Writing skills are more important than ever. People do judge your company by the quality of its communication.
If you are convinced that grammatically correct writing skills are essential to your team and, ultimately to your business, you need ways to implement methods by which your team members can acquire or sharpen these skills.
Be aware that most members of your team may have acquired poor habits in these areas. A generation accustomed to the abbreviations of texting may have little patience for grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Even people who do have the skills needed report that constant exposure to misspellings, habitual breaking of punctuation rules, and other repeated errors, can override the rules they learned.
The team leader’s job is to convince his or her team members that these foundations of communication matter.
Points to Emphasize
To summarize from the previous article, the following skills require writing ability:
- Video,
- Audio,
- Social media,
- B2C copywriting,
- Sponsored content,
- and B2B copywriting.
This list highlights the importance of team members being able to write with competence, but the need for clear communication goes deeper.
In a well-functioning team, each member feels invested in fulfilling the goals of the group. People operate cohesively to achieve these goals. In order to do so, they need to communicate.
Some of this communication is verbal, but a large part of it is written. It may be in the form of memos, emails, or the more substantial form of a proposal.
Make the Investment
Poorly written, spelled, and punctuated writing costs a company money. Investment in better skills for a team will pay for itself.
The foundation of competent writing is understanding the rules of spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Many courses in these areas are available online.
EdX (https://www.edx.org/learn/grammar) offers a variety of free courses.
Udemy (https://udemy.com) has a number of low-cost courses, averaging $12.99 per course.
An Internet search will bring up many other possibilities. You can choose or let your team members choose the options that work best for them.
Don’t be deterred if a course or learning site looks as if it’s aimed at junior or senior high school levels. That could be an advantage. The lessons are probably easy to understand.
It helps, too, that many of these learning portals offer 30 days free. You and your team members will get the chance to evaluate their effectiveness.
You’ll find that some of these sites also offer courses specifically oriented to business writing. These, too, will likely be worth the investment.
The Importance of Patience and Encouragement
This is where team-building skills can shine. Encourage the team members to support each other. Some will have stronger skills than others. Encourage them to look over a memo or report and make suggestions.
Always keep in mind that people may feel insecurity and low self-esteem about their lack of skills. Encouragement and praise for improvement will help them to grow.
Have particular awareness that some team members may speak English as a second language. They may need a specially designed program.
Probably the most important thing to emphasize is that the members of a team depend on each other. As in every area of teamwork, when one of them succeeds in improving written skills, everyone succeeds.
And when your team produces noteworthy written products that make their point without the distractions of poor grammar, punctuation, and spelling, others will take notice.
Pat Iyer is a C Suite Network Contributor, one of the original 100 contributors. As an author, editor and ghostwriter, Pat helps her clients share their brilliance without having to do all of the work. Reach her at WritingToGetBusiness.com.
