Foreword
This is a book for the Knowledge Age.
In the 21st century, value is created by knowledge work—the analysis, research, design, and development work done by strategists, scientists, technologists, and service professionals. Knowledge work and writing are roughly the same process: a document or presentation is the means of creating value in a high-tech world. Clearly, the value of the chemicals in a bottle of life-saving pills is negligible, but the value of the research and knowledge documented in the package insert is incalculable. The value of the silicon in a computer chip is slight, but the value of the knowledge embodied in the research reports, patent documents, and procedures is substantial. The documents are your best thinking made visible and sharable.
Although this book gives practical guidance on business grammar and usage, it does far more than that. You will find here guidelines to help you think and communicate more productively: to manage information efficiently, present persuasively, visualize clearly, frame and solve problems, and strategize soundly.
But beyond this practical guidance, this book is imbued with the paradigms and principles of high effectiveness:
• It stresses throughout the key attributes of good character—full honesty, integrity, and high ethics—as the starting point of trustworthy communication.
• “Beginning with the end in mind” is a thread that runs through every section—clearly defining your purpose in every interaction, whether a major presentation or a meeting or the simplest email message.
• First things are always first—priority information takes priority in every business communication.
• Win-win thinking is ever present at the heart of effective proposals, negotiations, presentations, meetings, resumes—in short, in all truly successful business dealings.
• The emphasis is on really listening to the needs of the customer, the co-worker, or the community before making yourself heard. Matching your message to their needs serves your purposes as well as theirs.
• Perhaps the highest form of communication is synergy—when human beings, collaborating with a win-win mindset, truly listening to one another, arrive together at new and better insights. Synergy is central to effective knowledge work.
The guidelines and processes in this book lead to synergistic communication, the kind of knowledge work that unleashes the human capacity to create, to build, and to win in the Knowledge Age.
Stephen R. Covey