Writing in Business
The ability to convey ideas effectively through writing is a skill. As technology evolves and workplaces adopt diverse communication platforms, the need for clear, concise, and impactful business writing becomes increasingly important. Considering the growing overlap in professional and personal communication, improving your business writing will equip you to navigate the challenges of workplace communication.
Just like having a face-to-face discussion, effective business writing should rely on the seven principles of business communication:
- Clear
- Concise
- Objective
- Consistent
- Complete
- Relevant
- Considerate of Audience Knowledge
When you put pen to paper, you should consider every principle. We’ve looked at these principles before, but now let’s take a deep dive into how they might impact your writing.
Communication System Outage
Let’s assume that you’re writing a message to let everyone know that the office’s communication system will be down for half an hour next Friday morning. Let’s take a look at how each of the principles of business communication figures into that written message.
- Clear: When you craft the message, you should make sure that it’s clear to your readers. In this case, you want the entire company to know that the office communication system will be down for half an hour starting at 9. Being clear means that you add a.m. and p.m., even if you think it might be obvious. For the benefit of colleagues who may be traveling, you should also indicate the time zone (e.g. Eastern Time).
- Concise: Since it’s a message about the communication system, it should be a message limited to the communication system and the outage.
- Objective: Your personal feelings and comments do not need to be a part of the phone communication. For instance, “Even though the timing is poor, we are going ahead with the system update on Friday” is a great example of not being objective.
- Consistent: If the communication system has been out three or four times before, your message should be similar to those that came before it. Consistent means that the details are the same each time–that the communication looks the same, sounds the same; and that any new details are explained.
- Complete: If you set out to tell the company that the communication system is going to be out at 9:00 a.m. on Friday and then fail to tell them when it will be back up, then your message is incomplete. Strive to be complete in your written communication by anticipating any question a reader might ask: “Is the phone system going down this Friday or next Friday?” “How long will it be down?” “Is the whole corporate office affected or just a portion?”
- Relevant: When considering whether a message is relevant, you can ask yourself, “Are these readers affected by this information?” “Does it matter that the phones will be out on Friday if the office is closed for the holiday?” It also means not including information that isn’t relevant to the reader, such as, “The information technology department thinks that increasing the memory of the main server may solve the connectivity problems.” This is not relevant.
- Considerate of Audience Knowledge: Always keep in mind the knowledge your audience brings to the message. If you’re communicating the details of nuclear fission to a group, you would talk to them differently depending on how much they know about science. In this case, everyone understands what the communication system is because they use it when they work in the office.
It’s incredibly important to measure your written communication against the seven principles of business communication because, in written communication, the feedback portion of that social communication model isn’t always accessible. When noise enters your written communication, you often don’t immediately know that your audience doesn’t understand until it’s too late. Make sure you measure your message against the seven principles to stay ahead of any misunderstandings.