Content that works for you—and for your audience
We have a lot to say. All too often, however, our message gets lost, and what we have to say goes unnoticed or misunderstood.
One issue: our communication fails to stand out from the crowd. And it is crowded out there. According to the Worldwide E-mail User Forecast, e-mail users received an average of roughly 4,000 e-mails in 2020. This figure is expected to approach 4,300 by 2022.
In his 2019 article “How to Spend Way Less Time on Email Every Day” in the Harvard Business Review, Matt Plummer notes that, on average, professionals have more than 200 e-mails in their inbox and receive 120 new ones each day. They respond to only 25 percent of them.
Two factors are linked to getting lost in the crush and the rush: a focus on the reader and a focus on the language we use. Let’s start with the former.
If a Tree Falls …
The basic communications process looks like this:
Sender: We need someone or something to be able to transmit our information.
Message: We have to have something to say. (Ideally, something meaningful.)
Medium: There must be some way to convey our message (phone, text, face to face, etc.)
Receiver: There has to be someone or something on the other end to get our message.
All four components are critical to effective communication. Remember the paradoxical question “If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Philosophers and audiologists may debate the answer; for communicators, there is no debate. If there is no one to receive our message, we have failed to communicate. We have wasted our time, and we have not achieved our purpose.
That helps to underscore why the receiver is the most important part of the communications process. Marketers have known this for some time. If you’re trying to sell a tampon, having a male voiceover isn’t going to win you clients. On the other hand, if you’re selling a pregnancy test, images of happy parents of both sexes will earn kudos.
Imagine you sell cars, and you have this beautiful, red convertible at a great price. While we don’t want to stereotype here, your first prosect is a 54-year-old recently divorced man. Your second prospect is a 21-year-old female university student. Your key message to both is the same: this is a great car—and it is a great car for you.
The information you give to the man, however, will not be the same as the info you give to the college student. Because they are not interested in the same things. What’s relevant to one is not relevant to the other. If we want them to listen, if we want to convince them, we need to tailor our message to them. In this case, perhaps potential buyer #1 wants to know about pick-up on the highway while potential buyer #2 is interested in fuel efficiency.
As obvious as this sounds, many messages focus more on the sender, why we are reaching out, what we need, what we’d like our audience to do, how we feel, what we expect. Receivers will not find themselves reflected in these messages and will usually move on to messages that show an interest in them.
Distractions and Gnats
In many of the presentations I give and courses I teach, people will raise the issue of inconsiderate readers (usually) who don’t respond by a given deadline despite the fact that the message has clearly stated a timely response is important. The thinking is the receiver of the message is at fault here, they have not taken our message seriously, they have neglected to do what was asked of them. From the reader’s perspective, however, the message did two things that led to their lack of interest.
First, it showed why the request was important to the writer. It did not explain why this should also be important to the reader. Second, we as the writer assume our message goes to the top of the reader’s pile. It rarely does unless we train readers, and listeners, that communications from us will be clear and relevant to them.
Our audience brings to every communication, whether written or spoken, two realities:
• They are distracted and usually multitasking.
• They have the attention span of a gnat.
Joshua Bell demonstrated this clearly in 2007. The world-renowned violinist, who made his Carnegie Hall debut at the age of 17, made his way to an arcade outside a Metro station in Washington, DC, with his $3.5 million Gibson Stradivarius in tow. For 43 minutes, he played six intricate and spell-binding pieces from some of the world’s greatest composers. There were 1,097 people who walked by.
How many do you think stopped to listen?
Seven.
Two days before his visit to the DC subway station, Bell played a soldout show in Boston. The average seat price: $100.
It’s not that people don’t like music or that they don’t want to be spellbound by a virtuoso. But people—the people we are communicating with—are busy, they’re rushing from one task to another, they’re thinking about their to-do list, they’re running for a bathroom having, unfortunately, eaten a kale salad for lunch. In the middle of this mayhem and multitasking, we enter with our message. We don’t have a lot of time to get our audience’s attention, and we have to work hard to keep it. Clarity and conciseness will help here. So will a focus on the audience.
One way to determine whether we have achieved this is to take a look at a presentation or piece of writing. How many times did we say, “I,” “me,” “this organization,” “our?” How many times did we say “you?” The latter speaks directly to the audience and draws them in. The former says they really aren’t important and that this message isn’t really about them. (Of course, we will use this pronoun prudently. Telling someone, “You are an idiot,” is likely to get a response, just not the one we wanted.)
In writing, the audience focus is often referred to as reader-based prose. The opposite is writer-based prose, which centers on the writer’s needs and emotions. We know how far that gets us.
More broadly, efforts to put the audience front and center use an approach called the “You Attitude.” In many cases, our piece of writing or our presentation is clear and concise, it’s just not inclusive language. This can often be changed easily and quickly. Like this:
I Attitude: I wanted to send my sincere thanks for meeting such a tight deadline with the spinach harvest.
You Attitude: Thank you for meeting such a tight deadline with the spinach harvest.
I Attitude: We will start canning the spinach this week, and we will have the canning completed by June 10th.
You Attitude: Your spinach is being canned this week, and you should receive the shipment by June 10th.
I Attitude: We are pleased to offer a 10% discount on the spinach order. We do this for special customers.
You Attitude: As a special customer, you will receive a 10 percent discount.
The You Attitude is just that: a perspective. We hear about patient-centered care and customer-centered service. For communications, this is about putting the people we’re reaching out to at the heart of the communication. We need to do that respectfully, of course. (Hence, “You are an idiot,” is not recommended.)
More Than Words
Consideration is about more than the language we use. It’s a philosophy. Inherent in that philosophy is respect. Saying “please” and “thank you”—sincerely—is appreciated by audiences. It draws them in to a communication, builds trust, and increases engagement. All too often such common courtesies are overlooked, not because we’re not nice people but because we are in a hurry, we’re multitasking, we’re distracted.
A course participant once told me one result of a survey that had hit home to her. The government she worked for conducted an employee feedback survey every two years. One question asked respondents to identify the things that discouraged them most about their job. The top answer: No one ever says thank you.
It’s a little thing, and it makes such a big impact. That is the impact that comes from putting your receiver in the spotlight.
It’s not hard to do. As a communicator, you need to know your audience, their needs, their knowledge level, their attitude about an issue. Even when we don’t know our audience personally, we can usually put ourselves in their shoes. Most of us have shared an experience that mirrors our audience. We have been a customer, a patient, a student, a frustrated driver, even an opponent of kale.
Case Study
Several years ago, we did some work for a client, a government agency that was rewriting its form letters in response to new legislation. That legislation mandated a different calculation for benefits paid to workers injured on the job. The calculation wasn’t easy, and it was a significant departure from the previous system.
The Client Services department spent a lot of time and effort working on a letter that would explain clearly and simply, without being condescending, how benefits were determined. This was important information, and they wanted to be sure injured workers understood how their monthly benefit was calculated. Also, the detailed explanation gave injured workers an opportunity to check the stated amount to ensure it was correct.
When we received the form letter, we put together a number of focus groups with workers who had been previously injured. We wanted them to review the material to make sure it was straightforward, understandable, and helpful. Without fail, every focus group said there was one major problem with the letter.
Can you guess what it was?
Nowhere in the letter did it say, “So sorry to hear you’ve been injured at work.”
Demonstrating why something is relevant to an audience, particularly spelling out how they will benefit—from responding to an e-mail, answering our questions, even eating spinach—is more likely to get us the results/response we were hoping for.
The You Attitude will enable us to speak directly to our audience, draw them into the content, and keep them there.
Another critical element: specificity.
Too often we rely on ambiguous, vague, and imprecise language. This will not win us friends and influence people. Rather it will bore, confuse, and mislead people.
One reason we default to words that don’t state exactly what we mean and what we need is because we know the material we are communicating. We know why we’re reaching out and what we want. It’s a You Attitude issue. It’s not about whether we understand this, but will our audience understand this.
Remember Dick Wadd from the first chapter who asked for a date next Friday? You see where that got him. That miscommunication is an example of using language that is open to interpretation because there is more than one reasonable conclusion to reach. If he’d said “this week,” for example, there would only have been one possible interpretation.
This type of communication problem is called lexical ambiguity. It’s when words have more than one meaning. As the sender, we always interpret the meaning as intended because it’s our message. Audiences don’t have that advantage.
In some cases, our audience will figure it out. Take this paragraph from J.D. Salinger’s fabulous novel The Catcher in the Rye.
I ran all the way to the main gate, and then I waited a second till I got my breath. I have no wind, if you want to know the truth. I’m quite a heavy smoker, for one thing—that is, I used to be. They made me cut it out. Another thing, I grew six and a half inches last year. That’s also how I practically got t.b. and came out here for all these goddam checkups and stuff. I’m pretty healthy though.
Now let’s read it again, focusing in on two words:
I ran all the way to the main gate, and then I waited a second till I got my breath. I have no wind, if you want to know the truth. I’m quite a heavy smoker, for one thing—that is, I used to be. They made me cut it out. Another thing, I grew six and a half inches last year. That’s also how I practically got t.b. and came out here for all these goddam checkups and stuff. I’m pretty healthy though.
What do these bolded words refer to? (Now admittedly, we are not in the middle of reading the novel, but give it your best shot.) It’s usually assumed “they” refers to medical professionals and “here” to the mental health center where the main character Holden Caulfield is presumed to be staying.
Many readers of The Catcher in the Rye will reach this conclusion, correctly we assume. There is a technical term in communications for when audiences take an ambiguous word or phrase and arrive at the expected interpretation. We call it “guessing.” Such nuance may be appropriate, even intriguing, in literary fiction. In workplace communications, it is simply annoying—and a major reason why our messages fail.
Guessing is dangerous. We run the real risk, that our audiences will attribute a meaning to our words that we never intended. This leads to miscommunication, and that, in turn, often requires additional communication to clarify. More wasted time, and not great for our reputation.
Guesswork may also require our audiences to slow down and divert from the main message while they interpret what it is we’re saying. Readers and listeners don’t have the time or the patience for that. They might do it once, after that they’re moving on to clear, concrete communication—from someone else.
Double Entendre
There is another type of ambiguity that crops up regularly in communications. It’s called syntactic or structural ambiguity and refers to there being two or more meanings for a sentence or phrase. Take this example:
Popeye spied Brutus with a telescope.
So what does this sentence mean? (1) That Popeye, our sailor man, was using a telescope to keep an eye on his arch nemesis. (2) That Popeye, ever diligent, got a bead on the big, bad Brutus, who, by the way, just happened to be carrying a telescope. (For no good deed, we’re sure.)
The only person who can know the answer to the question is the writer/speaker. The arrangement of the words lend themselves—accurately—to either interpretation. Such problems can often be fixed easily.
Like this:
Using his telescope, Popeye spied Brutus.
Popeye spied Brutus, who was carrying a telescope.
We noted earlier that many readers and listeners will attempt to decipher the meaning of ambiguous language. Many won’t. Like my friend, they’ll assume they know what is meant by the phrase “next Friday,” and blithely go about their day.
Dastardly Language
Ambiguous language can also lead to inaccurate interpretations. This, in turn, can lead to assumptions and conclusions never intended in the original sentence. Just ask Popeye and Olive Oyl.
Popeye did not go to the regatta because Olive Oyl was there.
This sentence has two possible meanings. It could mean that Popeye stayed away from the regatta because he knew that Olive Oyl would be there. That leads us to think Popeye and OO are on the outs. Which likely means they had a fight. Maybe because he is cheating on her. The bastard!
The second possible meaning is that Popeye didn’t go to the regatta to see OO. He went for some other reason. Perhaps to confront Brutus about the telescope. I mean why does a landlocked sailor need a telescope—unless he’s spying on someone. Someone like Olive Oyl. The bastard!
Less dramatic, but equally problematic, are the assumptions our readers and listeners—as well as ourselves—bring to sentences that are open to interpretation. For instance, if someone says, “I’ve never eaten spinach cooked this way,” what might that mean to most people? What is it likely to mean to the chef?
It could be taken as a compliment. It could be taken as a criticism. Although the comment is straightforward enough, it opens the door to further interpretation.
As a journalist, I have written articles for hundreds of magazines and newspapers, both online and in print. It’s not unusual for someone to say to me, “I read your article in Spinach Monthly” or “I saw your piece about thongs on Beach Bums.” Invariably I say, “Thank you.”
But what am I thanking them for? Neither comment actually says the person liked my article or thought it was well-written. Is that compliment implicit in the sentence? Maybe. Or maybe it’s the speaker’s way of acknowledging my work without having to say they liked it, because, well, they didn’t. This is a different kind of ambiguity. One the Thong Principle rails against.
Poetic License
So how do we sidestep unclear language, avoid ambiguity, and bring precision to our words. Start with this fundamental tenet: My communication will have only one interpretation—the one I intended.
Here’s the caveat to concrete writing and speaking. There are times we want nuance, or we want to be clever and compel our audience to think about the layers inherent in our language. Poetry does this as a matter of course. Take a look at the last line of this amazing poem.
Harlem
By Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
This powerful ending could mean that the dream explodes. It exists no more. It could mean that the dream explodes into power and passion and is more alive than ever before. It could mean a violent explosion, such as the Harlem riots of 1935 and 1943. It could, and probably does, mean all three. Hughes wanted the line to be open to interpretation. This wasn’t accidental.
That is what we’re trying to avoid, however, when we communicate for work—the unintended message. Hence, the mantra: one communication, one interpretation.
Through the Fog
A related issue to ambiguity is vagueness. In their book, Critical Thinking: An Introduction to the Basic Skills (5th ed. Broadview Press, 2008), William Hughes and Jonathan Lavery point to standard political pledges as an example of deliberately vague language. For example:
My officials are monitoring this situation very closely, and I can promise that we shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the situation is resolved in a way that is fair to all the parties involved.
That may make us feel better until we look at exactly what was said. How is the situation being monitored? What are appropriate measures? Who decides what is “fair”?
This vague language leads people to reach their own conclusions about what is meant, frequently arriving at the wrong conclusion. This, in turn, leads to feelings of having been misled, perhaps intentionally. Now we have another, often bigger, problem: lack of trust.
There are tactics that will help us avoid misinterpretation caused by words that don’t clearly articulate their intent. Perhaps the simplest, the most straightforward—and the most overlooked—option is to replace vague language (and vague thinking) with specific details. Take, for example, this common sentence:
It’s hot out.
On the surface, a basic, understandable sentence. But what does it actually mean? Unfortunately, different things to different people. If you live in Alaska, “hot” has a different connotation than if you live in Hawaii. “Hot” also varies depending on the time of year. A hot day in winter is unlike a hot day in August.
Such issues don’t arise with this sentence:
It’s 86 degrees out.
There is no misinterpretation. People in Alaska might think (at least before climate change), “Wow, that’s sweltering!” Those in Hawaii might shrug, “Another typical day in July.” But both understand exactly what the sentence means.
Facts and figures play a central role in ensuring precision of language. They make the message clearer and easier to understand on first reading/hearing. They bring credibility to the issue and the sender.
Compare these two examples.
• Popeye is worried that today’s youth don’t eat enough spinach.
• Only 22 percent of today’s teenagers eat at least one leafy green vegetable a day—a reality that concerns Popeye.
Because concrete language is powerful, it is more persuasive. The accurate use of statistics, research findings, data, numbers, and more will convince audiences that what we’re telling them is reliable, fact-based, and believable.
Elevated language is also at play here. The more erudite (ahem) the words, the more the meaning is open to interpretation and the less power it has. A speechwriter for Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote this sentence:
We are trying to construct a more inclusive society.
FDR added this line:
We’re going to make a country in which no one is left out.
Clearer and more impactful. Many people think the fancier, wordier, vaguer way of writing and speaking is more impressive. It isn’t, and we’ll explore why further in the chapter on plain language.
Taking Action
Another technique successful communicators use to make language crisp and concrete is to put action in their verbs. Verbs are the heart of a sentence. Indeed, they are the only words that can stand alone as a complete sentence. (Go! Halt! Run!) Given the importance and power of verbs, why would we mute them or bury them.
Just as the name implies, action verbs describe an action. For example:
Popeye grazes on spinach all day long; he crushes cans with one fist; and he swoons when Olive Oyl enters a room.
Action verbs are different from what are called linking verbs. These verb types can’t depict action. Take for instance this sentence: Popeye was sad to learn kale consumption has increased worldwide.
The use of action verbs adds both oomph and precision to our communication. The same is true of words that paint a picture, convey a strong image or feeling, and stand out from the routine language of the workplace.
Everyday language
This is important.
Stronger language
This is critical.
The sentences are the same length and deliver a similar message, but one does so with a punch. That said, if all our communication becomes “critical,” our audiences will soon see this as ordinary language and its impact will diminish. As well, the issue really must be critical, or our credibility is affected.
Now as professionals, we’re not out to write a novel or win a Pulitzer, but that does not mean our language cannot be evocative and resonate with receivers. It’s to our advantage when it does because they are more likely to listen or read what we have to say, understand it instantly, and—this is big—they’re more likely to remember our message. And us.
Decipher This
Not So Great
Concerns about computerization cover a spectrum of diverse emotions. These include fears that the physical landscape in which people work will be degraded and that social connections will dissipate. There is a widespread belief that technology will be superior to human effort, and people will be devalued. However, as individuals become more knowledgeable about the attributes and abilities of automation, these concerns diminish.
Better
So why exactly are employees afraid of technology? They believe their workplaces will become cold and sterile; that they will not have social connections; and that their contribution will be diminished. They are afraid computers will make their work less necessary and important. This anxiety, however, tends to go away as technology becomes a more familiar part of the workplace.
Best
Technology is scary for many people—at least at first. Employees fear they’ll be cut off from coworkers, that the workplace will become impersonal, that their work will suffer. However, as employees become more comfortable with computers, these fears disappear.
According to widely published reports, a research study by Microsoft Corp., found that people have shorter attention spans than goldfish. That would be eight seconds for humans and nine seconds for goldfish.
There is at least one article that contends this is fake news, and the statistic may not be accurate. What is most important though is the reaction to the goldfish analogy. There may be an initial surprise, but people quickly shrug and say, “Yep. That sounds about right.”
This is the world in which we communicate.