CHAPTER 6

Honor the Structure

In the beginner’s mind are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.¹

—Shunrye Suzuki, Zen master

Now that you have identified your goals and your audience, it’s time to decide how to structure your message. Structure is vital to communication. How you form your message is much the same as how energy is formed into matter: an idea occurs, and then that energy is shaped in an appropriate way for the intent to take shape.

Everything in nature has structure. Even an atom has a structure, as you may remember from chemistry class: various ions revolve around the nucleus. What may appear as random in nature will reveal its structure upon closer inspection. Even modern poetry has structure, although that structure may also be unapparent.

Which is why good business communication also has to have structure. Back in the Dark Ages, when we all did business exclusively by phone, we had an accepted protocol and structure: instead of immediately barking our request when the other party answered the phone, we said hello and identified ourselves. We then set the stage for what we were about to ask. Now that we communicate electronically most of the time, we often forget structure. As we have discussed, we hunker down in our own stuff, intent on getting out the message as fast as we can.

Think for a moment: how do you act when you open an email and see a big dense paragraph with long strings of sentences? Do you want to read it? Most people don’t. In fact, most people don’t read it. The communication isn’t successful; instead, it’s an amorphous big black blob of verbiage, full of the writer’s intent to get the message off his plate and totally missing any attempt to shape it into a message that can be understood.

But what shape does one use to communicate? That depends on the message.

Remember that argument that all communication is persuasive in nature? Although many will argue with this opinion, in actuality this argument makes a lot of sense. Think for a moment: even in a statement such as “it’s a pretty day outside” you are persuading the other person to see your point of view or to enter a conversation with you. Whether you agree with the persuasive intent of all communication, one fact remains: all communication is about getting the other person to see the product of your mind. So shaping the message in a manner that will be easiest for the receiver to perceive is the best way to make sure that your message is successful.

In Zen, one intends to harness the energy of two opposing forces to create harmony. This concept is very similar to what you do when you structure a message. Before you structure, you will (hopefully) have analyzed what your goal of the message is to be; by doing so, what you have done is shape your thought into form. That form is now your energy of thought. You have also analyzed the audience in detail; you know as much as possible about the other person’s thoughts, attitudes, and knowledge. Perhaps you also have an idea of how this person will structure his own energy and response. You know his mindset, and you know the environment in which she is working. You now have a sense of her energy. That becomes the energy of perception in which your message will operate.

So when you structure the message, what you are doing is indeed making peace with these two opposing forces. Some messages are more opposing than are others; each message will be different, even if they go to the same person. Yet you still have more than one form of energy out of which to make one united and connected thought between you, the sender, and the receiver. This, my friends, is the essence of Zen in business.

But it’s not just a casual fly-by connection; by using the appropriate structure for the message, you connect more deeply. The bond strengthens. And with that strengthened bond, action occurs. Action leads to interaction, which leads to opportunities for both parties.

But what if the receiver of the message misses the beauty of the united thought? Then you have to take a step back and re-examine the structure. Often what is important to you isn’t immediately important to the other person. In fact, most of the time, what’s immediately apparent and important to us is not as clear to the other person. That’s why good business writing use a technique called the WIFM.

The WIFM—or What’s in It for Me?

Someone once said we all have a very favorite radio station playing in our heads: station WIFM—what’s in it for me? (Note the acronym neatly bypasses the double I. Think about that. Less I than we think necessary.) This acronym is a standard one in business communication circles; it’s a short way of saying that most people live in a self-centered world. Our thoughts are our reality—and usually our thoughts are about ourselves. So when you open and scan your email, the first thing you look for is a message that matters to you—what’s in it for me. As you read it, you may be thinking, “Ok, yada yada; so what’s in this for me? Why did you send this to me?” (Be honest; we all read our emails this way most of the time.)

My favorite way of understanding the WIFM comes from my friend Merrilyn the psychotherapist (the psycho-therapist, as she calls herself). Her statement is that as we grow and age, we still keep the kernels of who we were inside us—sort of like a tree growing new rings each year. Now, based on Merrilyn’s statement, here’s my explanation of the WIFM. Deep down inside each of us lives the three-year-old, who has no concept of time and can be distracted in a heartbeat; the five-year-old who drives everyone crazy with the why questions and who just doesn’t seem to get it as fast as the older kids; the seven-year-old who chatters incessantly; the thirteen-year-old who barely speaks to you at all.

Depending on the day you are having, one of these earlier versions of yourself may take center stage and direct your actions. So if I’m having a stressful day, the five-year-old and the seven-year-old may duke it out to see who controls the public me—and the people who communicate with me need to know that my inner kids are asking, “Hey! Do I have to? What did you say again? How come I have to listen? Does this mean that if I listen now you will let me go watch TV and veg? I don’t want to hear what you have to say; I want to tell you about what I want to talk about” and so on. Or more likely I might be pushed and having a day where my inner teenager comes out. I may be inwardly snarly and say, “Oh, yeah? Says who? Make me care. If not, I’ll just ignore you and do whatever I want to do.”

As the communicator, you never know which of these multiple personalities will emerge in your audience. So you spend a little time thinking about the person you are communicating with. Why should she care? Have you made your point so clear that she can’t be distracted? Have you allowed her to talk a little as well? Acknowledging and honoring the WIFM allows you to have good manners, so to speak. You let the other person’s needs and interests go first. But she then usually has good manners in return: once you have acknowledged her and her interests, she is willing to listen to yours.

That’s the WIFM. Now if you take the lessons of the WIFM as you craft your message, you’ll realize that what you really have to do is catch the attention of the other person. Many of us read or listen, as we have discussed, with our minds on autopilot. You have to catch that person’s attention quickly with the answer to “what’s in it for me?”

Think of structuring your message this way: imagine the person sitting in front of the computer with a remote control in his hand, just the same way many people sit in front of a TV with the remote. He starts clicking away until something startles him into consciousness. Whatever has grabbed him has answered “Hey, this is something for you!” and he pays attention. His energy of perception merges with your energy of thought, and a clear message occurs. That’s what you want in your structure. You want him to notice your words. (See how the idea of all communication being persuasive plays out here?)

OK, but How Do You Do It?

What you have to use is what I refer to as USA Today writing: you get the headline up front. When you craft your message, your most important sentence answers that WIFM. That’s the line that becomes the very first sentence.

Many of us have been taught to build a paragraph in the deductive inverted pyramid style. We start from the broad and we narrow to the point, which usually comes at the end of the paragraph. Although this process works very well for long in-depth papers or reports or proposals, it is deadly for business communication; most of us not only don’t have the time to read someone else’s deduction but we also don’t want to. We want what we need to know now—and fast.

The inverted pyramid, therefore, doesn’t work to catch someone’s attention. It starts too broadly, allowing that person far too much space to wander mentally and get off the path. Now, if you flip that paragraph and begin with headline up front, you catch the person’s attention. You answer the WIFM and also set the tone. You also signal how you will structure that harmony out of the two opposing points of energy and thoughts.

Years ago USA Today had a billboard ad campaign about the usefulness of its abbreviated, get-to-the-point style of reporting. One of the billboards read “Pigs house destroyed; huffing and puffing suspected.” Although humorous, the billboard was nevertheless extremely successful. Not only did it send the message that you could get all you needed to know from one short article, but it also answered the WIFM for reading a different type of newspaper. What was in it for us was all the basics we needed to know in two short sentences—a style that has become the hallmark for many online newspapers and websites.

Let’s take a look at an example of how structure changes response and unity. Consider the two emails that follow, both about the same idea, with the same goal and the same audience. Which one works better to create action?

Boring, isn’t it? Why? It has a WIFM. It has a goal. It has analyzed the audience’s needs. What it lacks—and what makes it boring—is lack of effective structure.

Let’s look at a revised version.

Notice how this one grabs the reader? Yes, it sounds a lot like the RonCo products ads we see on TV. Yet here’s the secret: these ads work.

Basically, now that you have an idea that everything is persuasive, setting up your message couldn’t be simpler. Just as all of nature has patterns, such as how rocks, trees, and other natural items appear always in an odd number, patterning your message is very easy. First you know you have to grab the reader’s attention. That means the headline has to go up first, followed up immediately by the WIFM in the same sentence if possible. If not, the second sentence should answer the WFIM.

So now you have a clear view of your first section of the persuasive message. Now what? You answer the 5 W’s.

The 5 W’s: Six Words That Can Change Your Life

“The next meeting of the budget committee will be held on Friday at 2. Please plan to be there.”

—faulty email

Ever received an email that required you to reply asking for clarification? How about a voice mail that led to your playing telephone tag to figure out what the caller wanted? If you’re like most people, your answer may be “Yes—most of my email is like that!” How do you feel about those emails? If you are like most people, the answer is resentful. Instead of being able to answer and get on with your work, you have to wait and clarify, and then maybe clarify again, before you can get this issue off your plate.

Does the sender mean to be self-absorbed? Probably not. Most likely she is unaware that she hasn’t been complete and that is she has piled more on your to-do list. And she could have avoided doing so by being aware of a simple formula called the 5 W’s: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Although the answer to how is important and is usually included in this basic formula, the originators of this technique named it the 5 W’s and left out the H. The H is often one of the most important questions you can ask. So we will include it as part of the acronym.

The 5 W’s are usually thought of as a journalism technique. Yet they are invaluable and necessary in business. Asking yourself if you have answered all these questions before you hit “Send” or leave that message can ensure that you have given the recipient all he needs to act on your message.

Here’s how you think about crafting your message; ask yourself the following questions:

Now let’s go back and look at our example about the budget committee meeting.

Who: Perhaps you are on the budget committee and the who seems self-evident. But perhaps on this week’s agenda the group is discussing upgrades to IT. Most likely you realize that the director of IT also needs to be there. But if you think through the entire message, we may find we need to add some other players.

What: What is exactly on the agenda this week? What’s the point of the meeting? Maybe I have a huge project due; without any further information, I may decide this meeting is one I can skip. But if I don’t know what the meeting is about, how can I make that decision? (Note: many emails such as this one will have an agenda attached. Well and good—but the highlights of the agenda need to be in the email body itself. Otherwise the sender is infringing on my time, asking me to open the attachment each time I need to refer to the reminder of the meeting.)

When: Yes, I know the meeting starts at 2. But how long is it going to last? I have another meeting at 3. Can I make them both?

Where: Hey, what room are we meeting in?

Why: Well, yes, that is the point. Are we meeting just to meet? What is this particular meeting supposed to achieve? [See the what above.] If I don’t know, I may just show up. But if I then find out that we are meeting to discuss IT, and perhaps decide what upgrades we need to the software, I can come prepared and be able to contribute more to the discussion. And if we are going to discuss upgrades, maybe we need to ask not only the director of IT but some of the users. They should know exactly what they need and perhaps save us time and money. [See who above.]

How—are we going to come away from this meeting with a plan and recommendation or are we going to be given tasks? What’s up?

Now you may be thinking, “Who has time to write—much less read—all that?” Correct. No one does. But you do have time to think all that; doing so may take at most a minute. Then you can craft the answers to these questions in almost as short an email:

The budget committee will meet this Friday from 2–3 in the board room. Since the goal of this meeting is to create a list of recommended software upgrades, the director of IT will join us. Come prepared with research, suggestions, and a calculator. If you can think of anyone whose expertise we need at this meeting, please let me know.

See how having answered the 5 W’s makes the whole message clearer? And how the recipient now knows exactly what is expected of her—and that she can make her 3:00 meeting?

Why? Well, to start with, each time someone sends out a poorly written email or leaves an obtuse voice mail, he has in effect asked the receiver of the communication to figure out what he meant by the message. Instead of the reader being able to understand immediately what the writer meant, she has to stop and take time to decipher possibilities. In other words, the self-absorbed sender has wasted the receiver’s time. The receiver then retaliates by having to ask questions, which leads to putting more work on the sender’s plate. Or she just ignores the whole issue, grinding productivity to a halt. What could have been a 2-minute job expands to hours while each one waits for clarification.

By answering the 5 W’s before you communicate, you’ll see your time expand, your productivity increase, and your colleagues more willing to work with you. These six words can change your life.

What Else Do I Need to Think About?

Have you ever read something and thought, “Well, that’s all well and good; what do you want me to do about it?” If you have, the writer fell victim to assuming that you knew what she wanted you to do. Very few of us can read minds. That’s why telling the reader what action you want from him is so important. This section should complete your basic persuasive structure.

Although what you want from the reader may be obvious to you, it rarely is obvious to the reader unless you tell him. When you write, you see all of the details inside the bits and nuances that went into your message. You see the supporting details that lead you to ask for him to take this action. But the reader is presented with a wide screenshot of a large picture, and unless you tell him what part to focus on and where to go to next, he will continue to stay here wondering what’s in this for him. Make what you want him to do clear—and make the action easy.

To do so, you’ll need to put yourself back in those reader’s shoes. Imagine yourself, sitting there, having read the message. Now what? What is it that you want him to do? Think step by step, as if you are controlling the person like a robot and you the driver inside.

All of us like simple, easy-to-do actions. If you tell the reader step-by-step what you want, you’re more likely to get it. Think about all of those direct mail messages. Many of them ask you to “pick up the phone and give us a call.” They flash the phone number in front of you, removing all excuses for not complying.

Give the reader clear and easy actions in just the same way. If you tell the person to gather information and send the report back to you by Friday, you really aren’t giving clear directions. But if you say, “Call finance for data, call Sally in accounting for paid to date information, and look at last year’s sales reports to see what our gross projections were compared against our actual sales,” you’ve told him not only what to do but more importantly what you want and how to do it.

In Zen, actions cause reactions. Remember that you’re harnessing opposing forces of energy. Here one force of energy is your intent. The other is the receiver’s interpretation. By aligning that energy with what you want, you are much more likely to create a peaceful unity. By that, I mean that you will get the answer to your question or request, just as you wanted, and the other person will have satisfaction and peace in knowing he gave you just what you wanted.

This Sounds Like an Outline

Well, yes, it is. Hold on—don’t shut the book just yet.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that once they have their goal and have identified their audience, they’re ready to write. They run and jump up and down like SpongeBob, yelling, “I’m ready! I’m ready!” Yet they wind up being just as foolish as he is. While enthusiasm is great, nothing good comes from thoughtless enthusiasm—at least not in a Zen approach to business writing.

If you’re rushing to write, you’re still thinking in that “I” focus mentality. Your mind is so full of what you want to occur and what you want the audience to do that you are still thinking of the reader as a mirror of yourself. You may in reality be so ready to get the message off your plate that you tire yourself with possibilities. You see all kinds of bright possibilities, all kinds of great reactions to your message, and you’re ready to rock. But keeping the focus on the present involves making sure that you take a few more steps to ensure that the journey is successful.

Remember that the successful journey has to pay deliberate attention to each one of the steps. You’re not ready to write just because you have your goal and have identified your audience. Now instead you need to bring order out of chaos. Just because you see all the details associated with the ideas and the message that you want to send doesn’t mean your reader does. The reader has a separate mind; therefore he has no idea how to bring order out of your chaos. You see the logical connections; you see the details—but he does not. You have to show him.

That’s where your next step must take you: to create an effective, orderly piece of communication, you have to have an outline. Yes, I know. I just saw that cringe at the word outline. An outline, however, is no more than a list—a quick way to ensure you haven’t forgotten anything and you have indeed taken a look at all of those 5 W’s that we talked about before.

An outline helps you organize your thoughts. A good outline can also save you tons of time; doing your thinking before you write ensures that the first draft is better than what might be your sixth draft without one. It becomes a roadmap, for both you and the reader, and it allows you to write in stop and starts: it allows you to stop and take a Dairy Queen break or even leave the document alone for a while without worrying that the idea will run off and leave you. And when you return, you know where you are going and what you want to do next. That trusty outline will have you on the path to your goal in no time.

Creating an outline doesn’t have to be difficult. It doesn’t even have to be in full sentences. In fact, one of my favorite ways to approach an outline—and one that is a great example of Zen thinking—is to keep it really simple. I do so by keeping my outline on a two-inch square post-it note. For most of my communication, that’s all I need. Why a two-inch square post-it note, you ask? To keep me honest.

We don’t want to do the work to keep things simple; chaos is easy to wallow in—and easy to use to shift the blame elsewhere when our thinking isn’t the best. But to distill the essence of my goal, my message and my details to fit clearly on that two-inch square, I have to jettison the junk that keeps me getting in my own way. I have to think about what really matters and why, which means I have to think about the other person, not just myself.

Using this post-it note outline technique is also simple. I start with writing “goal” at the top and then list audience, benefits, who, what, when, where, why, how do I know? (And you thought the technique would be hard.) Then I go back and fill in the answers. There; I have an outline.

Next comes the magic step, and I do mean it is magic: I post that post-it note on the right top of my computer screen. In fact, I used to have a computer that let me create the post-it note as part of my screen and move it where I wanted it—that is, move it anywhere as long as I could check off that I had finished the task. Talk about a discipline motivator! Every email or online story I found interesting still had that post-it dangling in front of me, reminding that I needed to stay on my path. By having that note in front of you, you can’t veer off into unimportant details; the inner critic in you won’t let you.

Maybe. How Do I Use It to Create Structure? And What’s in It for Me, Anyhow?

With the idea of headline up front, you are already started on structure. Having the 5 W’s and the Call to Action also help. But the best thing that having structure—yes, an outline—can do for you, the writer, is make the job simpler to do. Humans like simplicity. They may also like decorations on that simplicity, as in chocolate syrup on ice cream, but the decorations that succeed are simple. You’ll note that the best details are those that continue a basic simple structure.

When the space in front of us is empty, we can examine what is around it in context. By having each piece listed out, we know what needs to go there. Written communication is no different: we like our white space. We like our concepts—in short, easy-to-read paragraphs. So knowing that, we now arrange the ideas around the white space. We have paint-by-numbers. We have a map. We can take one step at a time, take it simply, and we are suddenly done.

So What Do I Do?

Everything starts with the beginning. So the first paragraph has to start with the headline up in the first sentence. It then ends with a transition sentence that tells the point of the writing—the WIFM. And no more. So in your outline, you listed the goal, the 5 W’s, and the WIFM. Write them in sentence format and you now have a paragraph. Note that a transition sentence may be an elaboration on the why in the first sentence. It may be an elaboration on the how. But it tells the basics and the WIFM and no more.

You’ve already completed a good third of the job. That paragraph, by the way, may be all you need. Depending on intent of your message, and expectation of the audience, that nitty gritty may be all that you need. How to tell? Ask yourself if the reader needs anything else to succeed. If not—and you have truly put yourself in your reader’s shoes, without expecting him to have all the knowledge of the situation you do—you don’t need any more. As a colleague once observed, good writing should be like a mini-skirt: long enough to cover what’s important but short enough to be interesting.

But let’s say your recipient needs more. You then move on to more structure—the next part of the outline. You begin a new paragraph. Why? Because you are moving to a new idea. New idea, or new focus on the previous idea, means new paragraph. We need to see items and information in their white space; doing so allows us clarity.

If you need it, the second paragraph details how. Give the reader the information he needs to be successful here—you will have new 5 W’s. Write those down. Make them into sentences. Make the paragraph clear and concise and make it concrete—but don’t let it go over five typed lines.

Why? By limiting yourself, you stay in the “what does the reader need to know” focus and discipline yourself from wallowing in the “here’s the clutter of my brain” abyss. Moreover, sticking to the five typed lines helps you simplify, getting back to that nitty gritty before you shoot yourself in the foot. And finally, by keeping the paragraph short, you add to the white space not only on the page, but in the reader’s mind—and in your mind as you write.

If you have steps or lots of details in this paragraph, use bullets or enumeration in this paragraph. That creates a map within the document, again for the ease of both the reader to follow but also for you to think through. (It also makes the details easier to write.)

So once you have completed that paragraph, are you done? Can you hit Send and let the message go merrily in its way? No. Nothing in nature occurs in even numbers. And that law of physics, whether we are aware of it or not, leaves us feeling imbalance with just two paragraphs. To leave the reader feeling as if the message is complete, you need at least a third paragraph. (Sometimes you need to break up that middle section into two or more paragraphs. If it begins to look cluttered, remember white space. Find a spot in it where the idea shifts just a bit, put your cursor there, and hit Enter. Voila! Instant white space. Easier to read document. Better writing. And with very little effort.)

This last paragraph is your call to action. It may be something as simple as thanking the reader and telling him how to reach you if he needs more. It can include one or two directions. But it has to be short. Honor the clarity and honor the outline.

This three-part outline will work for most communications that need more than just the quick facts. It works for emails. It works for written hard documents, such as letters confirming details or delivering good news. It even works as the template for longer documents, such as basic reports. In place of an opening sentence that details the 5 W’S, you’ll have an opening section that sets out all the 5 W’S. Included in that section, at the end, will be the WIFM, or thesis, that tells the reader exactly what point this document will provide. The second section will lay out the details, and the third will state in clear and detailed format what call to action the report has identified.

Will This Structure Always Work?

Most of the time, if you are just offering information that has no emotional baggage attached. Other types of messages require different structure. Delivering bad news, for instance, requires more details simply because someone’s emotions are involved.

As Carl Rogers, the father of industrial psychology, acknowledged, to communicate well, we have to empathize. When we receive news that is contrary to what we had hoped it would be, we usually want to know more about why. Therefore, in a bad-news message, we write using a structure that helps answer that why.

    •   We start again with the same opening paragraph.

    •   The second paragraph gives the factors that lead to the bad news or decision. Think of this paragraph as setting out the individual facts and items, each in its own clarity and wholeness. By doing so you create a buffer from having the news or decision be met with emotion, not reason.

    •   The third paragraph then relates the bad news.

    •   The fourth paragraph then gives follow up, encouragement, or alternatives. By doing so, we show that empathy that Rogers said was so important. We also stress why the decision is as it is.

In this structure, we put the bad news in a sandwich. Why? Because we need to be able to contemplate the message without emotion, and putting it between buffers help us see not only the knee-jerk bad news but also alternatives and hope.

Structure Works

Yes. All life is matter in structured form. Why should communication be any different?

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