HBR Guide to Better Business Writing - Bryan A. Garner 2013

Introduction: Why you need to write well

You may think you shouldn’t fuss about your writing— that good enough is good enough. But that mind-set is costly. Supervisors, colleagues, employees, clients, partners, and anyone else you communicate with will form an opinion of you from your writing. If it’s artless and sloppy, they may assume your thinking is the same. And if you fail to convince them that they should care about your message, they won’t care. They may even decide you’re not worth doing business with. The stakes are that high.

Some people say it’s not a big deal. They may feel complacent. Or they may think it’s ideas that matter—not writing. But good writing gets ideas noticed. It gets them realized. So don’t be misled: Writing well is a big deal.

Those who write poorly create barriers between themselves and their readers; those who write well connect with readers, open their minds, and achieve goals.

All it takes is a few words to make a strong impression, good or bad. Let’s look at four brief passages—two effective and two not. See whether you can tell which ones are which:

1. In the business climate as it exists at this point in time, one might be justified in having the expectation that the recruitment and retention of new employees would be facilitated by the economic woes of the current job market. However, a number of entrepreneurial business people have discovered that it is no small accomplishment to add to their staff people who will contribute to their bottom line in a positive, beneficial way.

2. In this job market, you might think that hiring productive new employees would be easy. But many entrepreneurs still struggle to find good people.

3. The idea of compensating a celebrity who routinely uses social media to the tune of thousands of dollars to promote one’s company by tweeting about it may strike one as unorthodox, to say the least. But the number of businesses appropriating and expending funds for such activities year on year as a means of promotion is very much on the rise.

4. Paying a celebrity thousands of dollars to promote your company in 140-character tweets may seem crazy. But more and more businesses are doing just that.

Can you tell the difference? Of course you can. The first and third examples are verbose and redundant. The syntax is convoluted and occasionally derails. The second and fourth examples are easy to understand, economical, and straightforward. They don’t waste the reader’s time.

You already recognize business writing that gets the job done—and trust me, you can learn to produce it. Maybe you think writing is a bother. Many people do. But there are time-tested methods for reducing the worry and labor. That’s what you’ll find in this book, along with lots of “before” and “after” examples that show these methods in action. (They’re adapted from real documents, but disguised.)

Good writing isn’t an inborn gift. It’s a skill you cultivate, like so many others. Anyone of normal athletic ability can learn to shoot a basketball or hit a golf ball reasonably well. Anyone of normal intelligence and coordination can learn to play a musical instrument competently. And if you’ve read this far, you can learn to write well—probably very well—with the help of a few guiding principles.

Think of yourself as a professional writer

If you’re in business, and you’re writing anything to get results—e-mails, proposals, reports, you name it—then you’re a professional writer. Broadly speaking, you belong to the same club as journalists, ad agencies, and book authors: Your success may well depend on the writing you produce and its effect on readers. That’s why what you produce should be as polished as you can make it.

Here’s an example you may be familiar with. Various versions of this story exist—it’s sometimes placed in different cities and told with different twists:

A blind man sits in a park with a scrawled sign hanging from his neck saying, “I AM BLIND” and a tin cup in front of him. A passing ad writer pauses, seeing only three quarters in the cup. He asks, “Sir, may I change your sign?” “But this is my sign. My sister wrote it just as I said.” “I understand. But I think I can help. Let me write on the back, and you can try it out.” The blind man hesitantly agrees. Within two hours the cup is full of coins and bills. As another passerby donates, the blind man says: “Stop for a moment, please. What does my sign say?” “Just seven words,” says the newest contributor: “It is spring, and I am blind.”

It matters how you say something.

Read carefully to pick up good style

To express yourself clearly and persuasively, you’ll need to develop several qualities:

✵ An intense focus on your reason for writing—and on your readers’ needs.

✵ A decided preference for the simplest words possible to express an idea accurately.

✵ A feel for natural idioms.

✵ An aversion to jargon and business-speak.

✵ An appreciation for the right words in the right places.

✵ An ear for tone.

How can you acquire these traits? Start by noticing their presence or absence in everything you read. Slow down just a little to study the work of pros. This shouldn’t be a chore, and it shouldn’t be squeezed in at the end of a long day. Grab a few spare minutes, over your morning coffee or between tasks, and read closely. Find good material that you enjoy. It could be the Economist or the Wall Street Journal, or even Sports Illustrated, which contains tremendous writing.

If you can, read at least one piece aloud each day as if you were a news announcer. (Yes, literally aloud.) Read with feeling. Heed the punctuation, the phrasing, the pacing of ideas, and the paragraphing. This habit will help cultivate an appreciation of the skills you’re trying to acquire. And once you’ve honed your awareness, all you need is practice.

Recognize the payoff

An ambiguous letter or e-mail message will require a “corrective communication” to clear up a misunder-standing—which saps resources and goodwill. A poorly phrased and poorly reasoned memo may lead to bad decision-making. An ill-organized report can obscure important information and cause readers to overlook vital facts. A heavy, uninviting proposal will get put aside and forgotten. A badly drafted pitch to a key client will only consume the time of higher-ups who must rewrite it at the eleventh hour to make it passable—lowering its chances of success because of the hectic circumstances surrounding its preparation.

That’s a lot of wasted time—and a drag on profits. But you can prevent these problems with clear, concise writing. It’s not some mysterious art, secret and remote. It’s an indispensable business tool. Learn how to use it, and achieve the results you’re after.

One prefatory note: Asterisks are used in the text throughout this book to mark examples of incorrect English grammar, spelling, or usage.