Becoming an Effective Business Writer

by Stuart Z. Goldstein

Writing effectively is not an academic exercise, it is a business imperative. If that’s true, why do we have such a hard time getting our ideas down on paper?

Even professionals that can write feel frustrated their memos and letters don’t always produce the results they want. What’s going on here? Maybe it’s not your writing at all, but how you think about writing?

Clearly, the fundamental exercise of writing is to inform, to persuade, to convince people to feel and to act. But in today's business environment, you're increasingly competing for influence with hundreds of other written documents that land on your boss' or client’s desk. What follows may offer a road map and some structured ways to help you become a more effective business writer.

Demystifying the process of writing
It's important at the outset to try and demystify the process of writing a little bit. Writing is an evolving skill. If you can speak, you can write. You can get better at writing by practicing and by learning some of the tricks that go along with it.

There's several truths about writing. Every writer needs an editor. When you think about your writing, you need to think in terms of having others review your drafts. You can't be afraid that someone else may catch something...or try to make it better.

Every writer has bad days. I don't care how good a writer is or how much he or she has published. The truth is that there are days when you're just off, and you can't get your thoughts together. Sometimes it's best to recognize not every day you start out writing something, that it's going to be your day.

The third point is that every writer experiences anxiety. Anybody who writes, even professionally, experiences some fear in having to write something. An analogy can be made to public speaking. It doesn't matter how accomplished a person is in front of a group of people, when they get up to speak, even professionals get nervous. It's part of what gives them that edge to make them successful at what they do.

Writers experience the same sort of fear and anxiety. Am I going to be able to get it down? Have I covered all the key issues? Have I expressed my ideas clearly and convincingly. Will anyone really bother to read this?

A New Style of Business Writing
The changes in writing styles that we see in business today reflect trends you see in our own daily lives. People read less. They have less time -- and less patience -- to wade through lengthy documents crowded with details and facts. The success of newspapers like USA Today and TV programs like CNN's Headline News underscore the value people are increasingly placing on news sources that can summarize the most salient information.

The irony, however, is that these trends run counter to the way most of us have been taught to write -- and the way we think about communicating our ideas.

Since writing is an extension of thought, you tend to articulate your ideas in a certain logical order. My basic premise is that if you want to improve your writing, you must first understand what's driving your writing style. Once you understand how you think about the task of writing, it becomes easier to consciously adjust your style to the new business realities.

Without really realizing it, your writing style has been shaped throughout your early school years. Remember the scientific method? If you've written up a science project with your kids lately, you'll recognize the process steps. First, you observe a problem, collect initial data, make a hypothesis, test the hypothesis by recording and collecting empirical data, analyze the data and reach a conclusion.

The scientific method, which most of us learned in grade school, uses deductive reasoning.

Report writing that you did in high school and college also uses deductive reasoning. You start by introducing your subject or thesis, developing and arguing a series of points (i.e. points supporting your conclusions and critiquing points opposing your view), summarizing your major points and then presenting your conclusion.

Each of these writing styles reflect a pyramid approach, where you start at one point and build out your ideas logically and in a downward-driven manner.

The world in which you learned how to write, however, is very different from the business world in which you operate. Senior managers are inundated with written information. The question you hear most frequently from your boss is, "ok, what's the bottom line?" This question reflects the way he or she is thinking when reading your memo or letter.

In business, as workloads increase and time for decision making is compressed, your writing is competing for influence with an audience that doesn't have time to read everything.

Today, the trend is business is toward a more journalistic style of writing. Rather than waiting till the end of the memo to state your conclusion, a journalistic writing style would start by stating your recommendation or the action your seeking in the first paragraph. This style is typically called the inverted pyramid.

Like any newspaper that you read, the first paragraph tells you straight away, what's the news? Why is it news? And then this writing style builds backward in a descending order of importance the points that support your recommendation or conclusion. Historical background information generally would be included last.

Journalistic writing is one of the cleanest forms, because it get to the heart of issues and away from a lot of extraneous discussion.

In many cases, if you don't grab the reader’s attention quickly, you've lost. How often have you seen senior executives pick up a memo, scan the first paragraph and set the memo down. They may never look at that memo again, if they have to sift through pages of argument, trying to figure out where you're headed.

Adapting to this writing style is not easy, especially when the deductive reasoning model has been so ingrained over the years. But a good standard to use in measuring your writing is simply this: if I only had time to read the first two paragraphs of your memo or letter, will I get the point? That's the challenge and the key to determining your writing success.

Here are some practical "how to" guidelines for writing a memo:
1. First, gather your ideas. Jot them down. What are the key points that you want to cover in the memo? They can be written on scratch paper. They can be single words. They can be phrases. How you get it down on paper is not important. But ask yourself: What's the action I'm seeking? What am I recommending? What decision are you looking for?

2. In the first paragraph you should state up front, what action or decision you're seeking. Example: I'm recommending that senior management approve our spending $5,000 for a consulting firm to do X, Y and Z.

3. The next paragraph should summarize why this decision is needed. It can be one paragraph or it may be several crisp paragraphs, depending on the number of points you need to cover.

Before starting this section, you should write down the key thoughts you're going to cover. Example: Point 1, this consultant brings a particular expertise to this subject. Point 2, we don't have staff to conduct this research. Point 3, completing this research will better position us for next year.

Once you have the thoughts down on a pad, then you can expand on them. Using bullets can be an effective way of communicating your ideas succinctly, but each bullet should represent a complete thought.

4. The rest of the memo can cover the details or what I call implementation steps. When should the action or decision occur? Who do I have to communicate it to? How will the action or decision be implemented?

Let's look at letters:
1. The same inverted pyramid approach applies. Who is writing? What is the purpose of the letter? What action or decision do I want the reader to take?

2. The second paragraph, once again, should explain why it is important to take this action.

3. Points explaining the action and background information should be covered in descending order of importance.

4. Details associated with what readers need to do in implementing the action or decision come last. For example: Once you have identified your coordinator for the sales campaign, please fax the name to Mike Walsh at 444-4455.

Each letter should have a specific purpose or objective. There may be many other things you can do in the letter to enhance your image, strengthen client relationships and cross market services. I've tried to keep the guidelines simple, however, to put emphasis on the most basic elements of an effective business letter.

But writing is more than just an important part of getting the results you want or winning the confidence of customers. In a business environment, you never know when something you've written may be passed along and wind up on the desk of senior management or the CEO. Since they may not see your work regularly, their sole basis for judging you as a professional may come down to a memo or letter that you've written. The ability to articulate ideas on paper persuasively can be a key to your advancement in management.

If your eyes are glazing over at this point, stop worrying. Your experience should have taught you by now, that nothing is as difficult as it seems. Becoming an effective business writer starts with two important steps. First, use the inverted pyramid. Second, write, write, write--as often as you can.

Like most things in life, the more you work at it the better you get.

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Key Tips on Writing:
1. How do I know if my thought is clear in something that I've written? If it answers the question, so what?

How often have you read a sentence in a memo, "We think it's important to look at X, Y and Z." Why look at X, Y and Z? Where are you going with this? The point is in your head. You may know what you mean, but you have not put it down clearly on the page. When you read a sentence like this or a paragraph, it must be a complete thought. It must answer the question, so what? By asking yourself this question as you proofread your document, it will force you to complete incomplete thoughts and to develop writing discipline.

It's the most prevalent question writers ask each other, and when they criticize each other's documents, they note in the margins: so what? You can help yourself by keeping those words tacked on the wall near your desk. Then if you're reading something and the paragraph or the sentence doesn't answer the question so what, you'll know the thought is unclear and you have to go back and clear it up. Go ahead and try it.

2. How to get started? Ask yourself a series of questions and make a list of answers. Who is my audience? What message do I want to deliver to this audience? What do I want them to do? Use bullets or short phrases to get your ideas down on paper. Why is this message important? What will happen if readers don't respond? What's at stake here? How can the reader take steps to respond?

3. Write in short sentences. It makes it easier for you to get your points across. It will also make the writing clearer. As with any set of rules, there are always exceptions. Sometimes you need a longer sentence to ensure your thought is complete. But to the extent possible, brevity is best.

4. Use bullets to summarize key points in lengthy memos. If you use bullets, however, make sure your thought is complete. Each bullet must explain the purpose or objective that it’s meant to serve. Otherwise the reader is left wondering what you meant and asking, so what?

5. Keep paragraphs short or bite size. You're competing for influence, so you don't want to overburden your audience with large blocks of text. It's unappetizing. By breaking up long paragraphs, it makes the information easier to read and more accessible.

I'd go so far as to suggest arbitrarily looking for ways to start new paragraphs, even when they're not necessary. If you're going to err here, do it on the side of readability. A bite-size memo is one your reader is apt to tackle and digest in one seating.

6. Give the reader a road map: Use umbrella sentences in lengthier memos and reports. In a long document where you are trying to cover several points, the reader will get lost if you make one point at a time. Frequently, there's nothing really connecting these points and the reader has no idea where you may be headed.

By giving the reader a road map, your using an umbrella sentence to forecast what you're going to cover before you discuss it in detail. "If we're going to solve this problem, we need to look at three critical areas, including systems, processes and employee commitment."

The reader can choose to plow through the lengthier discussion below, or can say, "Well, I know what they mean by systems, processes and employee commitment." You're allowing the reader an option to read through or skip to the next section.

Save the editorializing for the first paragraph, where you're saying basically what it is that you're recommending or your conclusion. But the body of something that you write, if it's a report or if it's a lengthy memo should be straightforward. Keep the adjectives to a minimum.

8. Write in plain English. Don't presume, which often times we do, that everybody knows what you're talking about. Everybody has his/her own jargon and their own frames of reference.

This does not mean that you never use a jargon, acronym or technical frame of reference. There are times when they're appropriate. But next to it, give the reader an explanation.

About the Author:
Stuart Z. Goldstein is Managing Director, Corporate Communications at The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation in N.Y. His 20+ years of experience cuts across the disciplines of corporate communications and public affairs, including serving as a spokesperson at two Fortune 500 companies. He also spent a decade running political campaigns in New Jersey. He can be contacted at sgoldstein@dtcc.com.

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