Writing tactics won’t help. Here’s what will…

Before you write a word, answer this: why should this communication exist?

Skip that question and you’ll polish what you know, not what your audience needs.

You’ve spent weeks on the details.

Your reader hasn’t.

Your instinct is to show your work when your audience needs to know why your work matters to them right now.

This leads you to include much more than your audience needs to reach the outcome you want from your presentation.

And it’s why being concise is so hard.

Time gets spent polishing what you have instead of polishing the right material for your audience.

Here’s how to step back so you can concisely land a message that matters to your audience.

Identify who really matters in your audience. In a group there are usually a small number who are more equal than others for your specific issue. Work out who they are.

Understand their objections. Your audience, whether your manager, a steering committee or a board, should be interrogating what you give them. Be ready to handle their questions without being defensive.

Treat your first draft as a brainstorm, not a final draft. If you jump straight into writing before the thinking is done, you’ll end up in a chain of pain. You’ll be polishing the wrong ideas, quite likely via Track Changes with your peers and stakeholders.

Remember that writing style advice only gets you so far. For example, the military’s BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front) technique helps deliver a short, urgent message but won’t help you structure a case. Excellent writers like William Zinsser of On Writing Well fame help you express your ideas more clearly once you broadly know what they are.

So, the next time you sit down to prepare an important communication, get the substance right first. AI can then help you polish the prose.

More soon,
Davina

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