There are many different kinds of work in the world, but all work can be conveniently divided into two types: mental work and manual work.
Manual work or manual labor can be very satisfying. There are very noble professions that primarily involve manual labor. Carpenters, construction workers, auto mechanics, and autobody specialists, to name just a few, all do creative, meaningful, and potentially rewarding work.
Equally important, though perhaps less appealing, are essential waste management and custodial jobs. Customer service is a growing field. Helping other people purchase their clothes and hamburgers takes a certain level of social skill, but is largely an endeavor in manual labor.
In addition to whatever enjoyment and financial gain you may get out of it, one thing that certain manual labor jobs have going for them is that they are harder to outsource. After all, you can’t drive to China to have your care repaired, and it doesn’t make sense to have your trash pick-up outsourced to India.
That said, this country has already lost many of the manual labor jobs that once formed the backbone of middle-class America. Jobs in the steel, auto manufacturing, and garment industries will likely never return.
Mental work, too, can be and has been outsourced. Nevertheless, mental labor has significantly more potential for earning you a significant income than most manual labor jobs. Furthermore, you are likely to have greater longevity in a field requiring mental labor than you are in one that demands manual labor.
The challenges you face to find meaningful and profitable work to sustain your career, your interests and your life are significant. The single most important thing you can do to help ensure your success in life is to equip your mind to think.
In our last post, Travis Greenwood, talked about the importance of critical and creative thinking in business. He linked both the development and demonstration of those abilities to writing. He’s not alone.
In 2004, the National Commission on Writing released a report entitled, “Writing: A Ticket to Work . . . Or a Ticket Out.” The report discussed the results of a comprehensive survey of businesses throughout the United States. Business leaders and human resources professionals were asked about the importance of writing skills in a wide variety of businesses representing both mental and manual work.
The Commission drew two conclusions from their study. “First, writing appears to be a ‘marker’ attribute of high-skill, high-wage, professional work,” and “writing is also a ‘gatekeeper’. . . . [O]pportunities for salaried employment are limited for employees unable to communicate clearly.”
The survey revealed that business professionals agree that good writing “consists of the ability to say things correctly, to say them well, and to say them in a way that makes sense (i.e., grammar, rhetoric, and logic [respectively])” (19, emphasis added).
One of the most important and consistent messages from business leaders in the survey were “comments equating clear writing with clear thinking” (19). One business leader expressed the consensus this way: “My view is that good writing is a sign of good thinking. Writing that is persuasive, logical, and orderly is impressive. Writing that’s not careful can be a signal of unclear thinking” (8).
The connection between strong writing skills and clear, logical, creative, critical thinking is clear. It’s equally clear that these very skills largely determine and define success as a professional.
Each writing assignment you encounter in school is an opportunity for you to develop and hone your thinking and writing skills. How you approach and value these opportunities will largely determine whether you end up working for a living or thinking for a living.
If you’re looking to advance into high paying career positions, my advice is Go Mental.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
Interview: Travis Greenwood, The Greentree Group
Today marks the first of what I hope will be regular interviews with business professionals. Our inaugural victim is Travis Greenwood, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Greentree Group in Dayton, Ohio and a friend of mine from back in the day.
btw2: Travis, can you tell our readers a little bit about your college and business experience?
TG: I earned my Bachelor degree in Communications from Wright State in 1984. I also earned a Master of Science in Administration from Central Michigan University in 1991. Waiting a bit between the two degrees was beneficial in two ways; it allowed me time to enjoy a new life outside of school and, subsequently, I was able to take some actual career experience into the classroom during my master’s courses.
During my last two [undergraduate] years of college, I worked full-time as a Public Affairs Specialist at Wright-Patterson AFB. I was a writer creating hundreds of articles for a few dozen newspapers around the country. Upon graduating in 1984, I took my prior experience to San Antonio, Texas. A large corporation specializing in jet engine repairs for the military and commercial markets hired me as a marketing assistant and project manager for a few military engine programs.
A few years later, I found myself in Albuquerque, New Mexico working for an Information Technology (IT) firm who designed and built lights-out repair facilities for commercial and military needs. The company eventually transferred me back to Dayton, Ohio. During the next several years, I held a few project management positions with Lockheed Martin and Battelle Memorial Institute.
In 1993, I started a consulting business with my father called The Greentree Group. We’re a strategic and technology consulting firm headquartered in Dayton, Ohio.
btw2: What role has writing played in your career? Do you think your ability to write has helped you in your career journey?
TG: The ability to write well has played a huge role in my career. I learned a lot about the basics during my two years of writing newspaper articles. My boss always told me the goal was to write articles with the proper amount of detail (less is more) and ensure they were easy to understand. We used the AP Style Guide because it’s the bible for print journalism. It’s widely used and contains a lot of “stuff” to help [keep] writers from making errors of fact, grammar and punctuation.
Now think about what I just said. I learned to write to the proper detail, make things easy to understand and produce documents that followed established writing guidelines. During the past 25 years of my career, I have found that those three things are key attributes of communicating with people in the business world.
btw2: It sounds like writing skills are very important in business, at least in your career.
TG: If you can’t write well and communicate your message effectively, your chances of growing in a business are very limited. That’s because writing is a huge part of a normal business day. People in my company (as well as most others) will send dozens of emails and prepare two or three papers of some sort every day.
Of course writing an email doesn’t necessarily require precise writing skills – people expect blurbs of information and even grammar errors when reading an office email. However, people still want to read a message having the proper detail of information. They also expect it to be easy to understand. Possessing the key attributes is even more critical when writing formal documents such as proposals or position papers.
Building skills that produce those three attributes is a continuous process – you never stop learning to better communicate your message. Your writing style might change or mature. You’ll become more comfortable with your writing as time goes by. But if you can’t develop and continuously improve upon the three attributes, then I would suggest becoming a rock star or a doctor who writes cryptic notes.
btw2: I’ve always believed that the skills I use as a writer serve me in other areas of my career. For example, the kind of preparation I undertake for a piece of writing is very similar to what I do when I plan a project. What skills or aspects of the writing process do you see as transferable to other business or professional activities you might perform on a regular basis?
TG: I would agree with the similarities of writing and project planning. Building an outline for a paper is just like building a work breakdown structure (tasks) for a project. I’d go even further to say that those skills feed upon each other – one skill grows as the other skill grows.
I believe my ability to speak or communicate an oral message has improved because of my increased writing skills. I find myself organizing my message before I open my mouth (although my wife would disagree with that). I have also found that my writing skills have helped with my thought process – and my thought process has improved my writing skills.
btw2: You and I had lunch awhile back and I began talking about critical thinking. You surprised me by starting to talk about creative thinking. What is the value of creative thinking to a business and do you see a connection between critical thinking and creative thinking?
TG: Critical thinking is very important. A business must have people who know how to analyze problems, organize their thoughts and make good judgments. Every university in America teaches it. A business cannot succeed without critical thinkers.
However, creative thinking is just as important. Being able to take a critical thought and do something with it is vital to a business. Producing solutions or developing a new product requires fresh thinking, flexibility, and people who aren’t afraid to try new ideas. Bill Gates and Microsoft is a perfect example.
In 1975, Bill Gates was a 19 year-old sophomore at Harvard writing revolutionary computer code. His ability to organize his technical thoughts, write lines of code and make them do something was extraordinary – that was critical thinking at its best. However, what he did in the early 1980s was one of the most brilliant pieces of creative thinking I’ve seen in the business world.
During those days, a transition of huge proportions – from mainframe to personal computers – was underway. Gates approached IBM about using MS-DOS on their forthcoming personal computers. Executives at IBM offered Gates, who was now at the helm of Microsoft, a sizeable amount of money thinking that the code could be purchased. They were floored when Bill told them that all he wanted was to sell them the rights (for a small sum of money) to distribute the code each time the computer giant sold a personal computer. The executives bought the creative approach thinking they could take advantage of him.
Bill Gates’ creative thinking was the key to making his critical thoughts (the MS-DOS code) successful. And, as I write to you today on my personal computer, Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the world.
btw2: You've been pretty successful, too. Tell us a little bit about your company, the Greentree Group. What does your company do and why would our readers want to work there?
TG: Greentree provides a broad range of professional and technical support services to federal, state, and local governments and to clients in the private sector. Our core competencies include business-focused strategies and solutions in three key areas: information technology, financial management and program management.
That’s the official, convoluted answer about Greentree. What we really do is solve our clients’ problems by helping them simplify or enhance their business processes through the use of computers and better management.
We’re a small, family-owned business with yearly revenues between $15-20 million. We treat our employees like members of our own family. Our people work hard and produce results because they know the company will reward them appropriately. It’s a simple theory based on a mutual partnership; as our people help the company grow, Greentree gives back to them. The minute that stops is the day we fail as a business. We also keep our priorities in line through a strong value system which fuels the belief that “we work to live, we don’t live to work.”
btw2: What qualities do you look for in a person when you’re making a hiring decision?
TG: Ethics, integrity are first and foremost. Critical thinkers are a dime a dozen. I am partial to the creative thinker because they’re always in short supply and it’s a talent that makes our company successful. Our people must be able to communicate effectively whether it is in writing or orally. And, finally, our people must enjoy coming to work everyday. If they don’t enjoy what they’re doing then they are no value to me or themselves.
btw2: I'm wondering how critical thinking can be important if "critical thinkers are a dime a dozen."
TG: I guess what I mean by the "dime a dozen" comment is that every university in America is teaching it through engineering, science, mathematics, and computer degrees. However, I don't think we see enough emphasis on the creative part. Fortunately, we live in America -- without a doubt the greatest country in the world. A country blessed by God with freedoms to allow all of us to create, express ourselves, and become successful. So, when I say "critical thinkers are a dime a dozen," many of those talented people can't or don't allow themselves to be creative thinkers. It's not something that is necessarily taught in schools but comes [from] a willingness to "think out of the box" and present ideas. Unfortunately, many businesses don't encourage that.
btw2: I see. So critical thinking is important – as you said before – but it’s kind of a given, something that is necessary just to get into the game. Whereas, creative thinking is more like the winning edge.
TG: Exactly.
btw2: Travis, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me and our readers.
TG: My pleasure.
btw2: Travis, can you tell our readers a little bit about your college and business experience?
TG: I earned my Bachelor degree in Communications from Wright State in 1984. I also earned a Master of Science in Administration from Central Michigan University in 1991. Waiting a bit between the two degrees was beneficial in two ways; it allowed me time to enjoy a new life outside of school and, subsequently, I was able to take some actual career experience into the classroom during my master’s courses.
During my last two [undergraduate] years of college, I worked full-time as a Public Affairs Specialist at Wright-Patterson AFB. I was a writer creating hundreds of articles for a few dozen newspapers around the country. Upon graduating in 1984, I took my prior experience to San Antonio, Texas. A large corporation specializing in jet engine repairs for the military and commercial markets hired me as a marketing assistant and project manager for a few military engine programs.
A few years later, I found myself in Albuquerque, New Mexico working for an Information Technology (IT) firm who designed and built lights-out repair facilities for commercial and military needs. The company eventually transferred me back to Dayton, Ohio. During the next several years, I held a few project management positions with Lockheed Martin and Battelle Memorial Institute.
In 1993, I started a consulting business with my father called The Greentree Group. We’re a strategic and technology consulting firm headquartered in Dayton, Ohio.
btw2: What role has writing played in your career? Do you think your ability to write has helped you in your career journey?
TG: The ability to write well has played a huge role in my career. I learned a lot about the basics during my two years of writing newspaper articles. My boss always told me the goal was to write articles with the proper amount of detail (less is more) and ensure they were easy to understand. We used the AP Style Guide because it’s the bible for print journalism. It’s widely used and contains a lot of “stuff” to help [keep] writers from making errors of fact, grammar and punctuation.
Now think about what I just said. I learned to write to the proper detail, make things easy to understand and produce documents that followed established writing guidelines. During the past 25 years of my career, I have found that those three things are key attributes of communicating with people in the business world.
btw2: It sounds like writing skills are very important in business, at least in your career.
TG: If you can’t write well and communicate your message effectively, your chances of growing in a business are very limited. That’s because writing is a huge part of a normal business day. People in my company (as well as most others) will send dozens of emails and prepare two or three papers of some sort every day.
Of course writing an email doesn’t necessarily require precise writing skills – people expect blurbs of information and even grammar errors when reading an office email. However, people still want to read a message having the proper detail of information. They also expect it to be easy to understand. Possessing the key attributes is even more critical when writing formal documents such as proposals or position papers.
Building skills that produce those three attributes is a continuous process – you never stop learning to better communicate your message. Your writing style might change or mature. You’ll become more comfortable with your writing as time goes by. But if you can’t develop and continuously improve upon the three attributes, then I would suggest becoming a rock star or a doctor who writes cryptic notes.
btw2: I’ve always believed that the skills I use as a writer serve me in other areas of my career. For example, the kind of preparation I undertake for a piece of writing is very similar to what I do when I plan a project. What skills or aspects of the writing process do you see as transferable to other business or professional activities you might perform on a regular basis?
TG: I would agree with the similarities of writing and project planning. Building an outline for a paper is just like building a work breakdown structure (tasks) for a project. I’d go even further to say that those skills feed upon each other – one skill grows as the other skill grows.
I believe my ability to speak or communicate an oral message has improved because of my increased writing skills. I find myself organizing my message before I open my mouth (although my wife would disagree with that). I have also found that my writing skills have helped with my thought process – and my thought process has improved my writing skills.
btw2: You and I had lunch awhile back and I began talking about critical thinking. You surprised me by starting to talk about creative thinking. What is the value of creative thinking to a business and do you see a connection between critical thinking and creative thinking?
TG: Critical thinking is very important. A business must have people who know how to analyze problems, organize their thoughts and make good judgments. Every university in America teaches it. A business cannot succeed without critical thinkers.
However, creative thinking is just as important. Being able to take a critical thought and do something with it is vital to a business. Producing solutions or developing a new product requires fresh thinking, flexibility, and people who aren’t afraid to try new ideas. Bill Gates and Microsoft is a perfect example.
In 1975, Bill Gates was a 19 year-old sophomore at Harvard writing revolutionary computer code. His ability to organize his technical thoughts, write lines of code and make them do something was extraordinary – that was critical thinking at its best. However, what he did in the early 1980s was one of the most brilliant pieces of creative thinking I’ve seen in the business world.
During those days, a transition of huge proportions – from mainframe to personal computers – was underway. Gates approached IBM about using MS-DOS on their forthcoming personal computers. Executives at IBM offered Gates, who was now at the helm of Microsoft, a sizeable amount of money thinking that the code could be purchased. They were floored when Bill told them that all he wanted was to sell them the rights (for a small sum of money) to distribute the code each time the computer giant sold a personal computer. The executives bought the creative approach thinking they could take advantage of him.
Bill Gates’ creative thinking was the key to making his critical thoughts (the MS-DOS code) successful. And, as I write to you today on my personal computer, Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the world.
btw2: You've been pretty successful, too. Tell us a little bit about your company, the Greentree Group. What does your company do and why would our readers want to work there?
TG: Greentree provides a broad range of professional and technical support services to federal, state, and local governments and to clients in the private sector. Our core competencies include business-focused strategies and solutions in three key areas: information technology, financial management and program management.
That’s the official, convoluted answer about Greentree. What we really do is solve our clients’ problems by helping them simplify or enhance their business processes through the use of computers and better management.
We’re a small, family-owned business with yearly revenues between $15-20 million. We treat our employees like members of our own family. Our people work hard and produce results because they know the company will reward them appropriately. It’s a simple theory based on a mutual partnership; as our people help the company grow, Greentree gives back to them. The minute that stops is the day we fail as a business. We also keep our priorities in line through a strong value system which fuels the belief that “we work to live, we don’t live to work.”
btw2: What qualities do you look for in a person when you’re making a hiring decision?
TG: Ethics, integrity are first and foremost. Critical thinkers are a dime a dozen. I am partial to the creative thinker because they’re always in short supply and it’s a talent that makes our company successful. Our people must be able to communicate effectively whether it is in writing or orally. And, finally, our people must enjoy coming to work everyday. If they don’t enjoy what they’re doing then they are no value to me or themselves.
btw2: I'm wondering how critical thinking can be important if "critical thinkers are a dime a dozen."
TG: I guess what I mean by the "dime a dozen" comment is that every university in America is teaching it through engineering, science, mathematics, and computer degrees. However, I don't think we see enough emphasis on the creative part. Fortunately, we live in America -- without a doubt the greatest country in the world. A country blessed by God with freedoms to allow all of us to create, express ourselves, and become successful. So, when I say "critical thinkers are a dime a dozen," many of those talented people can't or don't allow themselves to be creative thinkers. It's not something that is necessarily taught in schools but comes [from] a willingness to "think out of the box" and present ideas. Unfortunately, many businesses don't encourage that.
btw2: I see. So critical thinking is important – as you said before – but it’s kind of a given, something that is necessary just to get into the game. Whereas, creative thinking is more like the winning edge.
TG: Exactly.
btw2: Travis, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me and our readers.
TG: My pleasure.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
“Needless to say?” Then why say it?
I was listening to the radio as I drove to work this morning. A local station is having a contest somehow connected to a new TV show about a grocery store in Dayton, Ohio. The contest asks listeners to send in their work-related stories which the DJs then read over the air.
A woman sent in her story. She related how she had just taken over the daily operations at her mother’s business. One night, most of the staff was staying late to meet some kind of deadline or catch up on work. One young man, the brother of another employee, opted not to work late. However, since his brother was his ride, he had to go wait in his brother’s truck.
So this guy is waiting in his brother’s truck and he begins to get bored. He starts the truck and begins to drive the truck, which has a stick shift, the storyteller emphasizes. Here’s where the story takes a turn for the worst, not only in terms of the actual events, but also in the telling of it.
I’ve so far related the story pretty much as I heard it over the air, so you know as much as I did at the time. Can you guess what is going to happen next? I couldn’t. I mean, I had some ideas: he drives off and begins a shooting spree, he hits a tree, he does donuts in the parking lot, he crashes into the building – there were several possibilities. But here, somewhat paraphrased, is what the storyteller writes:
“Needless to say,” the kid drove the truck right through the front of our brick building.
Needless to say? No! That was very important to say. That – driving the truck through the front of the building – was the main event of the story. Without that salient detail, the story isn’t even a story.
The storyteller went on to relate some other small details and then very quickly followed up with “Needless to say, that event was a major learning experience for me as a leader” – or something along those lines.
So let’s be real for a moment. Why am I so bothered by this? It’s a very funny story despite the inclusion of this very clichéd phrase, “needless to say.” It really is harmless, isn’t it? Yes, I suppose so, but here’s the thing:
Most young writers mimic things they hear around them. Our conversation is filled with trite clichés and meaningless filler. All these useless words seem to find their way into student writing, and when you see enough of it, you go a little crazy. But of all the meaningless, useless clichés, “needless to say” has got to be one of, if not the worst. If you don’t need to say it, why say it, why put it on paper? Moreover, what you are saying or writing usually does need to be said or written. After all, the story isn’t as obvious to your listeners and readers as it is to you, the person to whom it happened.
The point of this little rant, then, is think about the words you are using, at least when you write. Your writing will be cleaner, clearer, and needless to say, your teachers and bosses will thank you for filling your writing with meaningful words and not meaningless blather.
A woman sent in her story. She related how she had just taken over the daily operations at her mother’s business. One night, most of the staff was staying late to meet some kind of deadline or catch up on work. One young man, the brother of another employee, opted not to work late. However, since his brother was his ride, he had to go wait in his brother’s truck.
So this guy is waiting in his brother’s truck and he begins to get bored. He starts the truck and begins to drive the truck, which has a stick shift, the storyteller emphasizes. Here’s where the story takes a turn for the worst, not only in terms of the actual events, but also in the telling of it.
I’ve so far related the story pretty much as I heard it over the air, so you know as much as I did at the time. Can you guess what is going to happen next? I couldn’t. I mean, I had some ideas: he drives off and begins a shooting spree, he hits a tree, he does donuts in the parking lot, he crashes into the building – there were several possibilities. But here, somewhat paraphrased, is what the storyteller writes:
“Needless to say,” the kid drove the truck right through the front of our brick building.
Needless to say? No! That was very important to say. That – driving the truck through the front of the building – was the main event of the story. Without that salient detail, the story isn’t even a story.
The storyteller went on to relate some other small details and then very quickly followed up with “Needless to say, that event was a major learning experience for me as a leader” – or something along those lines.
So let’s be real for a moment. Why am I so bothered by this? It’s a very funny story despite the inclusion of this very clichéd phrase, “needless to say.” It really is harmless, isn’t it? Yes, I suppose so, but here’s the thing:
Most young writers mimic things they hear around them. Our conversation is filled with trite clichés and meaningless filler. All these useless words seem to find their way into student writing, and when you see enough of it, you go a little crazy. But of all the meaningless, useless clichés, “needless to say” has got to be one of, if not the worst. If you don’t need to say it, why say it, why put it on paper? Moreover, what you are saying or writing usually does need to be said or written. After all, the story isn’t as obvious to your listeners and readers as it is to you, the person to whom it happened.
The point of this little rant, then, is think about the words you are using, at least when you write. Your writing will be cleaner, clearer, and needless to say, your teachers and bosses will thank you for filling your writing with meaningful words and not meaningless blather.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
The Importance of Writing
“Why is writing important?” This is an intelligent and very practical question that I often hear from students. They want to know why they should spend the considerable time and effort it takes to write well. One answer is that writing is an important skill set to master because it can convey ideas in a lasting way. There are several important elements to that last sentence: first, writing is a skill set, not a singular skill; second, writing is used to convey ideas; and finally, writing endures over time.
Writing is a skill set
One of the difficulties teachers have in talking about writing is our use of the simple word writing to convey what is actually a complex activity. By using the word writing, we invite confusion with the act of putting pen or pencil to paper or fingers to the keyboard and forming letters into words. These are the physical motions of writing, but they are not the substance of it. A quick side note here: Members of the media have recently taken to criticizing one another by referring to those journalists who do not do the true work of journalism as typists. This seems a fitting distinction for writers to make as well. Are you doing the work of writing, or are you merely typing?
I’m not sure what the solution to this particular semantic problem is. I’m not suggesting we stop using the word writing to indicate what we do or are trying to teach. I do think, however, that we need to be more aware of the pitfalls of the word and strive to articulate and understand the skill set of writing. Which brings us back to the original claim that writing is a set of skills not a singular skill. So what are these skills?
There are many of them, actually: planning the writing project, organizing your ideas, crafting your sentences for maximum clarity and appeal, proofing your writing to ensure it doesn’t contain grammatical errors that might obscure your meaning or make your work look sloppy.
The most important skill, by far, though, is thinking. Writing begins with thinking or analysis. In fact, writing can be an aid to the act of thinking. The two acts are intertwined. Though not all thinking is done in writing, all good writing involves thinking. If you don’t know the subject matter you’re writing about, you have nothing meaningful to say about it. If you don’t know the reason you’re writing, you won’t know what to say about the subject. If you don’t know the audience for whom you’re writing, you won’t know how to phrase your writing. In short, if you’re writing without thinking, you’re definitely just typing.
Writing Conveys Ideas
Thus we return to the second assertion we made a moment ago, that writing is used to convey ideas: writing is communication. Communication is critical to our survival. Without communication, progress stops cold. When we cannot share our ideas and observations with one another, we are doomed, not only to a cold and lonely emotional and intellectual existence, but we are further doomed to a world in which learning – survival itself – is confined only to our own experience of what we can observe. You don’t think learning is a matter of survival? How could you survive if you never learned what foods you can eat or which are poison to you or how to gather the proper foods? Without learning, you’re toast. And without communication, you’d have to learn everything by trial and error. You think school is tough? In the world without communication, one error may be all you get.
“Yes,” says the observant student, “but we can share ideas by talking, so why is writing so important?”
Writing Endures
This intelligent question brings us to our third assertion that writing is lasting: writing endures. There is a corollary to this assertion as well. Not only does writing endure, but because it endures, it also propagates. Through speech alone, our world continues to be limited, though certainly expanded from a world in which only observation can teach us anything, but writing can be transmitted to other people in other places all over the world.
Speech can travel only so far and lasts but a moment. Once the spoken word has faded away, only memory can ensure that the thoughts communicated with speech are transferred. Now many cultures have used oral history to pass down the wisdom of the culture. However, those cultures tend to remain rather insular by comparison to cultures that can spread their word in writing.
So what?
“OK,” says the savvy student, “writing is a skill set that lets me convey my ideas in a way that lasts. So what? I still don’t get why it’s so important. Why should I care about grammar and thesis statements and all that stuff my English teachers are trying to get me to do? What’s so important about that? My friends don’t care if my e-mails and text messages are grammatically correct or have thesis statements, why should I?”
To you, I say, you’re probably right. Most of your friends probably don’t care about those things. They are willing to spend the time to figure out what you meant to say even if you weren’t clear about it. And you may not care whether they understand what you mean. So, perhaps what you’re e-mailing about isn’t so important that it needs to be very clear and grammatically correct. Perhaps it is not so intellectually deep as to require a great deal of organization or a focus like a thesis statement. So for those types of written communications, don’t sweat the details.
Demonstrating your value
However, there are other situations – like school or in the business world – and other audiences – like teachers and business professionals – for whom those things will matter. And they will matter, not because the people involved are being pedantic or trying to make your life difficult. Those things will matter because the subject matter is important or complex enough to require real skill to effectively articulate what you are trying to communicate. Or because time is of the essence for your reader. Or simply because paying attention to the details of good writing shows that you have the kind of discipline and professionalism that are prized in your career field.
The bottom line is this: your friends value you for a variety of reasons, but in the professional world your value is tied to your brain.
You are only valuable to your employer to the extent that you can solve problems and produce results. Your ability to think is your most valuable asset, and you will often be asked to convey your ideas in writing. If those ideas don’t make sense, if they are not clearly presented, your bosses will move on. They don’t have the time to try to figure out what you meant to say, and they are unlikely to trust that you can produce the kind of results they want if your writing shows that you don’t pay attention to detail and don’t care about the quality of your work.
Your ability to think and to clearly convey your thoughts is very important. Since writing is the single most durable and transmittable way to convey your thoughts, writing well becomes a very important skill set for you to possess. As for your teachers, their job is to help you develop those skills. They demand success from you because they know that someday your livelihood will depend on it.
Next week, I hope to post the first of our interviews with actual business professionals. In many ways, that should be a good introduction to the practical importance of writing. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to leave your comments and questions.
Writing is a skill set
One of the difficulties teachers have in talking about writing is our use of the simple word writing to convey what is actually a complex activity. By using the word writing, we invite confusion with the act of putting pen or pencil to paper or fingers to the keyboard and forming letters into words. These are the physical motions of writing, but they are not the substance of it. A quick side note here: Members of the media have recently taken to criticizing one another by referring to those journalists who do not do the true work of journalism as typists. This seems a fitting distinction for writers to make as well. Are you doing the work of writing, or are you merely typing?
I’m not sure what the solution to this particular semantic problem is. I’m not suggesting we stop using the word writing to indicate what we do or are trying to teach. I do think, however, that we need to be more aware of the pitfalls of the word and strive to articulate and understand the skill set of writing. Which brings us back to the original claim that writing is a set of skills not a singular skill. So what are these skills?
There are many of them, actually: planning the writing project, organizing your ideas, crafting your sentences for maximum clarity and appeal, proofing your writing to ensure it doesn’t contain grammatical errors that might obscure your meaning or make your work look sloppy.
The most important skill, by far, though, is thinking. Writing begins with thinking or analysis. In fact, writing can be an aid to the act of thinking. The two acts are intertwined. Though not all thinking is done in writing, all good writing involves thinking. If you don’t know the subject matter you’re writing about, you have nothing meaningful to say about it. If you don’t know the reason you’re writing, you won’t know what to say about the subject. If you don’t know the audience for whom you’re writing, you won’t know how to phrase your writing. In short, if you’re writing without thinking, you’re definitely just typing.
Writing Conveys Ideas
Thus we return to the second assertion we made a moment ago, that writing is used to convey ideas: writing is communication. Communication is critical to our survival. Without communication, progress stops cold. When we cannot share our ideas and observations with one another, we are doomed, not only to a cold and lonely emotional and intellectual existence, but we are further doomed to a world in which learning – survival itself – is confined only to our own experience of what we can observe. You don’t think learning is a matter of survival? How could you survive if you never learned what foods you can eat or which are poison to you or how to gather the proper foods? Without learning, you’re toast. And without communication, you’d have to learn everything by trial and error. You think school is tough? In the world without communication, one error may be all you get.
“Yes,” says the observant student, “but we can share ideas by talking, so why is writing so important?”
Writing Endures
This intelligent question brings us to our third assertion that writing is lasting: writing endures. There is a corollary to this assertion as well. Not only does writing endure, but because it endures, it also propagates. Through speech alone, our world continues to be limited, though certainly expanded from a world in which only observation can teach us anything, but writing can be transmitted to other people in other places all over the world.
Speech can travel only so far and lasts but a moment. Once the spoken word has faded away, only memory can ensure that the thoughts communicated with speech are transferred. Now many cultures have used oral history to pass down the wisdom of the culture. However, those cultures tend to remain rather insular by comparison to cultures that can spread their word in writing.
So what?
“OK,” says the savvy student, “writing is a skill set that lets me convey my ideas in a way that lasts. So what? I still don’t get why it’s so important. Why should I care about grammar and thesis statements and all that stuff my English teachers are trying to get me to do? What’s so important about that? My friends don’t care if my e-mails and text messages are grammatically correct or have thesis statements, why should I?”
To you, I say, you’re probably right. Most of your friends probably don’t care about those things. They are willing to spend the time to figure out what you meant to say even if you weren’t clear about it. And you may not care whether they understand what you mean. So, perhaps what you’re e-mailing about isn’t so important that it needs to be very clear and grammatically correct. Perhaps it is not so intellectually deep as to require a great deal of organization or a focus like a thesis statement. So for those types of written communications, don’t sweat the details.
Demonstrating your value
However, there are other situations – like school or in the business world – and other audiences – like teachers and business professionals – for whom those things will matter. And they will matter, not because the people involved are being pedantic or trying to make your life difficult. Those things will matter because the subject matter is important or complex enough to require real skill to effectively articulate what you are trying to communicate. Or because time is of the essence for your reader. Or simply because paying attention to the details of good writing shows that you have the kind of discipline and professionalism that are prized in your career field.
The bottom line is this: your friends value you for a variety of reasons, but in the professional world your value is tied to your brain.
You are only valuable to your employer to the extent that you can solve problems and produce results. Your ability to think is your most valuable asset, and you will often be asked to convey your ideas in writing. If those ideas don’t make sense, if they are not clearly presented, your bosses will move on. They don’t have the time to try to figure out what you meant to say, and they are unlikely to trust that you can produce the kind of results they want if your writing shows that you don’t pay attention to detail and don’t care about the quality of your work.
Your ability to think and to clearly convey your thoughts is very important. Since writing is the single most durable and transmittable way to convey your thoughts, writing well becomes a very important skill set for you to possess. As for your teachers, their job is to help you develop those skills. They demand success from you because they know that someday your livelihood will depend on it.
Next week, I hope to post the first of our interviews with actual business professionals. In many ways, that should be a good introduction to the practical importance of writing. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to leave your comments and questions.
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