I find it weird the way some people adopt the written version of a 'telephone voice' when they write business emails and letters. Not only do they sound pompous and staid but they can also be pretty difficult to follow.
I've just run three training sessions on improving business writing. I was nervous anyway but the pressure was really on because two of the sessions were with people who don't have English as a first language.
I had to think twice as hard about how to communicate and I think that's a really good thing. It's easy just to dash off a memo or letter without stopping to think about what we are trying to say or who we are talking to.
I took some real-life examples of how not to write to the sessions. They caused both giggles and furrowed brows. The reason? Well, they were written in that bizarre kind of way I mentioned at the beginning.
We don't speak that way in normal, every day conversations, so why chose a totally alien voice when we want to communicate something important? Surely the idea is to be clear so our message is understood? As my group proved, staid, stuffy language can actually obscure the meaning.
The examples I used are sprinkled such arcane gems as beverages, ascertain, pertaining to, prudent, deemed necessary, my personal favourite - egress, and oh so many others. Most of the sentences are passive which also gets in the way of clarity and each is written in one big block of off-putting text.
I knew the examples were bad but I didn't appreciate just how impenetrable they could actually be for people who aren't native English speakers. And their English was excellent by the way.
I found a really good book when I was putting the session materials together - Read this! business writing that works by Robert Gentle.
It has some excellent information and is written in a way that practices what it preaches. I also love Why business people speak like idiots by Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway & Jon Warshawsky.
Among the horrifying examples of business-speak it covers is a genuinely disturbing PowerPoint slide. The authors claim it could actually represent the first real instance of 'death by PowerPoint'.
