Module 6: You-Attitude
One of three cornerstones for building goodwill is you attitude. Learning to use you attitude properly is one of the more important lessons in any business communication course-and also one of the more daunting. You may see you attitude primarily as an issue of language choice (i.e., simply using “you” in a sentence) but the concept runs much deeper.Understand that your audience will be asking themselves a primary question when reading your documents or listening to your presentations. The question is “what is in this for me?” Your communication must answer this question in a way that will engage the audience and capture their attention. I will expect to see the you attitude principles reflected in your documents throughout the semester.
The you attitude is a style of writing that:
• Looks at things from the reader’s point of view.
• Respects the reader’s intelligence.
• Protects the reader’s ego.
• Emphasizes what the reader wants to know.
While you attitude is a matter of style, it’s sometimes necessary to revise organization and content as well as style to create the best document.
To create you attitude, you should:
• Talk about the reader, not about themselves.
• Not talk about feelings, except to congratulate or offer sympathy.
• In positive situations, use you more often than I. Use we when it includes the reader.
• Avoid “you” in negative situations.
To create goodwill with content
• Be complete.
• Anticipate and answer questions the reader is likely to have.
• Show why information the reader didn’t ask for is important.
• Show readers how the subject of your message affects them.
• Put information readers are most interested in first.
• Arrange information to meet your reader’s needs, not yours.
• Use headings and lists so that the reader can find key points quickly.
Last Word: Using you-attitude means thinking beyond your own wants and needs. You may not be used to seeing things from the other person’s perspective and may need extra help in learning to understand how others see and interpret messages. Communication is successful when the audience UNDERSTANDS the message and RESPONDS in the way you need them to in order to accomplish organizational objectives. Ensure that your communication focuses on the reader and not yourself. The best way to get someone to listen to you is to listen to them first, the best way to get someone to inquire about your business is to ask about theirs first.
Module 7: Positive Emphasis
Like you-attitude and reader benefits, positive emphasis is a cornerstone of building goodwill.We sometimes misunderstand the nature of positive emphasis. Using positive emphasis does not mean lying or exaggerating to the audience. Positive emphasis means ethically using language to express information in positive terms. Essentially, it is looking at the glass as “half full” rather than half empty. Some negatives are necessary, though in most situations being positive is better. Analyze your audience carefully when deciding on the proper approach. Some audiences may in fact want negative information put bluntly-though research by Shelby and Reinsch suggests this is unlikely for most business audiences.
Use negatives for:
• Building credibility when giving bad news.
• Helping people to take a problem seriously.
• Delivering a rebuke with no alternative.
• Creating a “reverse psychology” to make people look favorably at your product or service.
Have you done better in courses where you have viewed the subject matter positively? If so, why? What is it about your energy, enthusiasm, or discipline that was different in those courses versus the ones you viewed negatively? What might this suggest about the effect of business correspondence written in negative terms or with a negative tone? What might this suggest about the importance of attitude as it relates to business?
Create positive emphasis by de-emphasizing or omitting negative words and information.
Five techniques for deemphasizing negative information:
• Avoid negative words and words with negative connotations.
• Focus on what the reader can do rather than on limitations.
• Justify negative information by giving a reason or linking it to a reader benefit.
• If the negative is truly unimportant, omit it.
• Put the negative information in the middle and present it compactly.
When apologizing, do it early, briefly, and sincerely.
Be careful about apologizing in business-a written apology in particular may be viewed as an admission of guilt or responsibility later in a court of law.
When apologies are necessary, they should be:
• Early, brief, and sincere.
Apologies alone generally fail to leave readers with a sense of goodwill. Typically, action must be taken to correct mistakes. A message that simply expresses feeling but offers no actions may seem “empty” to readers. Therefore, writers should plan on including a solution to problems, rather than simply an apology.
Why do I need to think about tone?
Tone and politeness are not just issues of civility, but also issues of power.
Tone is the implied attitude of the writer toward the reader. What makes tone tricky is that it interacts with power-the same tone used by a superior to a subordinate may be completely inappropriate when used by the subordinate to the superior.
Use these guidelines when trying to achieve the tone they want.
• Use courtesy titles for people outside the organization you don’t know very well.
• Be aware of the power implications of words.
• When you must give bad news, consider hedging your statement.
Last Word: Remember it’s not only what is said but how it is said. This chapter is not advocating putting a “positive spin” on all messages. It advocates the need to communicate about business issues and situations with a positive tone. This can be difficult for those with a more pessimistic outlook on life.
Module 8: Reader Benefits
Along with you-attitude and positive emphasis, reader benefits complete the three ingredients of building goodwill. Not all documents use reader benefits-negative messages and direct requests do not-but they are useful for many business messages.In particular, you will find reader benefits helpful when composing job application letters and résumés, showing the reader how your employment can help the organization.
Reader benefits are benefits or advantages the reader gets by:
• Using your services.
• Buying your products.
• Following your policies.
• Adopting your ideas.
Reader benefits must be tangible-that is, they must be quickly and easily identifiable by the audience. They should be expressed in clear language.
Good reader benefits are also:
• Adapted to the audience.
• Based on intrinsic advantages.
• Supported by clear logic and explained in adequate detail.
• Phrased in you-attitude.
How do I identify reader benefits?
To generate a list of possible reader benefits, use invention techniques, such as brainstorming in two steps:
1. Think of feelings, fears, and needs that may motivate the reader.
2. Identify the objective features of the product or policy.
How do I decide which benefits to use?
Three principles can guide in deciding which benefits to use:
• Use at least one benefit for each part of your audience.
• Use intrinsic benefits.
• Use the benefits you can develop most fully.
What else do reader benefits need?
Re-familiarize yourself with you-attitude. In particular, remember that benefits must appeal to the reader-therefore, you-attitude is critical in expressing them.