and out of focus, much like a picture on a television screen when the antennas are not properly directed. Sometimes in a study it seems every bit if one report has been superimposed on another, and that there are no clear and detail points the author is trying to make. Thus the brunt is put on the reader to ferret out the truly important points from the chaos.
If a author wants to improve the readability of his writing, he must make sure that he has thought things through sufficiently, so that he tin can focus his readers' attending on the salient points.
Correctness
The i thing that flies to a writer'due south listen when he is told he cannot write is correctness. He immediately starts looking for grammer and punctuation mistakes in things that he has written.
But mistakes like these are hardly the most important aspects of business organization writing. The majority of executives are reasonably well educated and can, with a minimum of effort, make themselves adequately proficient in the "mechanics" of writing. Furthermore, as a man rises in his company, his typing (at least) volition be done by a secretary, who can (and should) accept the arraign if a report is poorly punctuated and incorrect in grammar, not to mention beingness presented in an improper "format."
Then what is the nearly of import point? Frequently, the insecure author allows minor mistakes in grammar and punctuation to become greatly magnified, and regards them every bit reflections on his pedagogy and, indeed, his social acceptability. A careless use of "he don't" may seem to be as large a disgrace in his mind every bit if he attended the company banquet in his shorts. And in some cases this is true. But he should also realize (as Exhibit II shows) that the ability to write correctly is non synonymous with the ability to write well. Hence, anybody should make sure that he does not become satisfied with the rather trivial act of mastering punctuation and grammer.
It is true, of course, that, in some instances, the inability to write correctly will crusade a lack of clarity. Nosotros tin can all remember of examples where a misplaced comma has acquired serious defoliation—although such instances, except in contracts and other legal documents, are fortunately rather rare.
A far more important aspect of correctness is "coherence." Coherence ways the proper positioning of elements within a piece of writing and so that it can be read conspicuously and sensibly. Have one example:
- Breathless: "I think it will pelting. All the same, no clouds are showing notwithstanding. Therefore, I will have my umbrella."
- Coherent: "Although no clouds are showing, I think it will rain. Therefore, I volition have my umbrella."
Once a person has mastered the art of placing related words and sentences as close as possible to each other, he will exist amazed at how polish his formerly awkward writing becomes. But that is just the beginning. He will still take to make sure that he has placed paragraphs which are related in thought next to 1 another, so that the ideas presented do not take to leapfrog over whatever intervening digressions.
Appropriateness
I accept divided the category appropriateness into two sections reflecting the two main types of internal business communications—those going up in the organization and those going downward. This distinction is one that cannot exist found in textbooks on writing, although the ideas included hither are commonplace in the human relations area.
In that location is an obvious departure between the type of communication that a boss writes to his subordinate and the type that the subordinate can become away with when he writes to his boss (or fifty-fifty the blazon that he drafts for his boss'due south signature). I suspect that many managers who have had their writing criticized had this unpleasant experience simply because of their failure to recognize the fact that messages are afflicted by the relative positions of the writer and the recipient in the organizational hierarchy.
Up communications
Let the states roughly follow the society of the subtopics included nether upward communications in Exhibit 2. "Tact" is of import. If a subordinate fails to recognize his role and writes in an argumentative or insulting tone, he is nigh certain to reap trouble for himself (or for his boss if the document goes up nether the boss's actual or implied signature). Ane of the perennially difficult problems facing any subordinate is how to tell a superior he is wrong. If the subordinate were the boss, nigh probable he could telephone call a spade a spade; only since he is not, he has bug. And, in today'due south concern world, bosses themselves spend much time figuring out how to handle trouble communications with discretion. Oft tender topics are best handled orally rather than in writing.
Ii other subtopics—"supporting detail" and "stance"—also require a distinction according to the author'due south role. Since the advice is going upward, the writer will probably find information technology advisable to support his statements with considerable detail. On the other mitt, he may run afoul of superiors who will be impatient if he gives besides much particular and non enough generalization. Here is a archetype case where a discussion from above every bit to the corporeality of detail required in a detail assignment would exist of costive value to the subordinate.
The aforementioned holds true for "opinion." In some cases, the subordinate may exist criticized for introducing too many of his personal opinions—in fact, often for giving whatsoever recommendation at all. If the superior wishes the subordinate to make recommendations and to offer his ain opinions, the burden is on the superior to tell him. If the superior fails to do so, the writer can at least try to brand it clear where facts cease and opinions brainstorm; and so the superior tin draw his own conclusions.
The writer's "attitude" is another important factor in upward communications. When a subordinate writes to his dominate, information technology is almost impossible for him to communicate with the blandness that he might use if he were writing a letter to a friend. There may be many niggling things that he is doing throughout his writing that betoken either besides great a desire to impress the dominate or an insecurity which imparts a feeling of fearfulness, defensiveness, or truculence in the face of authority.
Downward communications
While the subordinate who writes upward in the organisation must use "tact," the dominate who writes down to his subordinates must utilise "diplomacy." If he is overbearing or insulting (even without meaning to exist), he will find his effectiveness as a manager severely limited. Furthermore, it is the foolish manager who forgets that, when he communicates downwards, he speaks every bit a representative of direction or even of the entire company. Careless messages have oft played an important part in strikes and other corporate human relations problems.
Information technology is also important for the superior to make sure that he has clarified in his own listen merely what information technology is he wishes to accomplish. If he does not, he may give confused or vague instructions. (In this event, information technology is unfair for him to blame a subordinate for presenting a poorly focused document in render.) Another requirement is that the superior must make sure that he has supplied any information which the subordinate needs but could not be expected to know, and that he has sufficiently explained whatsoever points which may be misleading.
Motivation is important, besides. When a superior gives orders, he will find that over the long run he will not be able to rely on mere power to force compliance with his requests. It seems typically American for a subordinate to resent and resist what he considers to be arbitrary decisions made for unknown reasons. If at all possible, the superior not just should explain the reasons why he gives an order but should indicate out (if he tin) why his decision can be interpreted equally beingness in the all-time interests of those whom it affects.
I am not, withal, suggesting farfetched explanations of future benefits. In the long run, those can take a boomerang effect. Direct talk, advisedly and tactfully couched, is the only sensible policy. If, for example, a subordinate's request for a new assignment has been denied because he needs further experience in his present assignment, he should exist told the facts. So, if it is also truthful that getting more feel may prepare him for a better position in the future, in that location is no reason why this information should non be included to "buffer" the impact of the refusal of a new assignment.
Idea
Hither—a nearly of import expanse—the superior has a tremendous vested involvement in the reporting done by his subordinates. At that place is no substitute for the thought content of a communication. What good is accomplished if a message is excellent in all the other respects we take discussed—if information technology is readable, correct, and appropriate—yet the content is faulty? It can even do damage if the other aspects succeed in disguising the fact that it is superficial, stupid, or biased. The superior receiving information technology may send it upwards through the organisation with his signature, or, equally serious, he may make an important (and disastrous) conclusion based on information technology.
Here is the existent guts of business writing—intelligent content, something nigh purveyors of business writing gimmicks conveniently forget. It is also something that most grooming programs short-change. The subject field of translating thoughts into words and organizing these thoughts logically has no equal every bit intellectual training. For there is one slogan that is truthful: "Disorganized, illogical writing reflects a disorganized, illogical (and untrained) listen."
That is why the beginning topic in this section is "grooming." Much disorganized writing results from bereft preparation, from a failure to retrieve through and isolate the purpose and the aim of the writing chore. Most writers tend to call back as they write; in fact, most of usa do non even know what it is we think until we have actually written it down. The inescapability of making a well-thought-out outline before dictating seems obvious.
A main aspect of thought, consequently, is the intellectual "competence" of the writer. If a report is bad just because the bailiwick is far across the experience of the writer, information technology is not his fault. Thus his superior should be able to reject the analysis and at the same fourth dimension accept the blame for having given his banana a task that he simply could not do. But what about the many cases where the limiting cistron is basically the intellectual capacity of the writer? It is foolish to tell a man that he cannot write if in upshot he simply does not accept the intellectual ability to do the chore that has been assigned to him.
Some other aspect of thought is "allegiance to the assignment." Apparently the finest functioning in the globe on a topic other than the one assigned is fruitless, but such violent distortions of the assignment fortunately are rare. Non and then rare, unfortunately, are reports which subtly miss the point, or wander abroad from it. Any consequent tendency on the part of the author to drag in his pet remedies or favorite villains should be pointed out quickly, every bit should persistent efforts to grind personal axes.
Another lapse of "fidelity" is far more forgivable. This occurs when an eager subordinate tends to make as well much of a routine consignment and consistently turns memos into 50-folio reports. On the other hand, some subordinates may consistently make too lilliputian of an assignment and tend to do superficial and poorly researched pieces of work.
Perchance the most important aspect of thought is the component "analysis." Here is where the highly intelligent are separated from those less gifted, and those who will dig from those who content themselves with superficial work. Often subordinates who take non had the benefit of experience under a strict taskmaster (either in school or on the job) are at a loss to understand why their reports are considered less than highly effective. Such writers, for example, may fail to draw obvious conclusions from the data that they have presented. On the other hand, they may offer conclusions which are seemingly unjustified by the evidence contained in their reports.
Another difficulty is that many young managers (and erstwhile ones, too) are unsophisticated in their appreciation of simply what constitutes testify. For example, if they base an unabridged report on the fact that sales are going to go upwardly the adjacent year simply because i assistant sales manager thinks and so, they should look to take their conclusions thrown out of court. They may also find themselves in difficulty if they neglect to place and justify assumptions which have been forced on them by the absence of factual information. Assumptions, of course, are absolutely necessary in this world of imperfect noesis—especially when we deal with future developments—but information technology is the writer's responsibleness to indicate out that certain assumptions have been fabricated and that the validity of his analysis depends on whether or non these assumptions prove to exist justified.
Another serious fault in "analysis" is that of bias. Few superiors will respect a communication which is consciously or unconsciously biased. A author who is incapable of making an objective assay of all sides of a question, or of all alternatives to action, will certainly find his path to the top to exist a dead end. On the other hand, especially in many younger writers, bias enters unconsciously, and it is merely by a patient identification of the bias that the superior volition be able to help the subordinate develop a truly objective analytical ability.
Persuasiveness
This give-and-take of bias in reporting raises the question of "persuasiveness." "Every letter is a sales letter of some sort," goes the refrain. And information technology is true that persuasiveness in writing can range from the "con homo" type of presentation to that which results from a happy blending of the four elements of business concern writing I have described. While it would be naive to suggest that information technology is not oft necessary for executives to write things in manipulative ways to attain their ends in the brusque run, it would exist foolish to imply that this type of writing volition exist very constructive with the aforementioned people (if they are reasonably intelligent) over the long run. Understandably, therefore, the "con man" approach volition not exist particularly constructive in the large business organization.
On the other hand, persuasiveness is a necessary attribute of organizational writing. Yet information technology is difficult to depict the qualities which serve to brand a advice persuasive. It could exist a sure ring of confidence about the manner recommendations are avant-garde; it could be enthusiasm, or an understanding of the reader's desires, and a playing up to them. One can persuade by hitting with the edgeless edge of the axe or by cutting finely with the abrupt edge to prepare the mode. Persuasion could effect from a fine sense of discretion, of hinting but not stating overtly things which are impolitic to mention; or information technology could consequence from an action-orientation that conveys acme management's desire for results rather than a more philosophical approach to a subject. In fact, it could exist many things.
In an organization, the best test to apply for the propriety of persuasiveness is to ask yourself whether you would care to take activeness on the ground of what your own communication presents. In the long run, information technology is unsafe to presume that anybody else is stupid and malleable; so, if y'all would exist offended or damaged in the result that you lot were persuaded to take the activeness suggested, you should recapitulate the advice. This test eliminates needless worry well-nigh slightly dishonest only well-meaning messages of congratulation, or routine progress reports written just for a filing record, and the like. But it does bring into sharp focus those messages that cantankerous the line from persuasiveness to bias; these are the ones that volition injure others and so eventually injure y'all.
Conclusion
No 1 can honestly gauge the billions of dollars that are spent in U.S. industry on written communications, only the amount must be staggering. By contrast, the amount of thinking and endeavor that goes into improving the effectiveness of business writing is tiny—a mouse invading a continent. A written operation inventory (like Exhibit II) in itself is not the answer. Just a checklist of writing elements should enable executives to speak about writing in a mutual tongue and hence be a vehicle past which individual and group improvement in writing tin take identify.
By executives' own vote, no aspect of a manager's operation is of greater importance to his success than communication, particularly written communication. Past the facts, however, no part of business practice receives less formal and intelligent attention. What this article asserts is that when an individual asks, "What do yous hateful I can't write?"—and has every want to amend—his company owes him a sensible and physical reply.
i. Encounter also, C. Wilson Randle, "How to Identify Promotable Executives," HBR May–June 1956, p. 122.
A version of this article appeared in the May 1964 event of Harvard Concern Review.
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Source: https://hbr.org/1964/05/what-do-you-mean-i-cant-write
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