Many managers find themselves listening to a lot of the backstory. This means a lot of time is spent trying to understand what has happened, not on how to untangle the situation. Often, I find myself steering the conversation to what the person would like to do next. However, I am not saying that as a manager you should sometimes be there to listen. You absolutely should.
This example is so true:
"I find that when I want to go heavy into my back story - typically it's because I doubt my main point is strong enough to stand on its own. If I trust my idea and am primarily focused on providing value to my reader (rather than soothing my ego or making myself appear better/smarter) - this is much easier to do.” - Vanessa Hernandez
I have seen this happening with content teams so often. Folks go back to ice age to explain how a car was made. I always tried to push back the backstory more back, to show the ludicrousness of this thing. This 'bear' analogy is a great way to explain this thing.
I have found ChatGPT is pretty good at helping with this. Write the first draft to organize your own thoughts, give it an edit or two, then give it to an LLM. It will suggest things that can be removed or rewritten to help the flow, and it will even suggest moving paragraphs / ideas around to help. If you are writing for a specific audience, you can say something like "Imagine you are my manager, Dave, who doesn't have a lot of experience with technical subjects. What does Dave think about this email?". It will help you tailor it to that type of person.
Of course, critically analyze its suggestions, but its likely having a personal editor you can call on anytime.
Many managers find themselves listening to a lot of the backstory. This means a lot of time is spent trying to understand what has happened, not on how to untangle the situation. Often, I find myself steering the conversation to what the person would like to do next. However, I am not saying that as a manager you should sometimes be there to listen. You absolutely should.
This example is so true:
"I find that when I want to go heavy into my back story - typically it's because I doubt my main point is strong enough to stand on its own. If I trust my idea and am primarily focused on providing value to my reader (rather than soothing my ego or making myself appear better/smarter) - this is much easier to do.” - Vanessa Hernandez
Yes. This nails something I’ve been trying to put my finger on for awhile in my own music writing. Thanks Wes.
I have seen this happening with content teams so often. Folks go back to ice age to explain how a car was made. I always tried to push back the backstory more back, to show the ludicrousness of this thing. This 'bear' analogy is a great way to explain this thing.
In Romania, where bears really eat people, this joke wouldn’t be funny :)
I have found ChatGPT is pretty good at helping with this. Write the first draft to organize your own thoughts, give it an edit or two, then give it to an LLM. It will suggest things that can be removed or rewritten to help the flow, and it will even suggest moving paragraphs / ideas around to help. If you are writing for a specific audience, you can say something like "Imagine you are my manager, Dave, who doesn't have a lot of experience with technical subjects. What does Dave think about this email?". It will help you tailor it to that type of person.
Of course, critically analyze its suggestions, but its likely having a personal editor you can call on anytime.