Writing Within Organizations

5 Ways to Cut Through the Noise and Write to Distracted Readers

Write to Distracted Readers

Interruptions plague today’s business readers more than ever before. Between notifications, emails, text messages, voicemails, and physical interruptions, most people find it challenging to sit down and read through a written message. Research indicates that our brains carom off in another direction about every 44 to 50 seconds when we are engaged with a screen.

Yet as business writers, we want our readers to read through our messages and comprehend them. An important project may depend on everyone reading a report. A major sale may hinge on the prospect reading our proposal.

To defeat digital distraction, we need to understand it and work around it when we write.

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Inclusive Communication Builds Both People and Profits

We live in an age of great sensitivity to language–some might even say hyper-sensitivity. While being too “politically correct” might cause some people to roll their eyes, you ignore individual sensitivities at your peril. Words referring to gender, race, creed, sexual orientation, physical ability, mental health, gender identity, and the like have the potential to make some people feel excluded–and that is the last thing we should want to do. No one can write a list of words you can and cannot use because each audience has its own sensitivities. Nevertheless, here are a few principles to remember.

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Why Feedback Fails

In the March/April 2019 issue of Harvard Business Review, psychologist Marcus Buckingham and his colleague Ashley Goodall present compelling arguments in favor of changing the way managers offer feedback. They reveal that telling employees what we think of their performance lacks credibility in the eyes of the employee: The feedback is only your subjective opinion

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This Process is Killing Employee Ownership… and what you can do about it

George, an executive at a large local corporation, recently asked me to work with his team of staff members and managers. The focus was on the document review process, which was an unending source of frustration to all concerned. The staff members felt their hard work was butchered and rendered incomprehensible by multiple layers of management.

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