The 3rd edition of my book, Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector, is published in March. If you’re a lecturer or teacher you can order an inspection copy from the publisher.
The Articulate Accountant
I help accountants and auditors turn insights into impact by improving their business writing.
Sometimes it’s best to write nothing at all
Here’s a writing tip: Sometimes it’s best to write nothing at all. There are countless places where you can find tips for better writing. They’ll all say you should be brief. Cut out the waffle and the jargon. Well, sometimes I think you should cut out 100% of a document. Just don’t write it! Instead of less is more it’s a case of nothing is more than enough. When could this be the case?
Teaching smart people how to learn
Teaching accountants how to write is like teaching smart people how to learn. Chris Argyris wrote a seminal article for Harvard Business Review entitled, Teaching Smart People How to Learn. The gist of the article is that smart people are almost always successful at what they do. They pass exams and job interviews and so on. Because they rarely fail they haven’t learned the skill of learning from failure. The problem with this is that when they fail at something they become defensive, screen out criticism and look to blame someone or something else.
Good to know that a machine assesses the words I’ve written this morning for my diary over on the PFM Board were unlikely to be AI-generated.
Warm up before you write
Top performers warm up before they perform. This goes for writers as well as athletes and singers. John Steinbeck wrote with pencils on yellow pads. He started the day sharpening his pencils and writing letters. I’m sure the letters mattered to him and their addressees but this was how he warmed-up for his real writing. I’ve told this to countless students when discussing my expectations of their essays. I tell them because I know many of them will approach their essay in a totally different way.
Focus on what you can do, not what you can't
A communicator is the single most important job in a modern company. So said Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Axios. He said it because effective communication means people do their jobs better, companies run better, people are happier and they save time. Of course, much as we want effective communication from the very top we often don’t get it. You’re almost certainly in a position in your organisation where you cannot change the chief executive’s communication style, or lack of communication.
Tip to improve your writing: let Hemingway help you
Ernest Hemingway had a unique writing talent. He had a distinctive writing style. He used lots of short words and sentences. He avoided adverbs. (It is better to choose the right verb rather than amplify the wrong one.) The Hemingway Editor (hemingwayapp [dot] com) is a free service. You write or paste in your text you and it highlights adverbs, passive phrases and sentences that are hard to read. Then you can fix them.
Leaders need to be good writers
Recently I read an article by Adam Bryant, a former editor at the New York Times, in which he explained that an effective manager requires strong written communication skills. Two of the biggest traps to avoid are: ❌ Treating writing as different from speaking. Don’t use words and sentences in your written communication that you would not use in speech. ❌ Writing as if your audience is as much of an expert in the subject as you are.
It seems ChatGPT is good enough to get a law degree (ChatGPT Goes to Law School). As someone who has marked hundreds of university essays what I want to know is: when will scientists build an AI that can do the marking?
Writing tip: write like an Axios reporter
Axios write news stories to get “you smarter, faster on what matters”. It seems obvious to me that accountants and auditors write news stories, too. Email is probably the most frequently-used channel for these “news stories” but board reports, audit findings and many other documents could benefit from the an approach like Smart Brevity™ (Axios’s trademarked method for improving communication in organisations). By all means you can go to the AxiosHQ website to learn more about Smart Brevity™ or search for Jim VandeHei’s TEDx talk on the subject.