Gather your thoughts

As a strategist, I tend to be a bit of a convoluted thinker. I also suffer from having my brain move too fast for my mouth on occasion, so I have followed Bacon’s advice for some time.

Bacon said, “reading makes a full man, conversation a ready man, and writing an exact man.” Sir Francis Bacon wrote in 16th century and I assume what he wrote applies for women as well.

It is essential in good leadership and management to take others along with you, which means clear thinking and good communication. For this reason I have sought to hone my communication skills by following Bacon’s advice and writing to clarify my thoughts. Some of my early studying training also proved helpful where the examination process was what was called ‘exam condition assignments’. A short period to write what should be able to be communicated in a doorstop situation if asked a question. This means knowing your content well enough to communicate it simply if needed.

Report writing is essential to good governance, but it is also a good way to hone and clarify thoughts. This becomes even more important if introducing new or difficult concepts which may need that extra effort to get others onboard.

Mark Twain has been credited with saying, "I didn’t have time to write you a short letter, so I have written a long one". Clear and concise writing takes time. It is a skill that needs to be honed and gets better with practice.

All this means we should make the effort to collect our thoughts and communicate them in a way that is not just beneficial to others, but also considerate of them. They shouldn’t have to work that hard to understand your thoughts, especially if you are the one trying to sell an idea.

This is why report writing should start as early as possible before it’s presentation date. Early as possible means it can’t be too early, especially if it is for a prescribed period, but you can hone your thoughts on a particular topic. The article ‘Think’spoke about the importance of reflection to clarify thoughts. It is not always enough to just report facts, rather observations should be considered and evaluated against other learnings. This takes time and may not be easy to do at a time of pressing deadlines.

Here is one suggestion if you find report writing deadlines burdensome.

Start a diary or journal appropriate to your situation.

In the banking industry, a common practice was to write a file note to keep a track of any events. This is something I have continued in many industries. This is particularly helpful if an issue arises that may not go any further, but capturing a one or two paragraph summary may be helpful if it does. Many a file note becomes the basis for parts of my reports.

Daily, weekly or event based chronicling is a good way to gather and process your thoughts. Find a suitable discipline that will work for you and create your own pensieve (as introduced by J.K. Rowling, look up my article ‘think’ for a further description). Don’t be too ambitious, start off small with something that can be maintained. Your phone notes in date order is as good a start as any. Electronic tagging and searching means we don’t even have to put too much effort into filing in the early stages. You may chose to move to other note taking software like One note or Evernote in due course if that suits your purpose.

Learn how to hone your thoughts, practice good conversation and learn to write considerate and convincing reports.