I didn’t sleep well last Thursday night. The media images of the previous few days had been playing on an endless loop in my mind, so what little rest I did get was fitful. Not surprisingly, I was not at my best come Friday morning. My self-discipline was low and, as...
Rob Ashton
Screen blindness and the $331 million typo
No matter where you are as you read this, you spend most of your time living in the same place as I do: in your screen. We all live in our screens now. We wake and switch off the alarm on our phone and swipe to the news. We stare at social media as we wait for the...
Why we get more angry in email (according to science)
You know the story. An innocent chat over email or instant messaging turns fraught and ends, if not in tears, then in a tense exchange that leaves both parties irritated and distracted. It’s an all-too-familiar scenario. In fact, I spent hours a few months ago...
Why we neglect the #1 skill in business
What is the one activity that unites all desk-based jobs? Here’s a clue: you probably do this as soon as you get into the office (if not before). In fact, if you work at a desk, this activity probably takes up more time than anything else you do, regardless of your...
The communication secrets that put a man on the moon
Fifty years ago today, three men were sitting on top of a missile, hurtling up into the inky void, travelling the 240,000 miles (384,400 kilometres) to the moon. The Saturn V rocket propelling them had contained almost 2,000 tonnes of fuel when it left the launchpad...
This is why reading most documents feels like hard work
There’s one thing about reports that people never seem to talk about. Even after 21 years, and training more than 50,000 people to write well, I really can't recall anyone bringing it up. And that secret is this: reading is hard. I don’t mean we find it difficult to...
How to avoid the biggest mistake in business writing
Mention writing skills to most people and they will roll their eyes before launching into a confession about how spelling/grammar/punctuation/all three have always been their weakest link. Yet, when they do, they’re missing the point. These things matter, for sure. An...
How to blast through word counts – and write 1,000 words an hour
Word counts are a feature common to business and academic writing alike. ITTs (invitations to tender) commonly specify a word limit for key sections. And while an essay or a doctoral thesis usually come with a word minimum, the reality is that it quickly becomes a...
What we learnt from our first two years using Slack
If you're not yet using a chat system to collaborate with your colleagues at work, you probably will be soon. Apps like Slack (the most popular) are rapidly redefining how we communicate. And the market for such tools was estimated at a staggering $4.5 billion last...
Poor communication is crippling business. Can we talk about that?
Most people think their driving is above average. That's a statistical impossibility, of course, otherwise it wouldn't be an average. Still, it's what we believe. In one study, no fewer than 93 per cent of Americans questioned placed themselves in the top 50 per cent...
Why writing like you’re in the military misfires
Some say that, in business writing, brevity and clarity are king – and everything else is padding. Forget the waffle, cut the crap, and get straight to the point. Flying the colours for this position is a recent piece in the Harvard Business Review, How to write email...
A step-by-step guide to professional-looking tables
Tables are a staple of many business documents – from management accounts to a marketing plan or an activity update. And most people know how to create a table in Word. What you may not know is how easily you can take your tables from basic (and boring) to impressive...