NYNP blog post 4-5-10

Notes on professional writing
Keep it simple, crisp, and focused on clients

During the last couple Leadership and Strategy classes, Professor Sermier provided some perspectives on good professional writing that I thought would be useful to share.

"If you can't make a crisp argument, you probably don't understand what you're talking about."
Simplicity and clarity not only help others understand, but also demonstrate the writer's understanding. People who understand something deeply can express a complicated idea in plain English, because they know how to reduce the idea to its essence. On the other hand, people with a lack of understanding often try to hide their confusion behind overly elaborate language.

"In 40 years of professional life, I've never read a document of more than four pages that had any value."
As described above, good communication is focused and clear. Most lengthy documents can be boiled down to include just the good information hidden within too much text.

For the most part, executives should receive short documents with three components:
1) the problem
2) potential solutions
3) the recommendation and why

"If the clients say the service is lousy, the service is lousy."
As usual, Sermier emphasized keeping the clients in mind. Fuzzy writing can hide clients and their needs behind confusing metaphors, irrelevant statistics, insignificant anecdotes, and more, which distracts people from what should be a nonprofit's main purpose - serving clients. On the other hand, clear writing can bring challenges to light so they can be addressed.

"Don't waste people's time with spelling or grammatical errors."
Always read documents over before sharing them.