“Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary.” John F. Kennedy
I like what JFK had to say for a couple reasons. First, if you can’t stand up and say it in 15 or 20 minutes, then keep your rear end planted in the chair. When it comes to business communication skills, ponderous length doesn’t impress; it alienates. We’re all busy, and we all have limited attention spans. FOCUS your message and never forget: Brevity is clarity.
Sound a bit harsh? Not to me, not when I get electronic business writing from “writers” who don’t bother to capitalize, check spelling, edit themselves for internal contradictions, and think through the points to make and then lay them out via the handy devices of paragraphs or bullets — in other words the basic rules of the common language that that blue-haired English teacher worked so hard to help us understand, and that we somehow lost as we stuffed ourselves with specialized knowledge on our separate career paths, up to and including lawyers and PhDs.
The shame of it is that email offers so much in the way of clarity. Just think what it means when your boss or a customer asks for something electronically. You have the opportunity to actually think about a response and then word it carefully, instead of blurting out something in an unanticipated phone conversation that you may come to regret, forcing you to call back and repair the damage, real or imagined.
Generation Y often perceives their baby boomer parent’s generation as one that needs to get a life and have more fun. The reality for the boomers, however, is that work has given them a sense of identity and pride for many years. The traditionalist generation, or “radio agers”, (born 1925-1946) taught their boomer offspring that the key to career success is to be grateful they had a job, respect their employer, work hard, go above and beyond and you will reap the financial rewards, as well as a promotion, job title and maybe a bigger office. They passed on their experience of showing appreciation and dedication to their employer by hard work and long hours…understandable when we remember their values and attitudes toward work were shaped by two significant watershed events of their time; World War II and the Great Depression. Boomers learned these values but began questioning them during the recessions of the 1980′s and 1990′s when they personally felt the effects of a post-Woodstock world and a changing economic landscape. Many lost their jobs due to downsizing and restructuring (are you feeling a sense of déjà vu?). It is my view that many of us boomers are still conflicted regarding our own work values. In fact, we have been sending our children mixed messages. On the one hand, we taught our Generation X’s (Born 1964 – 1981) and Generation Y’s to be resilient, self-reliant and at the same time to respect their career path, yet we seem disgruntled when the new generations we now work with have less trust in management and complain about feeling undervalued.
So it all starts with proper respect for the language. But there’s much more to consider when it comes to using e-mail wisely. Over the years, I’ve fashioned a few tips:
• Be considerate — Don’t write when you’re angry and don’t be sarcastic. That might make you feel better, but why make the recipient feel like a victim?
• Slow down — Hitting “send” without careful self-editing can leave the kind of language mistakes that make the reader wonder: What else is wrong with this e-mail? Is it accurate? The same goes for the attachment. If you announce it, then forget to attach it, you look sloppy and frazzled.
• Make your points — By forcing yourself to keep the whole message to a screen or less, you can make your points or action items in bulleted form. Don’t ever forget that your readers are busy people.
• Manage your email — Handle incoming stuff two to four times a day, instead of interrupting your other work every time you see a “you’ve got e-mail” message.
• Be empathetic — Try to answer e-mail the same day. Being thorough and attentive can increase respect for the way you do business.
• Be efficient — In the subject line, use keywords like “new meet time Tues 7/10″ rather than generic terms like “update” or “FYI.” That kind of phrasing will encourage people to actually open the email.
• Be careful — Nothing sent by e-mail is truly private.
Having covered the Pentagon for Business Week magazine, my expectations were low when it comes to military writing skills — jargony, acronym-clogged, even pompous-sounding language. I was in for a pleasant surprise. To be sure, the SEALs were a bit wordy, but they quickly grasped the key to any workplace writing: Get to the point. Tell me what you want. Persuade me to adopt a new policy or spend money, analyze a complex situation, or explain a new development. Then tell me why I should be interested, what’s in it for me. From there, you support that idea with details.
What’s more, respect me, and all readers, by being concise. Quoting the English poet Robert Southey: “If you be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams — the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.” That’s quite a leap from modern-day elite warriors to a Romantic Age poet, isn’t it? Still, it’s all about deploying the language we share to achieve effective communication, using words wisely and economically and with conviction.
I heard something else from the SEALs that makes me think all is not lost when it comes to military writing today. Their superiors have introduced them to a writing organization concept called “bottom line up front.” Makes sense, doesn’t it? Get to the point. Unfortunately, that leaves us with the acronym BLUF. I wonder if the powers-that-be would like to rephrase that
Resource Author Francisco Rodriguez Higueras
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