Page 148 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

WRITE LIKE YOU SPEAK 139

challenge and opportunity for this nation. If we meet the challenge
in a forthright and courageous way, we can ascend to even higher
levels of prosperity; if we do not, we will slip into a steady decline to
economic mediocrity.” A better version is: “The next twenty years
are critical. In fact, they remind me of the Chinese word for crisis.
The Chinese use two picture characters to denote the word crisis.
The picture word for danger is placed next to the picture word for

opportunity. . . . Well, the twenty-first century can be a dangerous
time of declining productivity—or a decade of opportunity with
new markets and expanded growth.”
Résumé writers, too, are legendary in their ability to embellish.
The résumé writer will say, “spearheaded marketing, advertising,
and new product development.” In fact, the writer may have been
just one of many marketing people assigned to three or four failed
new product launches.
If all speeches told the truth (Churchill: “The news from France
is very bad”) we would probably be more productive. And if all
résumés were true, we wouldn’t have recessions.

9. Avoid weak verbs. Use stronger, active verbs wherever possible.
Examples:

Weak: Now we must maintain our resolve.

Stronger: We’ve got to keep fighting.
Weak: This year our growth will be sustained.
Stronger: This year we’ll keep growing.

Weak: We are also going to reduce costs.

Stronger: We are also going to cut costs (cut for moderate,
slash for extreme).

Weak: And we expect to incur a loss.

Stronger: And we expect to lose some money.