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Business writing has a sound all its own. Nothing else you read sounds quite like this:
Managers have the responsibility to coach teams that stretch priorities should be aspirational and difficult to accomplish–but that enhanced performance toward these high targets will be recognized and not held against employees.
Or
This program drives transformation by creating, in leaders and staff up and down the organization, new ways of thinking how to be effective in change, and the ability to apply the critical few success factors and skills that will enhance one’s own performance, and deliver value to others and the business as a whole.
It’s probably a good thing that nothing else sounds like this, right? Because it’s impenetrable and it’s silly. What on earth would make people want to write this way? It appears that somewhere along the line business people got the idea that writing unnecessarily dense prose laced with buzzwords will make them sound smart and insightful. Somewhere we got the idea that if you express yourself simply and clearly, no one will think your ideas are any good. In effect, many business people are writing with the goal of making their messages less clear, not more.
Let’s look at what the writers quoted above were really trying to get across and how they managed to muddy their messages.
Managers have the responsibility to coach teams that stretch priorities should be aspirational and difficult to accomplish–but that enhanced performance toward these high targets will be recognized and not held against employees.
probably means something like:
Managers must help teams understand that they should set ambitious goals to help them grow, and that they won’t be penalized if they don’t fully reach these goals.
The rewrite isn’t exact, but it’s close enough, and it’s very easy to follow. What this writer has done is to take a rather simple message and make it dense by using unnecessarily complex language. “Have the responsibility” simply means “must.” “Stretch priorities” is a way of making the simple “ambitious goals,” sound fancier. Once you use the word “ambitious,” you can drop “aspirational and difficult” because that’s what “ambitious” means. The writer has made the end of the original sentence more complicated by using the passive voice. The use of the passive also makes the message sound distant and impersonal, which is too bad, since it really means, “don’t worry, you’ll get credit for trying, and no one will hold it against you if you don’t get all the way there.”
Now let’s look at the second example:
This program drives transformation by creating, in leaders and staff up and down the organization, new ways of thinking how to be effective in change, and the ability to apply the critical few success factors and skills that will enhance one’s own performance, and deliver value to others and the business as a whole.
probably means something like this:
This program helps all leaders and staff think differently about change and apply critical tools to drive change and improve performance and value.
Again, it’s quite a simple and clear message. In this case, the writer has “smartened” it up by adding a bunch of language that expands the word count but not the meaning or the value: “up and down the organization,” “ways of thinking how to be effective in change,” “critical few success factors and skills,” “deliver value to others and the business as a whole.” The tone is self-important, and perhaps that impresses some readers. Everyone else is just struggling to figure out what’s being said. And attentive readers will realize that the emperor is not wearing any clothes.
At this point, you might be wondering what the big deal is. Lots of people write this way—business writing just sounds like this. If everyone writes this way, then everyone will understand you, right? So what’s the problem?
There are two problems. The first is that not everyone will understand you. It’s possible to get your head so deeply into jargon and convoluted language that you’re actually quite hard to understand.
The second problem with this kind of writing is that it can make you look bad. Most people start writing this way to sound smarter; then it takes over their brains, and they start sounding dumber and sillier. It turns out there’s research to support this conclusion. Carnegie Mellon psychologist Daniel Oppenheimer, in a paper called “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly,” found that writers who use long words unnecessarily are perceived by readers as less intelligent than those who use simpler vocabulary. In accepting the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize for Literature, Professor Oppenheimer explained: “It’s important to point out that this research is not about problems with using long words but about using long words needlessly.” He concluded: “One thing seems certain: write as simply and plainly as possible and it’s more likely you’ll be thought of as intelligent.”
It seems likely that writing this way does more than make you sound dumb: it’s likely that it actually makes you dumber. If you’re spending your energy tarting up simple ideas to make them sound fancy, how much actual thinking are you doing? By accepting the challenge to write simply and clearly, you’ll challenge yourself to do better thinking.
When it seems like everyone else writes this way, it’s natural to want to fit in, and we unconsciously adopt the style that our colleagues are using. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to fit in; what’s wrong is the “unconscious” part of it. So you fit in, and then eventually you sound like everyone else, and your writing is muddy and unclear. If you can find the courage to start sounding like yourself and saying what you mean, you’ll stand out in the organization. A distinctive and clear voice in writing will become an asset for you. People will see that your writing is clear and infer that your thinking must be clear, too. You don’t have to write in businessese to sound smart. You’ll sound even smarter if you can get rid of the inflated language and write in a simple and direct voice.
