The most common writing mistake in organizational communications is not bad grammar. It is not passive voice or run-on sentences.

It is the belief that complexity signals intelligence.

It does not. Clarity does.

Why We Write to Impress

There are a few reasons organizational writing tends toward complexity.

The first is insecurity. When we are not sure our ideas are strong enough, we dress them up. More words. Bigger vocabulary. Longer sentences. The thinking is that if the writing sounds sophisticated, the ideas will too.

The second is habit. Most of us learned to write in academic settings where length was rewarded and hedging was safe. Those habits do not serve us in organizational communications, where the goal is not to demonstrate knowledge but to transfer it.

The third is committee. When writing goes through multiple rounds of review, it tends to accumulate qualifications, caveats, and additions. Each reviewer adds something. No one takes anything away. The result is writing that is technically accurate and practically unreadable.

The Clarity Test

Here is a simple test for any piece of organizational writing: read it aloud.

If you stumble over a sentence, your reader will too. If you have to re-read a paragraph to understand it, your reader will give up. If you cannot summarize the main point in one sentence after reading the whole thing, the writing has not done its job.

The goal is not to dumb things down. It is to make complex ideas accessible. Those are different things.

Practical Principles

A few principles that consistently improve organizational writing:

Lead with the point. Most organizational writing buries the lead. The most important information should come first, not last. Your reader should not have to work to find out why they are reading.

One idea per sentence. When a sentence is trying to do too many things, it does none of them well. Break it up.

Cut the hedges. "It could be argued that," "in many cases," "it is worth noting that." These phrases add length without adding meaning. Cut them.

Use concrete language. "We serve vulnerable populations" means almost nothing. "We provide legal services to immigrants facing deportation" means something specific. Specificity is clarity.

Read it as your audience. Before you send anything, ask: if I knew nothing about this organization, would I understand this? Would I care?

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Mali + Co. Studio helps organizations write with the clarity their work deserves. Let's talk about communications support for your team.