Infernal Comms

Stephen Fry: Let it all hang out

If there is one person in the public eye who you'd have down as a language pedant, it would be His Wordship Stephen Fry. Classically educated and erudite, surely he would be first in line to smite apostrophe-abusers everywhere. Well, it turns out that's not the case, and everyone in business should listen to what he has to say.

In a recent podcast, Fry berates the punctuation-whingers and grammar-grumps for nit-picking their way into our attitudes to language. Instead of being intimidated by the fear of getting something wrong, he says, we should be embracing the richness of the english language. And there's no writing in more need of enrichment than business writing.

The unforgiveable wrong committed in most business communication is that all the life is squeezed out of this vast and colourful language we share. More importantly for business, it's commercially disastrous too.

If you use pity or boredom to underpin your sales pitch, doing the writing equivalent of standing quietly in the corner of the room or muttering business-like phrases to anyone passing, good luck to you. People are attracted to the interesting, the interested, those with personality and something different to say.

So build your business with language that entrances, excites and entertains, and remember:

• be clear to be understood

• be interesting to be remembered.

The executive blog: show, don't tell

The leader's blog is spreading like Japanese Knotweed as company bosses look for (but more often than not are dragged into) new ways of communicating with employees. It sounds like a good idea but the results are often miserable.

A company I've worked with has a number of executive bloggers (and it gets very competitive when it comes to readership stats); each has their own style, but the blogs are not as varied as the authors themselves. There's a little too much holding back; not enough risk-taking. One exec's journey is interesting though.

In the beginning his weekly posting was a barely disguised "it's been good so far, now do better" missive. While this is an easy place to start it gets dull pretty quickly, which readers know but writers often don't. With some help he had the confidence to talk more about himself and his job, giving readers an insight into what it is to be him. Not surprisingly it became a much more engaging read.

In fiction and drama this is known as show, don't tell. By sharing his thoughts and actions, rather than telling people what to do, he led by example. 

Try these other tips for a successful leader's blog:

• shed some light on your non-work life - it makes you human (which is a good thing, whatever you may think). Talk about the things that are important to you, that have meant something; it will come through in what you write

• don't shoe-horn tedious domesticity into your blog in order to make some simplistic analogy. The following is NOT good: "I was doing the dishes last night and it made me think about the importance of keeping on top of governance every day, rather than saving it up for a periodic spring clean ..."

• show people what it's like to do your job. They'll respect you for it and will be more inclined to listen to what you have to say. And don't forget to include the stuff you don't like doing - nobody believes "I love every minute" fairytales

• be predictable in your timing but not in your content. If people know when to expect something from you, they're likely to form a reading habit. If they already know what they're going to get, they won't.

If you're not blogging, start soon. And do it well.