Erin Lebacqz on High-Value Writing

Erin Lebacqz founded High-Value Writing to help professionals accomplish their goals and build relationships through their writing. She joins the podcast to offer advice about how to write more concisely and effectively. 

Transcript

Ryan: Welcome to 10-Minute Tech Comm. This is Ryan Weber at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. I’m pleased to welcome today’s guest.

Erin: Hi everyone, my name is Erin Lebacqz. I've been a writing and teaching teacher for most of my career and I teach writing in the workplace and writing in practical ways, as well as academic writing and so I'll have books, video learning courses, e-courses to help people write to really meet their goals, build relationships, meet business success, etc. 

Ryan: I discovered Erin’s work on high-value writing when I assigned wanted of her books to my students, and I wanted them to get an interview with the author. So hopefully, some of my students are listening to this right now. But for all kinds of writers, Erin offers practical advice on how to use words most effectively to accomplish your goals and build relationships. I hope that everyone, student, professional, instructor, or otherwise, takes something from the interview. 

BEGIN INTERVIEW

Ryan: Erin, I'm so glad you joined us today. I'm really excited to talk with you and you have, you have a book and you have a business called High Value Writing and that's kind of where I wanted to start today is what do you mean by high value writing? Why did you decide to really focus on that phrase? 

Erin: Yeah, that's a great question and you know like everything that I've learned as a teacher, that name came from my students. I was teaching adult learners at the time, professionals who needed to work on their professional writing and communication, and I would listen to what they said back in a class about what was valuable and everything they would remember would come back to this idea that some words have an impact and some words don't. 

You know, you might have heard the phrase, “It's not what you say, it's how you say it,” and these students really picked up on that concept. You know, some words, some sentences are high value, they pack a lot of punch, but some words are just kind of there to take up space. So we have to be a little judgy or judicious with our word choice, right, and make sure we're choosing language that will forward our goals instead of just ending up as extra fluff on the page that might just distract or confuse our reader. 

Ryan: Great, I like this phrase a lot because I think that writing, when done well has a ton of value. So how do we know? I know it's probably different in situations, obviously, but in general, what kind of qualities are we looking for to evaluate high value writing? 

Erin: Yeah, well, I think when we're writing with high value, we're writing to two types of goals at the same time. And it's a little different than when I was brought up in school and what we were told about writing, but what I see now, especially in the workplace, is anything we write will have clarity and informational goals, but it will also have relationship goals.

So high value writing is really, okay, I've chosen language intentionally and strategically to both meet my clarity goals, “Hey, here's the information, here's the deadline, I was clear so it's not confusing” but also meet those relational, emotional goals because, you know, language impacts us on that level as well. So high value writing is when we've been strategic and thought about both angles in our writing. 

Ryan: I really like this because I think a lot about clarity. I talk to my students a lot about clarity and your goals. I'll be honest, I don't think that I directly talk as much about kind of the emotional, relational value of writing even though that's a huge part of it. How do you help students kind of see how they can use writing to develop relationships? 

Erin: Yeah, well, we look at a few things. You know, we look at tone, little word choices that can make a message accidentally sound condescending or like we're not including someone or not respecting someone. So there's tone as one piece, and then there's also just, you know, who is front of mind when we write? I used to think about myself, you know, hey, these are my ideas, I need to get them out there, hey, Erin, don't mess up your commas, don't get points off, whatever. But really I'm writing for someone else when I'm writing at work and so part of relational writing is just thinking what does that individual need now and those are the things I will include in my message but other things I will take out. And so I'm making decisions in a reader-centered way, which is not, you know, what I think we often get raised to do. We don't think of it because we're in our heads stressing out about all the ways that we worry about messing up in our writing and we get stuck in our own minds. But really at work if you're not journaling or taking notes you're not writing for you. So it matters, you know, how is it going to land for that person and I'll try to step into their shoes and think “Would this sound respectful, would this be useful, would this be irrelevant?” Think through that lens instead of the lens of what's helpful for me.

Ryan: You talked about these two goals, clarity and message, relations and emotions. It sounds though like you're saying these intersect really significantly. 

Erin: I feel that they do. I think most of the messages we write have a little of both. For example, you and I, you know, Ryan and I setting up this podcast, we emailed each other and so we had to do two things at once, you know, talk about the podcast and what's it about and what time and all of that informational stuff. But we also had to write in such a way that when we showed up here to record, we were ready to collaborate and have trust and so pretty much any email certainly that we write usually has a little of both. I think a text does too. Or a Teams chat or something like that usually has both elements in there, a little subconsciously sometimes as well. 

Ryan: You know, it can be too blunt, it can be too irrelevant, there are all kinds of ways that you can sort of negatively affect the relationship with those things that you're writing even as you said we didn't know each other before the podcast, it was a brand new conversation, you may have known your boss for years but either way there's relational things happening at all levels of writing. 

Erin: Yeah, when you know your reader well, that's a little easier, right? You can think, oh I know this boss, I've worked for them for three years, they love details or no, they're a bottom-line person. I want to know what is their communication style preference so I can write in that way, but when we don't know each other, right, we have to try to establish a relationship as well as plan a time to meet and that's why that balance of those two goals is happening and many people do both of them intuitively, but I think when we're newer to writing, especially if we finish school where we're used to writing for a grade and now we're writing in a more interactive way, we need I think a new lens to look at writing not just, you know, rough draft, final draft, but who are we writing to, how do we strategize when we're at work? 

Ryan: Yeah, and you're hitting advice that I give my students all the time that I think all writing teachers give their students all the time like think of your audience first, consider your reader, which is very easy to say and very hard to do. What kinds of strategies do you give your students for like how do you understand and think about and consider your audience? 

Erin: Yeah it really is a difficult kind of habit of mind to create and I used to think through what I call the “writer logic” and I think over time we can start thinking through the “reader logic” and part of it is just a couple, you know, strategies are looking at what you've written. And I would be proofreading in the past, I would be thinking oh I need to correct a mistake or add something I forgot, but no when we proofread, we want to pretend like we're that reader and look through and say well I wouldn't need the third point, so as a writer I'm going to take that out because why dilute the message by adding points that they don't even need? You actually have to pretend that we are the reader and walk through and say you know that third point I'm not going to need that for three weeks why are you telling me that now? 

And then for tone you know we look a lot at what are some power words that you can change with intention to manage a relationship and think from your reader's point of view. For example verbs set a tone. You know Ryan could have said “Hey Erin, do you want to attend this meeting and do a podcast with me?” or he could have said “Do you want to join me for a podcast?” and you know, I would rather join you than attend something. 

Some of it is having specific strategies for how to manage how language sounds, and some of it is really just thinking okay I am that person this is what I have to do today. I need some of this but not all of it and then that'll help me kind of doctor my message accordingly. 

Ryan: So I may have written a really beautiful sentence for that third bullet that I just think sounds great but if the other person doesn't need it it's not relevant. I need to get rid of it.

Erin: Yeah, and that's the really hard part because we might I do it you know I'll think, “Wow, what a nice turn of phrase, Erin, you know I love that sentence you just did there” but then I'll be analyzing my draft before I send it, and I'll think yeah the truth is, I just put that there because I thought it was interesting. It was not for the reader. It was for me. And that's a hard thing to start realizing, right, because at first when we work hard on something, it's very hard to delete it. But the writing and the deleting that is part of our work of figuring out who's this really for and how can I make it best for them? 

Ryan: And so you work with a lot of people in the workplace who are trying to make their writing better what kind of challenges do you frequently see that they have? 

Erin: Well their main challenge is probably time. The volume right of writing and reading communications to one another. And so a lot of what people are talking about in the workplace today is how to communicate with brevity but still have impact and so they'll often be looking for ways to, for example use a really powerful email subject line with two parts: your topic, your action. “Food drive - donate by Friday.” I know the whole story before I even open it.

Ryan: I love a very clear, detailed email subject line. Yeah, if I don't have to open the email before I know exactly what's going on, that always makes me happy. 

Erin: Exactly, because you're ahead. You already know if it's “Food drive - donate by Friday,” well today's Thursday, I already know I need to stop at the store to buy some cans and I didn't even open the email yet. Compare that to the opposite end of the spectrum, with an overly general email subject line that makes you not even think you need to open it. Even if I just said, “Food drive” compared to “Food drive - donate by Friday,” I might not know, oh that's something I need to get involved with. 

Ryan: What is your impression, because I love this stuff about like really choosing every word, making sure every word has impact and matters. I also get the impression though that people aren't necessarily reading all of everything. So how do you write for those two circumstances where you are choosing your words well but also anticipating that people may not be reading every word you've written incredibly carefully? 

Erin: Yeah that is key. As writers, we have to be realists. And the world today is very busy, right, all of our readers have a very busy mind, and so even if they are a great reader and they really, really care about what you have to say, they're probably still stressed and busy that day and they may not read every word. And so we have to write in a way that works for people who look instead of reading and write in a way that's visual so that it's skimmable and scannable. And we want to think, “Okay let's say this person only has three seconds to look at my message. What can I do to try to make my message succeed anyway?” Which is usually things like making it easy to scan, with headings and bullets. And we know in our mind, okay if they only get two pieces of information in their three seconds, it's these two, so how am I going to make them stand out to someone who's just looking and doesn't really have the time to go deep? 

And you know, I'll share a quick fail that I did with that recently that really illustrates, you know, you can learn a lot from your writing fails, right, and by watching the way people respond to your messages. I wrote to someone with two asks and I put the first ask at the top and I was going to put my second ask, but the first ask required about five screenshots for me to explain what I meant. Sadly, where do you think I put my second ask? Sadly, I did in fact put it beneath all of those screenshots. I said to myself, “You know, this is probably a bad idea, but I'm going to send it anyway as an experiment.” My reader wrote back that day very kindly completely answering my first ask. She said nothing of my second ask. I do not think that was her fault. I should not have hidden something like that knowing today's situation of busyness. It's on us to make the most important points really, really visible.

Ryan: Great, so you've given a ton of great advice. Make the actionable things stand out visually, using powerful words, building relationships. What other advice do you give to the people who come to you in terms of how to write with more value? 

Erin: Yeah, well I talk to them about managing of course tone with all of this brevity as well. You know, people will say “Erin, can you be concise and nice?” and it seems like you can't, right? You think “Oh I need to be more concise. Well now I sound harsh. Let me add a friendly thing. Now I'm not concise anymore.” 

We can usually do both at once. A lot of it is in the verbs, but I'll talk with people about how writing is really a balancing act, right. On the one hand, you want to be thorough, but on the other hand, you want to be brief. On the one hand, you want to be concise, but on the other hand, you want to be courteous. On the one hand, you want to agree with one idea but tell them you don't like the other idea and still have a nice relationship, right. 

So it's really about balancing and making choices like, “Overall, I will be concise, but for this sentence about an emotional topic, I'll take my time.” Or “Overall, I'll be brief, but for this one thing they needed more on, I'll give details.” So it really is about strategizing for each individual message based on what you're trying to get done with it.

Ryan: And really striking that balance, figuring out where you need to fall in the balance of finding your space in those tensions. 

Erin: Finding your space, and comparing that to your own defaults. It's good to get to know ourselves. For example, I have been a very long-winded, overly thorough writer and I've had to really scale that back. So we want to know about this balancing act. And then we also want to think, “Well, what do I tend to be like? Do I naturally come off brief or long or friendly or direct?” and try to figure out where you want to be and kind of adapt and meet in the middle there to balance it all out. 

Ryan: What other advice do you have, just in general as we're kind of thinking about wrapping up? You know, any other thoughts about high value writing, about how people can get more out of their writing in terms of building relationships, accomplishing their goals?

Erin: You know, I'll get a little bit sort of sentence level for a moment with it. 

Ryan: Great 

Erin: You know, it can sound so abstract. Front loading important information in every sense. If you have a document, it's at the top. If you have an email, it's in the first line or two. But even at a sentence, we can front load. Someone might be out there thinking “Well I want to be clear and concise, but how do I do it?” right. You can do a little trick called “leading your sentence with who and what.” Who did something? What did they do? Put it in the front. Your sentence will be clear and concise. So often we struggle. I think people try very hard to sound sophisticated and professional, but then it comes out like “I am writing to you because it has come to our attention that we are now responsible for…” and it's going on and on with these slow lead-ins. Don't feel pressured to sound bureaucratic, right. That idea that it's sophisticated to write in a long way; readers don't like it, right. “There are three reasons why I propose that we in the next meeting look at…” “It is a requirement that…” “It has come to our attention that…” We can just skip the slow lead-in. Say who's doing something and put them at the front of the sentence. It saves time for both you and the reader and it also gets the reader reading what you wanted them to know. 

So a quick example might be like “It has come to our attention that it was reported by HR that there were five errors last year.” “HR reported five errors last year.” Who did something? HR. What did they do? Reported. Stick it in the front. You're good. So for people who are kind of like “I want to be concise, but how do I edit?” You don't even always need to edit. You can just start with the meat. In that way, your sentence will be smoother. 

Ryan: It gets you thinking about what is the purpose of this sentence? What am I trying to convey? What does the person need from this sentence? And really prioritizing all of that information. 

Erin: Yeah, exactly, which itself is a mind shift, because I don't think we've been raised to think “Oh, I'm doing something on purpose with my sentence.” I never used to think of writing as goal oriented. I would just think like, “Please don't mess up. Let me make this good.” But it's for a goal and what is the purpose of that sentence or that text or that document and then making the intentional choices accordingly. 

Ryan: Wonderful, Erin. Well, so where can people find you if they want more information about high value writing?

Erin: Yeah, well they can go to the high value writing YouTube channel. I'm on there every week with new advice and you can leave a comment with a question and I'll answer you. Or they can find me at highvaluewriting.com or through my workbook or book on Amazon or other booksellers.

Ryan: Terrific. Hey, thank you so much. I really enjoyed talking with you today.

Erin: Thanks, likewise Ryan. Thanks for having me. 

Ryan: Thank you.