Here’s a trick to make your work messages work: imagine you’re painting a dramatic picture.
A colleague writes to you for advice:
Can we have a call, as I’d like to know how to do some product management stuff?
And you think — “wow … what a topic”. Where to start? Though you’re a helpful person, you’re busy and you’d need more info.
Imagine that the same person writes this to you instead:
I’m being promoted to more of a leadership role where I help to shape our services for the rest of the business. But the groups I have to work with aren’t very clear where they’re going. There’s a dev group that is quite motivated but they seem to promise things that take longer and longer. There’s a product owner who’s supposed to be more on the business side but spends more time with the dev team. The main business stakeholder has recently changed and instead of focusing on the software is now saying we just need more customers. I actually feel we’re on borrowed time now. I feel that product management frameworks could help. What do you suggest?
Now, you have something to go on.
You might have a lot of questions. You might question the focus on software as opposed to value. If you know some of the people, you might suspect there is more to the story. But, you’re engaged, and you want to help.
It was easy for you to see the gaps in the first message, and the improvement in the second, because you’re in the position of the reciever. But do you always write enough context into your own messages? It’s hard. The “curse of knowledge” makes it hard to imagine being someone who doesn’t know what you know.
Curse of Knowledge?
What is different about the latter message, precisely? It depicts a scenario. There are characters and there is tension. There is a context. That’s what draws you in and invites you to help.
You might say, “oh, so it’s storytelling”. But it’s not exactly. There is no once-upon-a-time; no beginning, middle, and end; no need to imagine the hard facts of your business animated in Pixar-cuteness.
Pixar cuteness in the field of sales
What else highlights characters and tension with context, without being a complete narrative? A dramatic painting. And what genre paintings could be more dramatic than those which show gritty myths and religious stories with new tools of realism? I’m talking about the Baroque painters such as Caravaggio, Rembrant, and Poussin.
Perhaps this painting feels over-the-top, the style and its theme. For a moment, don’t judge. Just look at the spilling wine in the hands of the woman on the right.
Look at the gaze of the man on the left. At the king, interrupted in his feast. At the hand writing on the wall.
These depict a dramatic moment, some revelation. You don’t have to be a theist to get the drama.
Alright, it’s a nice picture, but how to translate those techniques to writing stuff at work?
These paintings have three elements: a context (location and situation), some people, and a point of dramatic tension or action. In the previous example, the context is the feast, the people are the king and his courtiers, and the dramatic tension is the writing on the wall.
Each element helps us write a clear message:
Context (but not too much). Your reader needs to know something about the situation you’re writing from. If a team’s facing a challenge, where are the requirements coming from and what has been tried before? Avoid a complete history but outline enough detail that the reader can locate where their help is needed.
People. The main characters. Don’t skimp on description here! I don’t mean physical things of course but the roles that people play (related to the topic of your message), and what drives each person or team. If I’m meeting some new people I take time to read about their work experiences and any particular interests. It makes for better conversations. The same is true for writing about situations.
Dramatic tension or action. What is your main question or concern! Paint it bold. Use it at the start of your message, to draw your reader’s attention to what’s needed. Put it at the end as well, to spur action. Many of the Baroque painters used light and shadow to highlight the action and key characters.
Baroque techniques of shadow and light
Here are two more examples of these three elements. Firstly, another religious subject, a painting my family and I were lucky enough to see last week:
The context is the Biblical location of the pool at Bethesda; you can see it in the background. But try narrowing your eyes until you see only the bright areas of the painting. They are Jesus and the paralysed man (and the angel in the sky). So the focus is on these people. The action? Look at the upwards gestures of Jesus and the paralysed man, and the upwards movement of the man’s body. He’s being raised up — the miracle in action.
But the Baroque painters didn’t only show religious or mythical subjects. Science was progressing fast. Here’s Joseph Wright’s “The Orrery” from 1766.
Here, the context is shown subtly — the books behind the curtain showing that this is some place of study, a library or laboratory.
The people are not only the scientist and other adults but the children. In fact, the brighest things in the painting are two of the children’s faces.
The action is the demonstration of the workings of the solar system — an inspiring thing particularly for the children, who might continue exploring the world and its workings in later life.
Still not sure how how to start using this approach with things you write at work? Try it backwards.
Next time you have something a little tricky to communicate, a situation to depict, think first about what you want to highlight: the key tension, decision, or needed action.
And then work backwards to fill in the helpful information about the people involved, and the context — the history and wider organizational background.
Why not try an exercise now. Think about a situation at work that you’d like to communicate to a boss, a colleague, or a team. Now see if any of these great chiaroscuro paintings echo the emotions, risks, or opportunities of that situation in any way!
One more thing — if this post helps your business comms, that’s great. But if it inspires you to look up some great art, that’s even better. Advertising giant George Tannenbaum suggests that we visit a museum to broaden our outlook, and I heartily agree.
Related Posts
