Business Writing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 14

Writing Well to Manage Well

IN THIS CHAPTER

Communicating to build your team

Delivering bad news, good news, inspiration, and criticism

Writing strategic messages to higher-ups

Most great leaders are admired for their powerful communication skills. Not a surprise: How else can you inspire, motivate, and persuade? But alas, most people’s direct experience is with managers who are not leaders and who fall short on this skill set. Gallup, the premier polling group, reports that two-thirds of American workers identify themselves as “unengaged.” Done every year, the report has consistently pinpointed poor relationships as the main cause, which often translates as poor manager communication.

Seen from the organization’s perspective, this rampant disengagement generates mistakes, misunderstandings, inefficiencies, and high turnover. A workplace with low morale is an unproductive one. Why so many organizations allow this huge limitation to persist connects with misplaced values, structures that reward people counter-productively, and lack of training.

While these problems can’t be solved easily, if you are a manager or aspire to join those ranks, this chapter can help you manage ...