In my last post, I pointed out that some writing problems have underlying business issues. Here’s an example. (I’ve altered some of the details.)

I was working with a client who wanted to update the writing practices in his office. He was right: the memos and letters I looked at were wordy and old-fashioned.

But I thought there was a deeper problem. One example was a memo from an employee whose department had a problem with a piece of equipment. The service technician said it was time for a replacement.

He recommended a different machine that he thought made a lot of sense for the business. She’d known him for years, trusted him, and agreed.

The memo was…whew. It explained what the machine did and why the company needed it. It rambled through the whole history of the service and repairs on the malfunctioning machine.

The employee attached an estimate of the repair costs and a brochure about the new machine. At the bottom she wrote, “For your attention and use.”

* * * * *

Cleaning up clumsy sentences and pompous wording is always useful. But this company needs to address some personnel problems. I suspect there’s a lack of trust between the boss and the woman who wrote the memo.

As you move up the organizational ladder of a business, your responsibilities tend to spread out. Instead of knowing one area extremely well, you have a little bit of knowledge about many areas.

You have to trust your employees. They usually know their area better than you do.

The woman – let’s call her Diane – dealing with that malfunctioning machine knew what she was talking about. She wouldn’t be there otherwise. Writing a long history of the machine and what it does shouldn’t be necessary. (If Diane isn’t competent, that needs to be addressed before you start tackling her writing issues.)

Most of the time you should put your main point first. (The exception is when you’re giving bad news. In that case, soften it a bit.)

Readers are confused by a memo that starts with a series of details: “Last week the [name of machine] started shutting down in the middle of a cycle. Since then it’s been displaying a 271 ERROR message.” Where is this going? It’s confusing and wastes time.

Here’s how the memo should begin: “Our [name of machine] is no longer functioning properly. Frank Donaldson from Acme Equipment says that it’s not worth repairing. He recommends replacing it with [name of machine].”

Diane can go on to say that Frank is trustworthy – his recommendations have saved your company a great deal of money over the years. She can attach his estimate for the repairs and a brochure about the new machine.

A friend who read a draft of this post suggested that trust may not be the issue – perhaps Diane just needs to be taught how to write more efficiently. That’s true!

But often it amounts to the same thing – only this time it might be Diane who doesn’t trust her boss. She’s afraid he’ll get angry if she doesn’t provide every tiny fact about the issue at hand – “We purchased the [name of machine] on July 17, 2011.”

Maybe that’s a relevant fact – maybe it’s not. My point is that in a well-run business, you don’t dump everything you know into a memo or letter. You do some critical thinking before you start typing. Efficiency should always be one of your top goals.

Yesterday I needed to cancel a routine appointment. I went to the appointments page on the medical office’s website and found a 404 ERROR notice – the same notice I’d seen a month ago when I made the appointment.

I used the phone number posted there and pressed 2 for appointments. A recorded voice gave me some directions and added, “Don’t use this voicemail to cancel an appointment.” Then there was a click.

Now what? (Please bear with me – we’ll get to writing in a moment. I promise there’s an important point coming.) I called the phone number again, pressed 3 to talk to the nurse, and canceled my appointment.

I stayed on the line and told her about the 404 notice and the less-than-helpful recorded message. She clucked sympathetically and said, “I’ll talk to Dr. Smith.”

Ye gods and little fishes. There isn’t anybody on the staff who’s charged with keeping up with the website and the phone settings?

Does someone have to “talk to Dr. Smith” if a @#%! light bulb burns out?

Here’s my point: you can have a head full of grammar, and a wonderful vocabulary, and a knack for style. But writing encompasses much more than the black marks on a piece of paper or computer screen. Most of the time what you’re really writing about is…life.

If the systems at your workplace are badly organized, you can’t write an effective business letter, report, or email.

I’ve been thinking about this lately because of a consulting job I did last week. An executive asked me to evaluate some emails his employes had written. He wanted to update their writing practices. Bravo!

What I found was a lot of gobbledygook and old-fashioned business terminology. But what really needed fixing was the way things were done in his office. You could see it – or at least I could – right there on those typed pages.

In short, he was the real problem. He’s also a good guy, and he appreciated my recommendations. They will be the topic of my next post.

I’m going to give you a paragraph to read and think about. Here’s the situation. A  large organization has invited a famous speaker to make a presentation. It’s impossible to predict how many people will show up. The committee chair – Jane Morgan – has made a backup plan in case there’s an overflow crowd:

In the event of an excess of anticipated attendance, committee members are advised to carry out the following procedure. First, provide additional meeting space adjacent to the original location. Second, expand the reach of the presentation via electronic means.

Based on what you’ve read, what do you know Jane and her organization?

* * * * * *

The correct answer to my question should be that – aside from your assessment of Jane’s writing – you have no opinion of Jane and her organization. How could you? You don’t know anything about Jane. Does she have a college degree? How many years has she been with the organization? Is she reliable? Is she smart? Does she have leadership qualities? You have no way of knowing.

Similarly you know nothing about the organization. Is it honest? Innovative? Successful? Does it have a useful mission?

It would be ridiculous to make a judgment about Jane and her organization based on nothing but the three sentences you read a moment ago.

* * * * * *

But I can confidently tell you that every day – in offices across the United States – thousands upon thousands of employees like Jane use everyday writing tasks to try to convince others that they’re smart and they work for a superb organization or business. I’ve got to impress everyone. Otherwise they’ll think I’m stupid. They won’t respect me or my organization.

And so they try to make each sentence as long, elaborate, and tangled as they can. Here again is Jane’s message to the committee:

In the event of an excess of anticipated attendance, committee members are advised to carry out the following procedure. First, provide additional meeting space adjacent to the original location. Second, expand the reach of the presentation via electronic means.

Jane would save everyone’s time – including her own – if she wrote the instructions more simply, like this:

If too many people show up today, open another room, and set up a video broadcast of the presentation.

But she’s afraid to do that. They’ll think I’m stupid….They won’t respect me or the organization….

And so it goes.

Are you like Jane? I hope not. (The US government has a terrific business writing website: www.PlainLanguage.gov.)

The Nun’s Story is probably my all-time favorite novel. Kathryn Hulme’s 1956 bestseller (subsequently made into a Hollywood movie starring Audrey Hepburn) recounts the struggles of a devout Belgian nun who works in an African hospital. When World War II begins she finds herself back in Belgium, where she defies convent rules to work for the Resistance.

When I first read The Nun’s Story as a teenager, I was too absorbed in Sister Luke’s story (and probably too young ) to appreciate the novel’s sustained irony. Again and again, the convent’s rules and customs get in the way of true spiritual values – but the nuns are too absorbed in their quest for sanctity to realize what’s happening.

Today, though, I’m going to focus on a different aspect of the novel – the languages spoken in the convent. Because Sister Luke is a nursing nun from an upper-class family, she speaks French. Other nuns are assigned to the laundry and kitchen because they grew up on farms and have limited education: they speak Flemish. So we could conclude that Flemish is an earthy, robust language that can’t handle the linguistic demands of a modern corporation, hospital, or university.

And we would be wrong. After WWII, the people of the Flanders region began to rebel against the requirement to use French in schools and business. A strong push for their own language began, and today Flemish is the language of commerce, education, and science.

Linguistics experts tell us there’s no such thing as a “simple” or “primitive” or “coarse” language. Every language has the capacity for subtlety and sophistication. I once knew a counselor who studied sign language so that she could work with hearing-impaired clients. She told me that the sessions where she “talked” with her hands were no different from those where she used spoken English.

So let’s talk about English, a sophisticated and worldly language that’s never been subjected to that kind of prejudice…right?

Wrong. After William the Conqueror and his army invaded England in 1066, French became Britain’s official language. Anyone who wanted a prestigious job made it their business to master the French language. The result was a split in our language that lives on today.

Let’s use roast beef as an example. Wealthy French-speaking families could afford to buy cows for their meat. Poorer families (who spoke English) used cows for working animals and sources for milk and butter. And so we continue to call the live animal a cow (an English word); but when it shows up on a plate, we give it a French name – beef (from boeuf). Today – almost a millennium later – the language is still full of these French/English pairs: legislator/lawmaker, paternal/fatherly, attire/clothing…you get the idea. When we want to impress someone, we automatically switch from English to French.

In my next post – the third in this series of four – I’ll talk more about the prejudice against English that has so often led to mistakes, confusion, and inefficiency.