Find the real voices in your organisation

The way your business uses language is too important to be left up to the people in the top jobs.

Climbing the human pyramid of power doesn't depend on being able to excite and astonish in words; in fact the opposite is often true. Many conform to perform and encourage their people to do the same.

A business that writes like it thinks is a business that understands relationships. Without relationships a business is dead.

So if you don't have the bottle or the skills to write it like it is, find the people in your organisation who can. Track down the individuals with the authentic voices, who can talk the dialect of your business rather than the management Esperanto that no-one would dare use in public.

Get them to help convey news and ideas in ways that people will understand, appreciate and remember. You just might find that it catches on and everyone feels able to write like a human being. Pretending to be something you're not is an energy-sapping way to live a life after all.

All you need to do is support the pioneers, then sit back and take the credit.

Comments

[John Carraway]

Sounds like good advice and I would reccomend starting with the communications department. If you don't have a comms department, outside vendors can also help.

[Will Blackstock]

It's not actually a bad thing that not everyone knows how to write. We all have different specialities, after all, and there's no shame in admitting you're more at home with spreadsheets than presentations.

However, it is a bad thing when people who don't know how to write are doing all the writing at your company. Your post covers the fact that writing how you talk is a good idea, but it bears repeating. So does your 'management Esperanto' phrase, which I might have to steal! Thanks again.

Will