Does your writing voice differ from your personal voice?
How do you come across as a manager, colleague or team member when you write?
Do you project an image of a competent, decisive, fair-minded, approachable person, or do you come across as impatient, disorganized, careless and distant? Are you modeling the kind of writing you expect from others? Are you setting high standards or low standards for those who work with you and for you?
Underlying these questions is a more fundamental and interesting one: Are you the same person in writing as you are in person? In most cases, the answer is probably no.
In writing, you have the opportunity to be more organized, thorough and logical, perhaps even livelier, funnier and more entertaining, than you are in real life. When you write, you assume a voice, you adopt a pose, sometimes as part of your persuasive strategy, at times to create a certain tone and at other times to make a point with particular emphasis.
But sometimes, perhaps frequently, you dash something off under the pressure of deadlines or workflow without taking time to consider your tone, organization, clarity and persuasive strategy. Or to proof read for distracting errrors. (Not counting the intentional sentence fragment, did you catch the two proofreading errors in that sentence?) And in those hurried messages you might be projecting an image of yourself that undermines your credibility.
Whether you're careful or careless, fundamental to the writer-reader relationship is the writer's voice, the person behind the words. Here are three things you can do to ensure that your voice projects the image you desire:
1. Read your old messages in your outbox to check for tone. How are you coming across to your reader? Are you routinely opening and closing with goodwill statements? Are you opening with "As per your request, attached please find …" or "Thank you for your interest in our organization. The attached information will answer your questions"?
