Impact writing: In a digital world, everyone is a writer. However, not everyone entered the digital world with the same writing skills. How can you engage your readers for action and interest?

4 Ways to Engage Your Reader with Impact Writing

• Don’t Add the Word, “Very.”
• Don’t write “Is, Was, and By.”
• Use Words that Show Commitment.
• Verify Your Quotes.

Don’t Add the Word, “Very.”

Adding the word “very” to a sentence makes it weaker.

There are three options to more impactful writing.

1. Just cut the word “very.”
2. Create a comparison for impact.
3. Use stronger wording.

For example:

Weak: “Susan is very intelligent.”
Comparison: “Susan is more intelligent than her friends.”
A stronger statement: “Susan is brilliant.”

A second example:

Weak: “Bill ran very quickly across the yard.”
Better: Bill ran quickly across the yard.
Stronger wording: “Bill sprinted across the yard.”

Don’t Write “Is, Was, and By”

These three words create longer, weaker sentences.

Weak: “This play was written by Shakespeare. ”
Stronger: “Shakespeare wrote this play.”

Notice that the first sentence is longer.  It has two more words than the second sentence.  The extra words weaken the sentence.  Additionally, effective sentences show action.  They start with the person, place, or thing that acted.

Weak: “The city was flooded by the storm.”
Stronger: “The storm flooded the city.”

Use Words that Show Commitment

Weak: “When I get to it”
Stronger: “I will finish it and have it back to you at 3:00PM.”

Weak: “Maybe I’ll work on it later.”
Better: “I will start on this project at 8:00AM and have it back to you by 11:00AM.”

Verify Your Quotes.

For example, Mark Twain didn’t say,

“If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.”

Winston Churchill didn’t say,

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Abraham Lincoln didn’t say,

“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

You can do a web search to verify quotes. I start with sentence like this, “Benjamin Franklin didn’t say…”

For example, you can search the Internet for “Benjamin Franklin didn’t say a penny saved is a penny earned.”

Successful Teams: Words that empower and motivate teams create bonds among the team members. These words acknowledge ownership of responsibility.  Furthermore, they show recognition of team member contributions.  What are some of these words?

Categories for Words that Motivate Successful Teams

Here are four categories for words that help teams become more successful.

1. Inclusiveness
2. Ownership
3. Recognition
4. Honesty

Inclusiveness

The words “we,” “our,” and “together” create feelings of membership in a group.

Additionally, calling people by their name increases bonds.

For example, picture this presentation. A team leader is recognizing a team’s efforts in front of other people in the company.

The presentation of the team leader might go like this.

“Bill and Sue are new members on our team.  Together, our team has finished ahead of schedule and below cost.  Furthermore, we have exceeded our team goals.”

Ownership

Accepting responsibility for mistakes is an important trait for members of a team. These are examples of ownership statements.

“I regret my mistake.” “I accept responsibility for the things I could have done better.” “I can and will do better.”

Recognition
Award ceremonies serve several purposes.  One is to make people feel good about their work.  A second, is to motivate people through recognition.

However, team leaders don’t need to wait for an award ceremony to give credit.  Here are words to recognize contribution.

“You did a good job.” “Thank you.” “I would not have expected less from you.”

Honesty

Nice words are not enough to empower teams.  The members need honesty.  When they make mistakes, team leaders must help them see those mistakes.

Misleading team members damages the team’s effort.

People who are defensive about their mistakes lack self-honesty.  Insecurities cripple their ability to bond with a team.  Rather than accept responsibility and correct their mistakes, these people become a burden to the team.

Here are some ideas for dealing with people who struggle with self-honesty.

Criticism of these people makes them feel more insecure.  They become more defensive.

Team leaders can help defensive people become more effective team members by teaching them that taking ownership for their mistakes builds trust.

Additionally, team leaders can teach these people that most people make mistakes.  However, denying mistakes or repeating mistakes makes these team members ineffective.

Team leaders can teach people how to own their mistakes with the words they choose.  For example, “I was wrong. I made a mistake and will try not to make it again.”

Triggers are anything that cause negative emotoinal response. Everyone feels stress. However, the degree that people experience stress, the things that create stress, and the way people respond to stress varies.

Different Triggers for Different People

We all have individual triggers.  I say individual triggers, because different things create different feelings and different responses in different people.

For example, heights frighten some people. For other people, heights are thrilling.  Furthermore, the amount that people feel fearful or thrilled varies from person to person.

In the case of bungy jumping, some people are fearful of leaping off a high place to the extent that they cannot even walk out to point where other people jump with glee.  Between these extremes are people who have more intense or less intense feelings about jumping off high places.

How Powerful are Triggers?

When triggered, we experience the impulse to act.

Emotions are not thoughts.  And, under some circumstances, our emotions can fire faster than our ability to think before acting.

For example, two people see a person fall.  One laughs.  Another one winces.

Neither person thought about how they would respond to what they are seeing.  Instead, they are impulsively responding to a visual experience.

Becoming Smart to Avoid Triggers

In many cases, we can recognize patterns in the emotions governing our thoughts.  These patterns are circumstances that increase the likelihood that we will respond emotionally rather than mentally. However, we can become smart to avoid triggers.

When we recognize these patterns, we can make changes in our behavior that affect our ability to deal with stress.

For example, in rush-hour traffic on the freeways, there are miles of cars.  The way that each driver experiences the drive varies from calm awareness to rage.

Rage can lead to dangerous actions.  If we recognize the patterns of behavior that precede the rage, we can change that pattern.  For example, caffeine, hunger, fatigue, and starting late increase anxiety before we even get on the road.

Additionally, anxiety can press us to try to drive faster than the flow of traffic.  When we become frustrated with drivers who slow us down, our anxiety increases further.

The solution is to eliminate or change our behavior before we get on the road.  In this case, we avoid the stimulates, eat, take a break, and start early.

Once we start our drive, we can decide to be part of the flow of traffic and not an intimidating threat to our own safety and the safety of others.