Business Builders Podcast

5 Steps to AVOID Send Regret and Improve Your Writing

• Brenton Gowland & Ron Tomlian • Season 4 • Episode 68

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From business reports to text messages, we've all experienced the remorse of SEND REGRET. By following this 5-step writing framework, we can leave regret behind and improve our writing skills for both our business and personal communications.

Key Takeaways:

  • A 5-step framework for effective written communication
  • The importance of crafting thoughtful written communication to avoid regrettable messages
  • How written communication has evolved and the differences from verbal communication
  • The potential pitfalls of poor written communication, including lost business and legal troubles
  • The value of using tools and resources to improve written communication quality
  • The significance of effective written communication for business leaders and personal branding


So join us as we talk about improving our written communication skills to make sure we AVOID those dreaded "Why did I send that?" moments and communicate with confidence and clarity.

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Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Business Builders Podcast. Until next time, KEEP ON BUILDING !!

Brenton Gowland:

Hey there Business Builders! Have you ever hit send on an email, text or post only to immediately wish you could pull it right back? Well, we've all been there, and in today's episode, we're sharing a framework for crafting thoughtful, well constructed written communication to help you avoid those painful mishaps nailing the right structure, tone and timing will help us all prevent those dreaded Why did I send that moments? Before we get started with this episode, we have a quick announcement. You might have noticed our new podcast branding, and that's because we've launched a YouTube channel called Business Builders network, and we wanted to make sure that the branding on the YouTube channel and across our podcast were consistent. We'd love for you to join us there to watch live recordings of the podcast plus enjoy additional content and resources. Just search for@BusinessBuildersNetwork on YouTube or one word and keep an eye out for our new yellow branding. Welcome to Business Builders. We are your hosts. I am Brenton Gowland

Ron Tomlian:

and I Ron tomlian,

Brenton Gowland:

and we've Ron been doing series on communication on our podcast. This is first time we're doing a YouTube video properly. So it's going to be a little bit different today, yes, as opposed to what it's been like in the past. But the communication we've been series that we've been doing has been pretty comprehensive, and we've done probably eight episodes, I think, on communication, and today is, is actually our eighth episode. We've done the launch of the series. We've done the art of listening. We've done the power of smarter questions in leadership, which was really good, by the way. We've done being prepared for a crisis, a PR crisis with Mark Williams from Hughes PR, we've looked at difficult conversations, which was also really great. In fact, they've all been great. Mastering non verbal communication. So what you say when you're saying nothing at all, because people are always talking.

Ron Tomlian:

They're always looking.

Brenton Gowland:

Always looking?

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah. I'm saying other people are always looking when you're communicating.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah. And our last episode was actually on presentating with, presentating?

Ron Tomlian:

Presenting.

Brenton Gowland:

Presenting with impact and authority, which was a really great episode. And today we're going to get into written communication. And when we were talking doing the pre chat before we came to record, we talked about back in the day, when people just used to write letters. And I remember my father. He was a service manager for Mazda rule across the state, and he used to tell me a lot about the ways he communicated, because I think it was something that was really important to him, like it's important to us. And he always used to say to me, Brenton when you write, make your letters short, make them to the point. And those people who use caps and bold and all those crazy things in their letters to try and emphasize points don't know how to write. I think my father was completely wrong, but it was a different era.

Ron Tomlian:

Ah absolutely.

Brenton Gowland:

But it just kind of reinforces the point that the way we construct letters and the way we construct our communications is so vitally important. My father thought it was really important. Had very distinct views on how people should communicate in a written format, and I think we've come a long way since then.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, well, we have, because we do rely now on emphasizing certain points and so on, using graphic design, yeah, in our communication, you know written communication, but he's right. When you're talking about written communication, those the structure, the format, the tone, become very important, mainly because in written communication, we don't have the benefit of all those things that we have when we're talking to something. You know, you and I are talking now, and we've got feedback. You can talk to me. I can talk to you. We don't have that in written communication. It is very much one way, and there's some benefits to it, because it lasts when we when we talk to somebody, they can forget what we talked about that we they can dispute. They might have heard something different written communication. It's it's more permanent, but we don't have that immediate feedback that we get, and we can't emphasize certain things depending on the feedback we're getting from somebody else. We can't check for meaning as easily. So it's a different way of communicating, because it is much more one way.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah, absolutely non verbal communication is so huge, because when we're talking to each other, we can un we can feel context where you feel like you can feel it. But it's different things that the other person. Is emitting in some sort of manner.

Ron Tomlian:

I think everyone's been in a meeting where they are talking to somebody, but they're looking at someone else and looking for their feedback. You know, am I saying this the right way, without saying anything? And they can give us some type of indication of their thoughts without, again saying a word. So we don't have any of that when we're when we're writing. We don't have any feedback whatsoever, and so we need to be a little bit more considered and careful. But the other side of the coin is that we have time when we're talking to somebody. We have to think on our feet when we do written communication. Most of the time we have the time to think about this, and that's a really important point in written communication. You don't usually have to rush.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah.

Ron Tomlian:

Right.

Brenton Gowland:

So today, as you can probably tell, we're going to be talking about the importance of written communication and how we go about communicating in an effective manner with our words, which often nowadays is in email form, Ron or social.

Ron Tomlian:

Reports, emails, letters. You know, they still happen, but most of the time it's through electronic means that we communicate. And you know, we're even chatting with somebody which is much more like writing, sorry, like verbal, but in a written format. So we're, you know, texting, that type of thing, all of that. Still, we're only getting part of the message, all the message through the written form, but only the part of the message that we would normally try and construe as a receiver from what someone is saying, because all we've got is the words to go by. So texting that comes into the equation as well in written communication.

Brenton Gowland:

So before we get too far into it, just to set the context a bit further, what can go wrong if we don't communicate well.

Ron Tomlian:

Well, the first thing is, we don't get the message that we want to get across. And if we don't communicate, well, if we leave it to chance, then what we think we've communicated to somebody that meaning doesn't necessarily translate to what they perceive we were saying. And I don't know about your experience, but certainly I've sent texts out, and I'm very clear in my head what I was trying to say. The person will do something on the basis of that and say, Well, I did what you asked, or I did what you told me, or nothing like what I meant. That's because I didn't communicate particularly well. And sometimes they can be about things like context,

Brenton Gowland:

100% text is one thing, but business is another. I've seen examples where people have lost, lost contracts, not won them, or offsided people, or just really fallen short of the message that like you were talking about, that they were trying to convey. And there's not, not a worse feeling than that when you put a lot of effort, let's say you're doing a tender or doing a proposal, and something in the way you've written, it makes that person go, Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna walk away from this that that is a crushing thing, or we've seen plenty of examples of people putting something on x now used to be Twitter. Everyone knows that. And well, I could cite cases from Australia at the moment where people are in court right now because of things they've written. And it's so prolific, and I think more than ever, this is becoming a real driver for why it's so important to think about what we say and to own what we say, to take responsibility for it, because our words are coming back to bite us in all sorts of ways at the moment.

Ron Tomlian:

And I think that comes down to people trying to use a form of communication like texting or X and their,

Brenton Gowland:

Facebook,

Ron Tomlian:

they're using what they use in face to face, and forgetting that there is that level of permanence. If I say something to you, unless it's recorded, there's no there's no record of what I've said. So it becomes what I said versus what you think. And it's a great point, yeah, when you start to use text and the messaging services, there is a record and so people have to be aware of that. That's why I'm a great fan of what we're going to talk about today is taking the time when you write something down to think about it beforehand. And that starts with thinking in yourself, what am I trying to communicate?

Brenton Gowland:

So there's a saying that goes around in different business communities and people I know who teach people how to do public speaking or whatever, they always say, anything you write down, anything you text to people assume it's in the public gallery, even if you're texting. People very close to you, assume it's in the public gallery, and we're seeing so much of that right now. So really good context there.

Ron Tomlian:

just as Brittany Higgins.

Brenton Gowland:

That's who I was going to cite earlier. That's just an example. If you're not from Australia, that's and that news is, I think that's a reasonably well known topic, but it's going through the course right now, we won't go into that, but what we will go into is how to effectively communicate via text. So there's, there's five things we're going to talk about today. Firstly, we got to understand, what is it that we need to communicate? Massively important. Who am I going to be communicating? Just as important, probably more so in a sense, because that can affect retrospectively the message that we were going to deliver, writing the message obvious, but then review and proofreading, and I add the word proofreading, because too many of us are reliant on spell checks nowadays, and that can get us into trouble on times and occasions.

Ron Tomlian:

And getting a different perspective. And I think that's incredibly important. I I rarely put anything out with that I don't get, and that is in written format, that I don't get somebody else to read beforehand and tell me what they think I meant.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah, and we'll get into that. But that that's a ranking thing. How important is this communication, etc. And then this might sound really obvious, but after proofreading, what comes next? Sending the message, yeah. Now you might go, oh, isn't that just what we would do anyway? Well, I've still seen people come unstuck when they proofread something and then go to sending the message, yeah. And then we'll talk about some tools that can help and how to use them. But let's get stuck into it. Ron, lead us off when we're looking to work out what it is we need to communicate. What's our process, what are we got to be thinking about?

Ron Tomlian:

Well, the first thing is, what? What is the end result? What am I looking for the other person? What? Why am I doing this? And what do I want them to do as a result? Is it? Do I just want them to be informed? Do I want them to adopt a certain behavior? Do I want them to have a certain attitude? What's the end game? Okay, because I'm not communicating for the fun of it. I'm communicating for effect. What is that effect that I'm looking for? So what's the outcome that I'm looking for that will then determine how much information I need to supply, how I need to supply it. Everything flows from getting my own story straight, as the saying goes, so it will determine whether I need to put context into it, whether I need to give some background, and that comes into the next point too, about who I'm talking to, but that allows us to construct the message. And a lot of people, when they're talking to someone else, this all happens in their head. You've got the, well, maybe the luxury, I would say, the discipline, of putting this down, writing this down beforehand, getting your ideas in a sequential flow, getting your by being able to say, what do I want, then the other person or persons to do as a result of this communication? And so how do I need to structure the message when we talk about so putting the message together?

Brenton Gowland:

Let's take an example. So an outcome, you get an email from a company you've been working with, and all of a sudden the invoices double the price. Hold the bus. What are we going to do here? The outcome you want is, you want to get the original price that they quoted you and work out or what's what's been going on. So the context is, is right there, I want what was originally promised. So that then informs how we structure the message, absolutely. What's another example? Well,

Ron Tomlian:

it might be that I want somebody to do a certain thing in a certain way, because that's important to me. So I'm trying to get a behavior for someone else to be undertaken in a certain way I want to I will live, therefore, be very specific, be very concise about the way I put that message together. Maybe provide more context as to why it's important, yep, to do it in a certain way.

Brenton Gowland:

Now, a few more business examples. It might be communicating with a client. It might be communicating with a prospective lead that we want to build a relationship with and get work it might be solving or attempting to problem solve something. So anyway, as you said, there's three things you were talking about. What's the outcome we want?

Ron Tomlian:

What's the context that we want to put this in, or that we need to put this in, and therefore, what's the way I structure the message to that person?

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah, brilliant. So we've got that all in mind, so we know what it is we want to communicate. Once we've thought those things through, sometimes it's going to happen massively quickly. Sometimes it's going to take thought, like, if we're putting a proposal together, etc, we would literally put a big checklist of. Of all the bits and pieces that we need to consider.

Ron Tomlian:

So what's the what's the meaning I want to convey? And then, in order to get that across most effectively, I need to think about it. This is an iterative process. I need to think about who am I talking to? Yeah, because the way I structure the message, the language I use, the amount of context I give. All of those things will depend on who I'm talking to, and we've talked about this before. If you were to communicate to someone who's fairly sophisticated in an area that you are and that you and that person have proficiency, like if you're an IT professional. Talking to another it professional. There's language that I can use that I wouldn't use as someone who doesn't have that same sort of background.

Brenton Gowland:

I saw this really interesting thing on Facebook the other day. It was a picture of King Charles. King Charles. I just said that really naturally.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah I know.

Brenton Gowland:

Wow, that's interesting.

Ron Tomlian:

I was just impresed.

Brenton Gowland:

Well, everyone in the UK, it seems that I am getting on board with the monarchy over there anyway. Beside the point, it was King Charles and Ozzy Osbourne. And it was a demographic situation. It said They both live in a castle. They were both from this era. They both and they basically had all the same demographic details, right? And it was, you know, a bit of a stretch, but it was basically saying, if you were going to communicate to these guys based on demographic data, you'd be up the creek, because they'd both want to hear things very differently, and you think about your background, yeah, so if you're you don't have a lot of information on people, and you're just going by demographics. That's it really, is that chalk and cheese? You really need to know who you're talking to, but there's three things that we put down when we were doing our pre chat, and that is, you really need to consider, when you're understanding and assessing your audience, the relationship that you have with the people you're writing with. So the relationship is, it might be a family member, it might be a friend, it might be a staff member, it might be a client, it might be someone you don't know. It might be a supplier, etc, etc. What is the relationship with the person, and what is their perspective? So it's exactly like what you were talking about a moment ago. Are they an IT professional? Are they a geek? Are they a lawyer? Are they a HR professional? Are they an academic versus a trades person.

Ron Tomlian:

I read a lot of academic journal articles because of the work I do at university, and it's very clear that most of those articles are written for other academics. Okay, because of the type of jargon they use, the type of words they use, the assumptions they make about the person their level of interest in, for instance, research methodologies and so on. So you know, they are specifically written for a target audience, absolutely. And again, it comes down to who you're writing to, not just specifically, but how many you know if, if you want to write something about your company, customers are a very different audience than people within the organization versus, let's say, bankers. So do you need to have different styles of communication to say essentially the same meaning, but getting across in a different way

Brenton Gowland:

Depends on what you're going to communicate but often you really do. It's like that King Charles and Ozzy Osbourne example, both have similar kind of background information, if you look at demographically, but very different people absolutely like what you're talking about with academics, I've read some of those papers, and I've almost gone to sleep when I've been reading them, but

Ron Tomlian:

yeah, yeah. And that comes down to their perspective. What's the interest in what I'm going to be talking about? You know, if, for the sake of argument, if you're talking to somebody who is going to be really impacted by what you're proposing, that could be you would communicate with them in a completely different way than someone who is just vaguely interested.

Brenton Gowland:

Yep. So probably the last thing you need to think about there, we're talking about a group of people there. You need to think about the quantity of people that you're talking with, because you've got the relationship you understand, it's the general public. Let's say it's a group of people in the general public, people who drive a certain kind of car, or whatever it may be. How many of them are you talking to at once? Are you talking to the individual? You're talking to a group. And even if you're talking to a group, sometimes you address it to the individual. But you've got to decide what the how many people you're actually talking to. Is it many, or is it singular? And that will set the tone for how you then write the message

Ron Tomlian:

and I think that the rule of thumb is that you work with the person who knows the least you because if you're if you're going to be talking about something that is going to be one piece of communication goes out to a vast audience. Don't assume. Assume that they will know that much about it. The people who know a lot about it will skim through the stuff that's contextual, or skim through information they already know. But don't assume that everybody, if you're a single communication, don't assume that everybody has the same level of knowledge and work to the people who have the least amount of knowledge, perspective, interest.

Brenton Gowland:

Well, you'll cut as you are referring you'll cut so many people out of actually hearing what you have to say. So your communication becomes ineffective.

Ron Tomlian:

Absolutely.

Brenton Gowland:

Of course, we are the effective communication series.

Ron Tomlian:

That's right.

Brenton Gowland:

So.

Ron Tomlian:

That's exactly right.

Brenton Gowland:

You need to focus on being effective in our communication,

Ron Tomlian:

and it's incredibly important.

Brenton Gowland:

So why don't you take us through writing the message?

Ron Tomlian:

Okay, so now we've got we know who we're talking to, and we know what we want to say. It then comes down to how we put that information together to get that meaning across. So structure becomes really important. How we tell the story, the structure of the communication. Do we start with context? Do we start with the impact that we want to have, or the behavior that we're looking for, and then provide context? What is going to be the best way to get that message across? Structure becomes really important. Yeah, massively. And again, storytelling is a great way of thinking about it. How do I take people from one level of understanding to another, or one level of attitude to another in the most effective way.

Brenton Gowland:

And to illustrate what you're just saying, there in a very basic form, a story has a beginning, a middle and an end. And if we want to talk about different kinds of stories, they have three act plays and all sorts of different structures for how to tell a story. So massively important. But you also, when we were talking about understanding, what do I need to communicate, we also started talking about, briefly thinking about your structure. So it's like you start right at the beginning thinking, What is my structure going to be loosely. Then once you've understood your audience, and you've put your structure through that lens of, who am I speaking to you, then rework the structure basically.

Ron Tomlian:

And as I say, this isn't you've got the benefit in written communication of creating an iterative process. You can take time and and I would, I would say to people, you know, we're going to talk at the end about when you send a message and timing is important, yeah, but I would say to people when you're more often than not, when you're thinking about doing some form of written communication, give yourself the time, because how many people regret what they've done by not taking the time in the first place, not thinking about it in such a way that they will get their message across. Most Effective.

Brenton Gowland:

Many. We don't even need to give examples. I'm sure everyone who's listening has seen this well. They've all done well. What about the feeling? You know, when you when you actually press send, and then you realize, and then you feel like you just want to pull it right back.

Ron Tomlian:

Well, what's interesting is that a lot of email mechanisms now look and I use mail from Apple, they have a quick, you know, you've got five minutes to undo the Send. Now, how many that's the best? You don't you don't create that capability within a system unless there's a vast Cape need for that capability. So I think that's a good indicator of that's something that everyone can relate to.

Brenton Gowland:

I'm a bit of a sci fi fan, and there's this movie that Steven Spielberg did a while back, called Ready Player One. And you may, or have you seen it? Yes, I have, yeah. And there's a thing called a Zemeckis cube. I'm a geek, if you hadn't worked that out, well, I'm a proper geek.

Ron Tomlian:

And the fact that you know the name for this thing really impresses me.

Brenton Gowland:

Well, Robert Zemeckis. But anyway, you throw this thing out, and it winds back time 60 seconds, and I tell you what you're just saying now, boy, that's probably saved a lot of people, yeah, but when you apply what we're talking about here, you will not need that. You need to have a balanced check system in your head, and we're going through that. So you've just said structure. So after structure, you really want to start thinking about the tone.

Ron Tomlian:

And that is, what is the the the way that I'm saying and when we talk about tone in written communication, it's the niceties. Yeah, you know, for some people that they want the please and thank yous and a lot of people, again, going back to the type of person I'm talking to, some people just want give me the facts given up on form. Fantastic. Other people, how's your day? Hope you're having a fantastic day. You need to determine that, but the tone will be dependent on who you're talking to, but but you can change the tone and still get the same message across.

Brenton Gowland:

But the tone, again, is. It's all hierarchical, not over complicating things, but the tone is really going to be determined by what is it we want to convey and exactly what we were talking about. What's the outcome we want? Etc, etc. So outcome, if I'm I need to know whether I need to if that person's got feelings that can be easily heard, or if, if that person has a certain idiosyncrasy that I need to consider in my communication. It's it's so important anyway, then we've got formatting. I'm not talking the bold and the whatever yes you need. If your message is long, you need way finding in your message. So dot points.

Ron Tomlian:

Using headings,

Brenton Gowland:

headings,

Ron Tomlian:

length of your paragraphs,

Brenton Gowland:

yep,

Ron Tomlian:

length of your sentences,

Brenton Gowland:

yep,

Ron Tomlian:

all of those things either make it easier or more difficult for people to understand what you're talking about.

Brenton Gowland:

If you think about it now, I deal with a lot of CEOs and business leaders, so do you tell me what format they like?

Ron Tomlian:

Oh report format is in communications, Concise,

Brenton Gowland:

concise

Ron Tomlian:

and to the point

Brenton Gowland:

I literally have heard so many CEOs say, if you give me more than three short sentences, I won't read it.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, absolutely.

Brenton Gowland:

How many times have you heard that?

Ron Tomlian:

Well, there's a reason that at the beginning of reports, they have an executive summary,

Brenton Gowland:

because that's the CEOs read,

Ron Tomlian:

yeah, but because that's often the only the amount of time they have available read is just the executive summary. And so you know, for instance, when I talk to students about writing reports that executive summary, of course, you write it at the end, but the executive summary should be just that a summary of what they're going to read and the main points that they're going to come up.

Brenton Gowland:

So remember what you just said there? You wrote the executive summary at the end. But my point was, the format for a very busy CEO is usually three lines. So that's a format as well. I know that I want three lines. A general format is you might have a greeting at the start. You might have the body, so it's your introduction, body. Conclusion, yeah, sometimes you can't. Sometimes you're going to get straight to the point. If you're dealing with solving a an issue, you might already done the niceties in communication number one. Now you're just down to bang, bang, bang. We got to be efficient. So you might get down to one line communications,

Ron Tomlian:

and that gets to the context that you This is format, right? Absolutely. So

Brenton Gowland:

what's my format of this message going to be? Because then you have to really think about what the words are that you put in, because you can only use a few

Ron Tomlian:

yes and and when you think about it, organizations often have templates of the way we want you to structure the information you're going to provide that's a format. Really, a template is a format. So how do I want to structure this information to get the effect I'm looking for?

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah, and we will talk at the end about tools that you can use that if you don't have access to those kind of structures, that will have those kind of structures for you. So the other thing really is then just writing the first draft so you understand what the structure is that you want to use, use the tone and the way you want to format it, whether it's going to be a longer piece where you're going to have wayfinding like headings and dot points and so forth, because dot points are much better, particularly in corporate communications, or communications with business people, then having a big, long waffly something. I remember one of the companies that I led, I used to have to go and get feedback from people to work out if we were on point with our work. And there was a particular person who was very meticulous in our organization, and that person would write everything in these massive, long emails because they didn't want to miss anything so we weren't liable for anything, which then, of course, went to the managing director. The managing director sat me down and said, I am not going to read any of this person's communication if they cannot concisely convey and so then I remember having to go and deal with that situation, and that was very hard for that person to snap out of that.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, and there's a, there's a famous and it's attributed to a number of different people. I've read up on it, and it's actually Blaze Pascale, the mathematician, and he said, Look, I'm sorry that my letter is so long I didn't have time to make it short, and most people attribute that to Winston Churchill, but it doesn't matter. The point is so many people over the eons have said the same thing. It takes a long time, and that's gets us to our next point of the first draft is the idea of proofreading and editing

Brenton Gowland:

and usually shortening.

Ron Tomlian:

Oh, yeah.

Brenton Gowland:

So honestly, this is the most important part, this iteration part you were talking about. Yeah, if we, even if you're sending a text to a loved one, I have got in the habit of putting time between. And whatever communication I get, even if it's half an hour just to write it and then think about and then edit it and send it off when I'm convinced that it's going to convey the message that I want to convey. Yeah, but yeah, take us through the review and proofread section. Ron,

Ron Tomlian:

well, I think you know what you're aiming for is clarity, and oftentimes, clarity is made better by simplicity, and not using jargon, that type of thing, but looking at what you've written and trying to simplify it to a level that your audience is going to find easiest to understand? Yes, and so, you know, there are things that we've just talked about before, about the length of your sentences, the nesting of ideas within a sentence, yes, the length of your paragraphs. Shorter paragraphs are easier to get a single message across. So I've unfortunately seen a lot of essays and reports written by students that are the paragraphs are page long. It's very difficult to get the ideas. If you confine one or two ideas to a paragraph, or can confine your paragraphs to have only one or two major ideas, it's easier for people to break down the concepts that you're trying to get across. So all of that comes into, have I done that? I've got the first draft that you were talking about before, fantastic. Now into, how do I format that? So again, it's an iterative process, and you have the capacity to do that when you're writing.

Brenton Gowland:

If you are just doing normal communications, this might be a five minute process seriously, because you know, particularly if the relationships are close, like a staff member or team member or associate, you know them fairly well. So this whole process will happen in your mind. But the same process is, I mean, what we're talking about is an in depth process here that we can reduce down for our need. So we've just talked about reviewing and proofreading, and in my view, that is the most important part of the whole process, not making light of anything else. But this is where people come unstuck, yeah, because they don't do it correct. Because you write a thing and send it and then you read it back later, and you realize one you might have grammar problems or spelling mistakes, and you look a bit silly.

Ron Tomlian:

And nowadays, unfortunately, people underestimate the value of using grammar properly.

Brenton Gowland:

Yep, but there's another thing, right? I have noticed that people forgive mistakes and grammar problems a lot more than they used to. Like my father would have had a conniption if he got some of the communications I get from grown adults. Because we've come to forgive people because of the whole, I believe it's because of the whole texting and social media thing, because we've developed new language, and that's fine, but it still makes us look a certain way.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, absolutely. And it's again, what am I trying to get across? And part of what you're trying to get across is not only the information, it's the perspective, or their perspective, who you communicate to about you as an authority, as someone that can be trusted, as someone that has good information, that is knowledgeable. So you know, if you're conveying you might get the message across, but you might have lost the person's trust or confidence in you because of the way you got that message across.

Brenton Gowland:

And I think what you were saying just there, that whole authority piece and trust and so forth is exactly what we're talking about. Because we're talking obviously Business Builders. Is all about growing business leaders, whether you're a emerging business leader or a veteran already that you've been doing it for years, it's it's about establishing our brands really, and how we write really reflects our personal brand, which we'll talk about at another point, but it creates a perception, particularly if people haven't seen us, creates a perception about us. Now, look, I might also say one thing, that just in this review and proofreading section that's so important, when it's really important and the stakes are high, often getting another perspective,

Ron Tomlian:

I rarely send out communications to other people that I have not got someone else to read beforehand.

Brenton Gowland:

What sort of communications? Because I'm assuming, if you're sending something general, like we were talking about earlier, you don't even.

Ron Tomlian:

need to even emails, but certainly reports. If I'm writing something that that matters, that matters, I will get somebody else to read it, even, even my emails, if they're important emails, I'll get someone else to read it beforehand, because we know what we want to say. We're very clear about it in our heads. Does that mean that we have communicated that effectively? Sometimes we think we. Have, I mean if, if no other mechanism is available to you, you've got the pause. And what I mean by pause is, put your draft together, proofread it, and walk away.

Brenton Gowland:

I've heard that defined as,

Ron Tomlian:

then come back to it.

Brenton Gowland:

I've heard that defined as the gap creating. It was you who told me about that. Mind the Gap. Mind the gap. Tell me about this, I really like this.

Ron Tomlian:

We talked about that in our verbal communication,

Brenton Gowland:

yeah,

Ron Tomlian:

you know, when you're responsible,

Brenton Gowland:

Oh, so we both talked about it?

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah.

Brenton Gowland:

Oh, who told me about this?

Ron Tomlian:

But it was a it comes from the underground in the UK, you know, they talk about, Mind the Gap. Well, there is a gap between the way, well, what you hear, and your response to that. And so you have, you have the potential, when you're writing things, to create a space between the process of writing and going back and reviewing. And if you you know it might be that you create an email that might be very important, take a pause. Go have a cup of coffee, walk around the garden, whatever it is, come back and read it with the perspective of how, how will I, or how will this other person, and how do I now perceive what's being communicated. What message do I get from this with a little bit of space between the process of writing and the process of reading?

Brenton Gowland:

So it basically gives us time to grow perspective. Okay? And I can give you lots of examples of that, but we're running out of time, so we got to keep moving,

Ron Tomlian:

or get somebody else to do it. You don't have to do it yourself, but sometimes,

Brenton Gowland:

What do you mean?

Ron Tomlian:

Well, get somebody else to read it.

Brenton Gowland:

Yeah, that's the other perspective. But I thought you were talking about mining the gap.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, yeah.

Brenton Gowland:

So the gap thing for me is about giving me time to allow my own subconscious and other senses to make sense of what's happening. So often there's an emotional response right at the start, oh, yeah, but I think the other person's perspective does that as well. So you're right.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, but here's the other thing, you know, if, especially if there's a high emotions involved, somebody writes me a communication,

Brenton Gowland:

yeah,

Ron Tomlian:

I want to send something right back the opportunity, because you do not have to respond. When you've talked to someone face to face or on the phone, you have to respond right away, although I'd still say there's a gap, but delay methods later on, you could pause, but certainly when you're writing something, you have the opportunity. You do not have to respond immediately. And when I say immediately, you know you can leave it five or 10 minutes. Take the opportunity to get the emotions out of things and respond in a way that you is at least considered, because then in written communication, it's permanent. People can say, Look what he said. He can't say that over the phone. They can't say he said this. And there's a there's a record of it, but in written communication, there is a record later on, so people can look at the exchange. And this often happens in court. You know, even in texting, in court situations, people look at the way people talk to between each other, and unfortunately, there's a permanent record of it there. So take the opportunity to mind the gap, especially, I would say, when emotions are involved, when you're responding to something,

Brenton Gowland:

Yep. So moving on. What do you do after you've done the proofread? Are you ready to hit the button? Well, you can notice how we say hit the button and not put it in the post. We still put things in the post.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, we still, I haven't done that for a while. I have to admit I would say final check.

Brenton Gowland:

Final check.

Ron Tomlian:

Who do I need to send this to what am I saying? Am I comfortable that, as you say, if this were to get out into the press, that I'd be comfortable that I I'm I'm happy for other people to see this.

Brenton Gowland:

And that's a good check and balance. By the way, always asking yourself, Is the communication I'm about to put out, if that got out into the public, what would that do to my reputation? Would that make me liable for anything?

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, and that's the extreme. But also, if this person said, Hey, look at what, what Brenton just sent me, would that other person say, Well, that's pretty response, pretty reason. That's a reasonable response, given what you sent to him? Or would they say, well, obviously he's in this sort of frame of mind. What would another person say if they were looking at that as well? Because there is a permanent record, and I can't emphasize that enough, and it might be that that person takes the time to think about that and looks back at it and doesn't and. Immediately respond. But what will their response be as a result of that communication that you send? So thinking about that, thinking about who you're sending to, it could be one person. It could be multiple people. Oftentimes, for instance, when I respond to something, I will copy in this is an email I will copy in other people so that they can see the response that I'm providing as well, sure that that's contextual. And when do you send? The response doesn't have to be immediate. That's the good thing about written communication. But even look I get, I get emails sometimes from people on the weekend, right? I don't look at them till Monday, but if I'm scrolling through my Email Feed, something they send on the weekend doesn't seem as urgent or important as something sent during the week. Does that have an effect on people's perception of that communication?

Brenton Gowland:

Also, there's a big a big movement and a big push towards keeping working work hours now in Australia, I'm not sure what's happening in other parts of the world, but in other words, there's a right to disconnect. Have you heard much about this? Yes, so the right to disconnect, if it's not happening where you're from is basically and when an employee leaves work, they should be able to disconnect from work. And if the boss or someone is messaging at two or three o'clock in the morning, which happens a lot. Just watch Devil Wears Prada. Bit of an extreme example and fictitious, but probably not. I've been in situations where I've seen that happening, then it really changes. It puts pressure on someone. So timing is about respecting other people. So I'm the kind of person who will write. I do this all the time, all right, three or four emails at 12 o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, whenever I'm finishing a project, and then I will schedule them to go at eight o'clock in the morning or nine o'clock, because one I want to teach people how to treat me is that keep your communications during business hours, and two, I want to respect them, but that's, that's one example. There's all sorts of other examples. Timing could be I gotta wait for a certain event to happen, because then this will have more meaning, like I gotta wait for a particular episode of Game of Thrones. I'm being facetious of course.

Ron Tomlian:

That's an extreme example.

Brenton Gowland:

But look, just in summary, when it comes to written communication, you can see there's a structure. And just reiterating the structure, what is it that we need to communicate? Is the first thing we need to establish, who am I communicating? It to is the second thing we need to establish. The third thing is we actually need to write the message. Then we need to review and proofread, really important to proofread, and then we need to check the message before we send it again. So it really is, like you said, an iterative process, but it's Check, check, check and check. I've seen people proofread and review a thing and go through it, and because we had this saying in the advertising agency that I run is, and I'm sure it happens everywhere. I'm too close to this. I can't see it anymore. I need someone else to read it then, particularly when you're doing tenders, because you've gone through it so many times, and there's so much to them, you can't see the wood from the forest, from the trees anymore. So you need another perspective. If it's only emails that are that long, sure some of them might take longer, but the point is, check, check, check and check time, if you can, and that really will help you with your communication. But on that, you were talking about there being templates in businesses and so forth. Yes, so what if you're a aspiring business leader, or even a business leader who's doing things on their own. Where do you find the help? And that's where our beautiful technology comes in I think.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, even in a lot of the word processing, processing programs at the moment and email you,

Brenton Gowland:

it's all getting built in.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, it's all being built in. You can get there are spell checkers. There are grammar checkers. There's things called like Grammarly. Grammarly keeps popping up all the time. He used that for a few years. Was awesome, yeah, yeah. And there's, there's nothing wrong with saying, I don't want to necessarily spend all this time. Are there tools that I can use to make sure that my communication is more effective?

Brenton Gowland:

Of course, a lot of what I do now is I run things through AI, but I don't just go, Hey, write this for me. I usually go through this process, write what I need to write, and then put it in and say, check, flow, grammar and this, that and the other. I don't always agree but gosh, it's helpful.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah. So there are now AI tools to help you.

Brenton Gowland:

Built in to everything just about.

Ron Tomlian:

The old the old fashioned tools like dictionaries and thesauruses.

Brenton Gowland:

Well, don't write them off.

Ron Tomlian:

No not at all.

Brenton Gowland:

Because sometimes it's about understanding the context of thing. The thesaurus has been my best friend on many, many occasions, but that's usually when I'm writing something that really matters.

Ron Tomlian:

If you're worried about, in general, how your communication is going, you can use tools like the gunning fog index. Yes, I'm not going to go into that now. No, we don't have time, no, but you can look up the gunning fog index and see whether your communication is cluttered or foggy or whether it's clearer.

Brenton Gowland:

There's a writing index in Grammarly. I forget what it's called, and it's a very common structure. I haven't looked it up. I may go and look it up later, but I'm sure you can find it. It basically tells you what age group you're writing for. So I think common practice is, if you want it to be accessible to most people, you write it as if you're writing it to a year eight student, right? Not a it. You know, is this an academic level paper where the words, as we were talking about are this long and it makes you tired reading it because you got to go, what does this word mean? What does that word mean? I got to go research this word so I can write it. Or is it? And I, like you said, You rule people out if you don't go for the lowest common denominator. And what I mean by the lowest common denominator is not a disrespectful thing, but where their communication level is at.

Ron Tomlian:

The least knowledgeable and sophisticated person that you are trying to communicate to. And there is a saying as well, just to put this into context, because I don't want this to seem like we're elitist, elitist, but they say that true genius can explain very complex things to a four year old and have them understand it. Now, that might be a little bit of a stretch, but the meaning is right. If we really understand a thing, we can make it seem very simple. So I think that's pretty much all we got time for today.

Brenton Gowland:

It is indeed. So this is our first video of the Business Builders material. And I gotta admit, I felt a little bit intimidated at the start. Ron, I didn't know what to do with my hands. I still probably don't. It's a bit different. We've done this podcast so many times. Yes, that it's just natural. Yeah. Now I'm like, I'm being watched.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, and we have the benefit and the discipline required now of having visual communications view the way we use our hands, all that extra cross our arms, yeah, all that extra communication information that is out there now, yeah, in the in the video. So hopefully we'll get better at communicating more effective.

Brenton Gowland:

Okay. And next episode is going to be really interesting. We're going to talk about how your business communicates via its brand. So basically, branding communications. And you were saying when we were having this discussion, well, that's communicating without words.

Ron Tomlian:

Yeah, and it can be, but the words matter as well. But oftentimes brands tend to communicate visually, because that's where most people the meaning comes from, in the in the visual communication, what pictures do they use?

Brenton Gowland:

And that's why the industry is called exactly what you just said, visual communication. When I went to college, when I was younger, I did a visual communication course and visual communication, let's call it that, visual communication. This is not really a marketing and branding thing. This is us talking about effective communication through your brand and through your business. But anyway, until next time, Business Builders – Keep on Building!.