"Workplace Writing Skills" course experience: Don't say what you want to say, but say what the other party wants to hear.
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Thank you to Ms. Zhou, a student of the “[Workplace Writing Skills] (https://www.accupass.com/event/1806260807584248423420)” course for sharing her class experience. I would like to express my gratitude.
Case discussion and empathy
On the evening of July 27, I listened to Teacher Vista share the course “Workplace Writing Power” in Shangzhou Study Room. I felt that I benefited a lot. The teacher cited many cases, such as meeting minutes, postponement notices, emails inviting teachers to help write posts, etc., and asked the students to discuss these templates.
In the process of discussion, we understand that if we stand from the perspective of the recipient, we will find that the writing method we are accustomed to has a lot of room for improvement. Often during the writing process, they just write down what they want, but do not reveal the information that the other party wants to know, such as: “What are the interests of the recipient?”, “What is the filing?”, “What are the specific achievable results?”
I feel that if you just listen to the lectures and do not practice, your memory will be very shallow. If you really have to practice by yourself, think carefully and discuss with team members, the impression will be more profound. But I found that when reporting in groups, if someone puts forward a certain point of view, everyone will continue to follow this idea. Very few people will put forward other points of view, and will not particularly want to improve the plan. It feels a bit like one person is supporting the scene. However, the results produced in this way completely depend on the speaker’s pattern, and it is difficult to cover everything.
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Therefore, when listening to the reports of other groups, you will feel, “Wow, so there is such an idea, and I have never considered it.” Or you may find that there are some sentences that you think are easy to read, but it turns out that in the eyes of some people, they are difficult to understand. Moreover, people with different work backgrounds see things from very different perspectives, which I find very interesting.
Practical learning from planning cases
As for the planning case at the end of the class, because I have never written a plan, I don’t know much about the form in which a planning case should be written. I can only write down a list of opinions based on the method provided by the teacher. But listening to the reports of different groups of students, you can learn their ideas. For example, if you describe the target audience in a very specific way, it will be easier to plan activities later, because you can specifically list their needs, pain points, or emphasize after-sales service in the call to action part, etc.
The most interesting thing is that when it comes to “selling points”, everyone still tends to consider “features” and does not delve into the value and benefits that the product can have. I think it’s because years of habits cannot be changed all at once, and because you have to work with unfamiliar classmates, it takes a lot of effort just to integrate opinions. Coupled with time pressure, it is easy to use the mode you are most familiar with to analyze and judge.
Question yourself to improve your writing quality
Usually when writing an article, I only write my own needs from my own point of view, and think less about what the other party needs? And can the other party understand this way of writing? Or will it cause the other party to raise more questions?
However, if, like the teacher in class, you can ask your own questions about the article, and check with a “picking bone” mentality to see if there is anything that can be modified or added, you can make the article more refined. Because sometimes what you think is a trivial matter turns out to be an indispensable big thing in the other person’s eyes.
This reminded me of an article I had read by a manager before. When he was making a proposal from his subordinates, he would ask them: “Is this the best plan you can come up with?” Usually the subordinates would take the proposal back and revise it. This process would be repeated several times until the subordinates believed that the plan no longer needed modification, and then the manager would seriously review it.
I think that maybe I can do the same thing when writing articles or letters in the future. If time is not urgent, ask yourself, do you think there is anything that can be modified in the article or letter? Is there any information that has been omitted and not filled in? As long as you confirm repeatedly, you can improve the quality. And these ideas are what I gained from taking this course.
★ Photo Credit: Vista Cheng
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