Fear is not a helpful emotion in organisations: it constrains ideas and wears people down. Quite rightly then, good organisations will try hard to minimise fear in the workplace, but how to tell if it's there?
Take a look at the language people use. Fear of standing out; fear of taking responsibility; fear of sounding stupid: all of these concerns drive people towards impersonal, jargon-laden writing.
The more confident people are, the more independent they feel, the likelier they are to write what and how they think and not follow the herd.
If great people are dull writers, it's worth asking why.
