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Business Prose StylePart 2: Writing to Others

• How your prose style affects workplace relationships.• How to foster good will when writing to others.

© 2015 Karen L. Thompson Department of English University of Idaho

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How prose style affects workplace relationships.

• The way in which you write and respond to others can foster positive workplace relationships or negative ones.

• Your prose style can show respect or disrespect for others and reveal positive or negative intentions.

• This lecture uses examples from Business Writing with Heart: How to Build Great Workplace Relationships One Message at a Time by Lynn Gaertner-Johnson.

• I highly recommend this book because it contains many additional examples that you will find useful when writing to others in the workplace.

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How to Foster Goodwill When Writing to Others

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Use Relationship-Building Language

• Simply adding please, thank you, expressing appreciation, and displaying respect for other people’s time goes a long way to build and preserve good relationships.

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ExamplesWhen requesting work from others: ask instead of tell.• Do you have time to get me this information

today?

When someone expedites work to you, thank them.• Thanks for getting me this information today, I

greatly appreciate it.

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Emphasize what can – not what can’t

Can’t:We’ll be using the conference room for most

of the day, so you can’t have it before 2 today.

Can:We’ll be done with the conference room at 2

today, so it’s all yours after that.

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Disagree without being Adversarial

Adversarial tone:I disagree.I don’t like this plan.

Non-adversarial tone:I have a different perspective.I have concerns about this plan.

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Use Positive Language and Avoid Negative

Positive• looking forward• happy to• terrific• glad• etc.

Negative• no idea• no way• impossible• fail to• etc.

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Explain why.

• We’ve changed the date of the meeting because Tom has a prior commitment.

• I would appreciate your assessment by June 16 (I’d like to get this wrapped up and to the client before I leave for a month-long road-trip the next week). 

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Project 3 Deliverable 1: Writing the Email Response • The challenge in writing your email response to the project

manager is how to turn down his request in a way that will maintain a positive workplace relationship.

• And although he’s phrased the request to ask if you can expedite the guide, you know he’ll have expectations that you can expedite the work because you’ve always been able to in the past.

• You have valid reasons why you cannot accommodate his request to expedite, but you want to avoid sounding like you are whining about your workload.

• Explain why in a straightforward way but also provides possible ways to solve the problem.

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Some possible choices:

• Remind him (gently) that you have taken on the work of another person who recently quit. He may know this but it might not be something he thought about before sending the request.

• Ask if it is possible for him to assign some of this work to another person, and make it clear how much work needs to be reassigned (you can make some of the details up).

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Some possible choices continued

• Explain the workload problem you have and ask if he can help you.

• Be specific. Would having him proofread parts of the guide be helpful to expedite the work? If so, ask him by using positive language. Be respectful of his time.

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Some possible choices continued

• Consider how you could handle the request if the guide were done but not yet printed.

• Suggest sending the guide to the printer for an early, short run of a few guides.

• Explain how doing that would add to the cost because the printer has quoted this expense to you for a full run.

• Make choices based on what sounds best to you.

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Why you are doing this.

• You want to practice being part of the solution when you receive a request from a project manager that you cannot fulfill.

• It isn’t always possible to be part of the solution, but the email response you write for this project is about gaining practice in how to do this when it is possible.