Today we are going to do a blog on writing. If that isn’t ironic, I don’t know what is. I thought this would be a good topic because it is something that we have worked on quite a bit since the start of the EMBA program at LBS. Writing is an important skill that everyone has to learn. In fact, about two-thirds of communication that goes on in the workplace today is done over written communication. Also as aspiring or current business managers, it is important for us to learn how to write concisely and appropriately.
Not long ago we were tasked with writing three blogs a week as part of our Management Communication class homework. It has been an exhaustive task but it is also very understandable why we have been asked to do this. There will be times when, as business leaders, we will be asked to write something for business purposes. If the reader doesn’t know you personally, they will actually judge you based on your writing skills. This emphasizes why it is important to learn how to write effectively.
For me, writing has never truly been my preferred form of communication. I like to read sometimes, especially nonfiction, but writing for me has never really been a fun experience. I guess once I get going on a subject that is quite interesting, it does get a little bit fun. However, during a school or university context, it has not been enjoyable. Despite this reality, I do have a vision of writing a bestselling book sometime in the future. I will not write the title here so I don’t give the magic away. Just trust that it is going to be an interesting read. I will give you a hint – it will be around boycotting.
For our management communication class, we have covered different types of writing such as text, letters, emails, and much more. Each of these forms of communication is effective in different contexts. For example, the text is a writing style that has been very heavily abbreviated over the years. The facilitator said something interesting about the text that I completely forgot about. Text abbreviations got popular because of the limitation of characters. Isn’t that crazy? I actually thought they were created purely to save time. There are many abbreviations that exist now and they continue to evolve. This is not something that is particular to text writing. It applies to all forms of language. If I were to read Shakespearian English today, best believe I would struggle to understand it. Even the King James Version of the Bible can be a struggle for me at times.
Nowadays we have the ‘lol’ ‘lmao’ ‘lmk’ and many more that I would not be able to translate. I would probably need my gen Z nephews to interpret most of the text abbreviations that exist now. That being said, I do use these abbreviations quite regularly. There have even been a few occasions when I used them in an email by accident. I would cover the full story in the second half of this blog.
RECALIBRATE