How to Become a Better Business Writer—And How Fluff Can Help

Guest Post
Fri, 28 Jun 2024 10:04:00 +0000
Content-marketing, Operations

By Andrew Syrios

Back in business school, I was subjected to several long lectures on the dreaded evils of fluff. Boil down your corporate memos to the raw essentials. Get rid of all those filler words and colloquial phrases. Write as if an automaton was generating TPS reports that were intended to put to sleep even those suffering from the worst forms of insomnia.

Don’t get me wrong, the “war on fluff” gets some things right. For example, this article "How to Remove Unnecessary Filler and Fluff From Your Writing" has some generally helpful recommendations like “avoid redundancy” and “nix common knowledge.” Those kinds of things are usually unnecessary in business writing. But overall, while a substantial amount of fluff may be extraneous, it is still absolutely necessary.

The reason fluff can be necessary is that nonverbal communication lacks an enormous amount of nuance. Psychologists have argued that most communication is nonverbal (possibly as much as 93%). Yet emails, memos, and letters contain only words. Body language is left out and tone is relegated to the inadequate tool of punctuation. In written communication, jokes can become insults, irony can become prejudice, sarcasm can become matter-of-fact statements, and miscommunication can become the norm.

I’ve seen this play out in my professional life multiple times. Recently, one staff member sent another an odd, but rather innocuous joke that came off as a sarcastic put-down. All of a sudden, a rift formed between key employees that took a substantial amount of time and energy to unwind.

When extraneous words are important

Explaining oneself clearly, especially in written communication, can often require extraneous words—i.e., fluff. The great Dale Carnegie noted in his classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People just how important these little fluff phrases are:

If, for example, the waitress brings us mashed potatoes when we have ordered French fried, let’s say: ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, but I prefer French fried.’ She’ll probably reply, ‘No trouble at all’ and will be glad to change the potatoes, because we have shown respect for her.Little phrases such as ‘I’m sorry to trouble you,’ ‘Would you be so kind as to—?’ ‘Won’t you please?’ ‘Would you mind?’ ‘Thank you’—little courtesies like these oil the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life.”

It is nowhere written that such “little courtesies” are not allowed in business communication.

In his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, Malcolm Goldsmith further points out that “killing the messenger” is one of the biggest mistakes successful people make. Killing the messenger doesn’t just involve attacking the person who told you some bad news—it can involve getting angry about that news in front of the person who told it to you. For the messenger, this feels like a personal attack, even if the anger is directed only at the problem.

In written communication, this type of anger or disappointment can come through even more easily and often unintentionally. For example, you may intend to say the company missed its projected revenue because the economy went into a recession by writing, “We missed our projected revenue goals this quarter by 13%.” However, that could very easily come off as telling your employees you think they’re terrible. Just a little change, even one that includes “common knowledge” such as “Because of the recent recession, we missed our projected revenue goals this quarter by 13%” will nip that potential problem right in the bud.

Now perhaps it wasn’t the recession or wasn’t just the recession that caused you to miss those revenue projections. Perhaps those employees do need to shape up. But those types of discussions should be done in a private setting and with a good deal of care and nuance. Impersonal communication leaves all sorts of room for people to read between the lines when all that’s really there is blank space.

Don't fear the fluff

So even if my business professors would consider it despicable fluff, make sure that not only the facts are presented, but your interpretations of those facts are also clear. Keep your interpersonal communication upbeat and positive, even if it requires fluff. For example, I end virtually every email with “thank you” even if doesn’t really make much sense to do so.

This also means there are some things that should be left out. Jokes, for example, in business communication should be left on the cutting room floor unless they’re 1) innocuous and not at anyone or any group’s expense; 2) everyone is highly likely to get the joke. Furthermore, communications shouldn’t be overly long nor contain irrelevant information. Stream-of-consciousness may be a good literary device, but it doesn’t belong in the workplace.

However, with those guidelines in mind, don’t fear the fluff. Embrace it. Just as timely decisions and responses alleviate many problems, a little fluff allows you to ensure your communications remain positive and reduce the likelihood of miscommunications and creating unnecessary friction between coworkers. And that is easily worth a few extra words here and there.

RELATED: 14 Overused Business Phrases We Must Retire (And Better Ways to Communicate)

About the Author

Post by: Andrew Syrios

Andrew Syrios is a partner in the real estate investment firm Stewardship Properties. He graduated from the University of Oregon in business administration and received his Masters from the University of Missouri in Kansas City in entrepreneurial real estate. He also blogs at AndrewSyrios.com.

Company: Stewardship Investments, LLC

Website: www.stewardshipproperties.com