Why Writing Well at Work Matters

Today a person, let’s call him Ellis, said to me, “Jenny, none of the things we write matter. No one cares. And no one’s reading it anyway.”

Ellis was saying this because I had made a suggestion to change the ending of his emails, and he didn’t like my recommendation. He wanted to keep doing what he had been doing. He would have preferred to have his choices validated. He wasn’t really in a growth or learning mindset.

And so instead of considering what I was saying and why I might be making the suggestion, he pushed back and dismissed the whole idea that we should try to write well at work.

We Do Care, If We Have a Reason To

The idea that no one cares and no one’s reading is, in my opinion, completely wrong. The fact is that everyone cares. It’s just that they care about themselves and the things that are important in their lives. Unless they directly need you specifically, other people don’t initially care.

Until you show them why they should care.

What Ellis was really saying is “no cares about me” or “I don’t care about other people.”

The Power of Theory of Mind and Empathy

See, one of the coolest things humans can do (and maybe some other animals, too) is imagine how other people might be thinking or feeling and that those thoughts and feelings could be different from what I might be thinking or feeling about the same…