Does your org need a Chief Writing Officer?
Woman sitting at a table writing with a pen in a notebook. Also on the table is a laptop, mobile phone and coffee.
If, after Careless People, you’re in the market for another Silicon Valley tell-all, try Exit Interview by Kristi Coulter.
A former Amazon employee, Coulter paints a picture of a toxic workplace characterised by chaos, cruelty, sexism and overwork.
But for those of us in comms, there’s another (more positive) reason to read Exit Interview: it offers a peek into how good writing gets to be that way.
Toward the end of her time at Amazon, Coulter gets her dream job. At the height of her seniority, she’s made principal writer for the soon-to-be-launched Amazon Fresh stores.
With Amazon Fresh, customers would be expected to shop in a completely different way from the usual supermarket experience. That made Coulter’s job all the more crucial to the success of the project.
Coulter describes how she sweats over the detailed wording of everything — from in-store signage to check-out menus to best-before dates.
For example, she and another senior colleague have a long discussion about the wording of an exit sign. Does the phrase “REALLY, YOU CAN GO!” need that exclamation mark, they ask? Should we add the word “JUST”? (Answers: yes to the first question, no to the second).
This is the kind of discussion word nerds love. And it’s a conversation that leads Coulter to reflect:
“It’s surreally pleasurable to work for leaders who know that words matter”.
At Broom & Moon, we couldn’t agree more! And here are four more things we can glean from Coulter’s experience:
Writing should be invisible
At one point, Coulter describes her work as:
“the invisible net for words I’m making in hopes that our customers will feel safe and cared for in a way they never even stop to think about.”
In other words, effective writing aimed at customers doesn’t call attention to itself. It doesn’t try to impress with its cleverness. It’s simple and avoids jargon. It’s the result of imagining yourself in the customer’s shoes at the very moment of reading. And it uses the customer’s language.
Lesson: If you, too, want customers to feel safe and cared for, bring in someone who will choose your words carefully.
2. Effective writing takes time
One of Coulter’s frustrations is that the fast-paced culture at Amazon is at odds with the requirements of her role.
Colleagues expect her to come up with lines off the top of her head — often for something that needs half a day of uninterrupted attention. But writing demands far more quiet, space and focus time than practically everyone around her realises. Even (or especially) if it’s something as small as a three-word product description.
Lesson: If you work with writers, don’t expect them to be quick thinkers. Plus, the fewer the words you need them to come up with, the longer it can take.
3. Good writing = good strategy
As Coulter suggests, great leaders care about words. But it’s not just that such leaders are a pleasure to work with (and they certainly are).
It’s also that writing encourages deeper strategic thinking. Indeed, Jeff Bezos himself has long championed a writing culture at Amazon, with employees expected to sell ideas in six-page memos.
Bezos says the process of writing a memo:
“forces better thought and better understanding of what's more important than what, and how things are related.”
Lesson: Struggling to express an idea clearly? Try ditching the PowerPoint and write about it instead.
4. Good writing needs a champion
Not everyone has the time, inclination or skills to ponder the effects of an exclamation mark on a sign’s tone of voice.
Or to imagine what it’s like to be a customer standing in-store, pondering what to have for dinner tonight.
Or to fight in the long-running battle against corporate jargon seeping into customer communications.
Coulter was very senior when she was doing this stuff. And in an ideal world, every large organisation would have a high-level person dedicated to this kind of thing. Someone whose sole job is to champion the written word and who has the authority to make decisions about language.
Lesson: Consider appointing a Chief Writing Officer!
