Page 51 - How to write effective business English your guide to excellent professional communication by Fiona Talbot

40 How to Write Effective Business English

time, simple can be smart. It’s easy for each of us to forget that! It’s
definitely time to ditch any ‘I’m cleverer than you’ obfuscation. I’m
using the inaccessible-to-many word ‘obfuscation’ to make a point.
Your business English is not clever if people don’t readily under-
stand it, across cultures and generations.
As a boss, you’re at the stage of your career where you should
know that confusing and reader-unfriendly messages can = lost
profits + lost sales and/or custom + loss of professionalism + lost
goodwill. Beyond this, you need to be credible so people will trust
what you say and what you do.
You also need to:

● ● inspire and grow your people;
● ● encourage ideas and interaction;

● ● identify talent and strengths, develop teams accordingly;
● ● listen and learn;
● ● communicate values and strategy;
● ● persuade – and get great results;
● ● know how to communicate good and bad news effectively.
It’s a tall order!
It’s taken time and effort recruiting, you’ve got to see it through:
your employees need to see writing that makes them feel valued,
through the good times and the bad.
Make the workplace as enjoyable an experience as you can.
Deliver the promise you made when you attracted them. In terms
of your business writing, check your messages align with their
goals alongside yours. Writing becomes more about the ‘we’ than
simply the ‘I’. You’ll find you get people on board much more easily
by reframing (as just one example): ‘You must do this’ to ‘We all
need this to work because...’ and give the reasons why such action
must happen.
Have you got a corporate writing style guide in place? Should
you? This is a brave new business world we’re entering and you
ignore the importance of written word power at your peril!