One-on-one Coaching to Improve Your Writing in the Workplace

It's hard to write simply: When I was a lawyer for the federal government, the managers in my office took a two-day course on how to write in plain English.

On Day Three, when the course was over and the managers returned to their offices, they were still writing in the passive voice, using nouns instead of verbs, and using legalese instead of everyday words. If the lawyers under their direction wrote clean legal prose, the managers took out their pens and edited it back into gobbledygook.

This wasn’t a reflection on the managers; they are smart people.

It wasn’t a reflection on the instructors; I saw their notes on an easel in a conference room, so I know that the seminar was incisive.

It was a reflection on how hard it is to write simply.

Classroom instruction simply isn’t enough. People need one-on-one coaching to follow up on classroom instruction. Some people don’t need classroom instruction, but do need coaching.

That's where I come in. I'm a writing coach (although I do teach writing too).

My technique: If people receive too many comments – hours worth of them on the telephone – or if all space in the margins in a document is filled up with red pen, people get discouraged and overwhelmed. They also don’t have enough time to do their substantive work if they spend hours being edited.

I usually use the following steps:

• Identify one or at most two problems per document. The problems are either the highest priority or ones that can be solved most easily.
  
  
• Identify the problem briefly to the person being coached.
  
  
• Explain briefly why the problem is a problem.
  

Ask the person how he or she could have avoided the problem; walk the person through solving the problem; or give the person the solution outright – whichever is appropriate.

Move on – either to the next problem or to ending the coaching session.

Why do I say that “I usually use the following steps”? Because sometimes people want to be coached on a particularly important document. In that case, we'll review the entire document. Sometimes people want long coaching sessions. In that case, I’ll provide them.

My non-threatening approach: People are self-conscious about their writing, and defensive too. I recognize that, help them feel comfortable, and show that I am on their side.

I draw on my teaching experience as an adjunct professor at graduate schools in the Boston area, and as an instructor at numerous seminars.

Problems: Typical problems are wordiness, using jargon, and using the passive voice.

Here’s an example of the passive voice: “Mailing documents in the first three days is prohibited.”

The passive voice is generally harder to understand than the active voice.

In addition, the passive voice often leaves out important information. Just who is prohibited from mailing documents? Who or what is doing the prohibiting? The missing information makes it still harder to understand.

Here’s an example of the active voice: “State law prohibits creditors from mailing documents in the first three days.”

Non-problems: I don’t consider these to be problems:

• ending a sentence with a preposition (such as “with” or “about”).
  
  
• a split infinitive (putting words between “to” and a verb). “To boldly go” is
  a perfectly useful phrase.
  
  
• contractions. “Can’t,” “won’t,” and so on are acceptable in workplace
  writing.

However, if your workplace or your supervisor follows and cares about these tradition-bound rules of grammar, I’ll coach accordingly.

Coaching vs. editing: Sometimes documents need so many changes that the process becomes, not coaching, but editing. I provide editing as well.

I prefer coaching over editing. That way, a document’s author can still present the document as his or her own work, and do so more fairly. And the author has learned something from the process.

My success in coaching: I have coached people in their workplace writing, and seen their writing improve.

But the economy is based on a division of labor, and everyone has a unique set of skills. Writers need an editor, no matter how skilled and experienced they are. And some people will always need a writing coach.

In other words, I don’t guarantee that I can coach people to the point where they no longer need coaching. However, I can get them to the point where they need less coaching. I’ve seen that happen, and it’s gratifying.

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