Comprehensive, clear and concrete communication spark understanding! You receive who-knows-how-many emails daily and only a few of them clear your head of other thoughts and get you to take action. That’s what you want your writing to do: clear the thoughts of your readers and focus on my points. Be specific! Clearly describe your information so others can “see” your thoughts and have the same “picture”of the words on the page that you do.
Your words stay on the page, your emails remain in the receivers’ in-box or read-box for weeks, perhaps months, and they may be sent to other readers. To alleviate wasted time in your readers’ day, be specific and create valuable and beneficial information to assist them in their work: new policies, timely material for reports, detailed instructions and directions, all of which need to be objective: leave no room for questions or subjective thought patterns.
Objective information is factual, subjective is personal. In Marcus Buckingham’s book, First Break All the Rules, he talks about individual filters that make up our DNA, how we see the world. No two of us are alike! “You have a filter, a characteristic way of responding to the world around you. We all do. Your filter tells you which stimuli to notice and which to ignore, which to love and which to hate. It creates your innate motivations – are you competitive, altruistic, or ego driven? It defines how you think – are you disciplined or laissez-faire, practical or strategic?…It creates in you all of your distinct patters of thought, feeling and behavior. In effect, your filter is the source of your talents.” He goes on to tell us that your filter is working and guiding you to think, feel and do what you think, feel and do. When you realize that your filters continuously perform in your written and verbal communication, understand that your readers and/or listeners have different filters; be as objective as possible to avoid misunderstanding, miscommunication and mistakes.
Do your readers and yourself a favor: write with succinct language. Everyone’s filter is hard at work, which leaves interpretation at bay when subjective language’s used. Review your emails and business documents before you press the “send” button to get your readers’ perspective in mind. When you reread your emails today, also check the subjective v/ the objective language. Is there more concrete language you can use, more objective descriptions, more word pictures for your readers? No, not all readers will have the same understanding, as you don’t understand some of the emails that the writer felt was fully and completely clear to them.
Descriptive business and technical writing are more of an art, and needed now more than ever. The world of text messaging and other quick pieces of information, though valuable, do leave the art of clear, comprehensive and concrete writing on the lam.
Stand out above your competition with your comprehensive, clear and concrete writing.
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