They do, of course (see links, below*).

Can you harness a significant amount of that power, skillfully and systematically, to build your career and business, in an economy of complexity and information overload?

Can you guide your team to use that power? Can you direct this capacity towards the things that super-computers can’t do: innovation, effective communication, relationship-building, collaboration and results?

Brains are wonderful, but they have two drawbacks.

1. They don’t come with a users’ manual. There is a widespread scarcity of training for leveraging their real capacity. This is serious, because thinking tools are needed for single users, or for those who need to think effectively in collaboration with others.

2. Power in any form is intimidating. Brains are very powerful, and success creates expectations.

Those who think well often acquire new responsibilities for problem solving, conflict resolution, project success etc.

If you have a good toolbox of thinking strategies, you may be expected to guide others through complexity, or show them how to step up to 21^st century challenges.  This can interfere with hobbies, community service or relaxing on the sofa in front of TV. There are many people who are not really interested in learning how to think well, because their comfort zone would be disturbed by their true abilities.

*1: Video: Your amazing brain: http://www.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html

2: Read: We have no computers today that can begin to approach the awesome power of the human mind: http://insidehpc.com/2009/03/12/even-supercomputers-not-yet-close-to-the-raw-power-of-human-brain/

3: Browse: Google “human brain power supercomputer teraflops.”

Only a small percentage of our workforce are trained in the skills needed to manage information overload, and to communicate effectively by “e-writing.”  We have developed this relatively new form of writing to control the avalanche of text in business, and to:

- get responses, drive action and results,

- build collaboration and teamwork, facilitate collaboration etc.

Studies show two trends amongst those who can both e-write, and do the thinking work that lies behind good writing.

a) Good skills in writing for the 21st business environment save knowledge workers 30 – 90 minutes per day, and improve productivity, service, effectiveness and teamwork  quickly and easily.

b) Those who can write (and think – because writing is the result of thinking) are significantly more successful in their careers. They are more employable, climb the ‘career ladder’ more quickly, earn significantly more than those with similar qualifications and are much more likely to reach positions of major responsibility.

Who is likely to have text-email-information overload problems?

1 – People who report being pressured, “doing more with less, and struggling to be more productive.

2 – Those whose phone calls often go to voicemail.

3 – People who cannot attend meetings or even training – even on-line meetings. They are so pressured for time that they do things like call in to meetings from nearby offices, so that they can get work done while still being “present.”

4- People who work odd hours, in different places and time zones, or while traveling or telecommuting. Engineers or safety inspectors who lack good writing skills may burn out as their reports eat into personal time.

5 – Project managers and those on task-forces. Tasks are more complex, so there are often many people involved in projects, email goes to multiple people at once, or there are multiple documents loaded onto central servers. The degree of overload shows in misunderstandings, project delays or other problems.

6 – Organizations with multi-generational employee profiles (i.e. a growing Generation X and Y employee base) often struggle with mountains of text. The GenX/Y text-based culture often intimidates the Boomers. Gen Ys are often intimidated by their inexperience in beginning a task from a pile of text, or preparing for a meeting from preparation documents. (The generational cohort may need a “pre-meeting” to go over the meeting documents, and to work collaboratively to process the documents into a mental framework. Boomers are more likely to send out the meeting documents, and struggle through them alone, to be prepared for a meeting.)

How can you see systemic e-writing problems, or assess the business impact of skim-reading and multi-tasking?

You can assume that most people are overloaded with text-based information, and “doing more with less.” Most people skim-read, usually while multi-tasking. You will notice that:

7 – Hours of careful writing and graphics often go unread, or achieve patchy results.

8 -  New employees may produce time-consuming, careful writing and document design. They later start banging out the quick, low-quality communications, that are often unplanned, unclear, incomplete or ineffective.

9 – Email is used as a low-cost, low-quality “write and hit send” way to communicate. The results is mis-communication or communications are ignores as irrelevant.

10- Weak E-writing impacts relationships: you will see casualties such as trust, collaboration and teamwork.

11- Communication lacks effectiveness: you will see a lack of responsiveness, cooperation, action and results.

Good skills in writing for the 21st Business environment save knowledge workers 30 – 90 minutes per day, and improve productivity, service, effectiveness and teamwork  quickly and easily. CPS open courses are available in Tampa and at USF Lakeland. In-house and custom courses are available anywhere.

The new writing skills gap:
21st century business people do not need 20th century “business letter writing skills.” They need writing solutions that make the most productive use of their time, and give them solid skills to:

• Communicate clearly-thought, well-structured, complete and accurate messages, quickly and effectively,
• Elicit responses (e.g. encourage replies or get cooperative assistance),
• Drive action,
• Build relationships and trust, even when written contact is the only communication channel,
• Maintain collaboration and teamwork.

Open and in-house CPS workshops:
CPS offers one-day scheduled open workshops Most open workshops are scheduled at the Centre Club, Westshore, Tampa. There are also workshops in Lakeland at USF Polytechnic.
In-house workshops are available, and can be customized as needed. Multi-national/multi-lingual organizations might find a different CPS workshop more suitable. This workshop is called Communicating over Differences and Distances.

Funding: Funding is available for groups of 10 or more on open courses, and for all in-house courses. Some problems exist in certain non-profit situations. It is especially easy to get funding for non-profit healthcare organizations.

Lakeland: This program, and other CPS programs, are available through USF Polytechic in Lakeland. Please contact nboyer[@]poly.usf.edu and support the growth of your local business economy and educational programs. There is no price difference, but Glynis is basically staff here, so most of your payment will go towards building Lakeland educational resources.

Further information:
The business case for 21st writing skills is discussed further at: http://c-psolutions.com/2009/07/the-business-case-for-writing-skills/.
There is a quick and easy sign-up page for Tampa workshops at: http://c-psolutions.com/category/workshops/. Please sign up for Lakeland courses directly with USF.

Please contact glynis@c-psolutions.com or Glynis  813-598-9184 (direct) or  Hilton 813-598-9180 (direct) or Hilton@c-psolutions.com. Hilton will help with funding requests. We look forward to working with you, and your team members.

1: The business case for writing skills:

You achieve many results by writing. Your team works through text. You hate meetings and you probably can’t reach people by phone without playing telephone tag.  They are on another floor, in another building, across the city, state or planet.

Text, text, text: the information is on the server. The report’s on the ftp. See the attached pdf. Log on the the LMS. See your  email dated….

So many people skim-read, while multi-tasking. We’re swimming in a world of information, and  everyone is doing more with less.

21st Century reading and writing carries the main burden to achieve key business results. These include:

• Communicating clear, complete and accurate information, or other messages, in the Age of Complexity.
• Eliciting responses (e.g. encouraging replies with complete and accurate information, or getting cooperative, motivated assistance).
• Driving action (delivering correct actions, in the right time frame, in the right way).
• Building relationships, understanding and trust (often with people you may never meet).
• Building and supporting ongoing collaboration, teamwork, and  interactive thinking.

Even senior business people need to review their skills for these tasks. People with graduate degrees often find training in 21st Century writing as helpful as those who see themselves as ‘weaker writers’.

2. The immediately-measurable cost benefits of writing skills:  (a numbers-based approach)

Imagine that your junior-level staff member writes a couple of emails more quickly. Saving: about $600 in a 282-day year.

What if your junior-level staff member, who earns $35,000 per year, and writes many emails each day, improves his/her writing skills noticeably?  The cost benefits multiply. The time saving is now several thousand dollars a year, both in time saved, and because his/her effective writing also helps create effective communication in our text-based business system. Results include more productive processes, efficient projects, happier customers and better teamwork.

If a senior manager writes just a couple of emails more quickly each day, the simple time-saving payoff moves up to about $3,000 each year. If his/her writing skills improve, and s/he spends a significant time writing, the time pay-off for the improvement can reach 45 minutes a day. The time can be costed as annual salary, divided by 1000, x282. (S/he spends 2000 hours at work a year; cost to company of time = salary + benefits + office etc = annual salary divided by 1000.)

The bottom-line cost of management writing skills is far-reaching. It is almost impossible to put a price on the benefits of senior managers writing clear, persuasive, effective communications, as these are so valuable in an economy where customers, suppliers and knowledge workers communicate in text.

Other writing workshops:

Other CPS writing workshops include:

1. Communicating Across Distances and Differences, a workshop that specifically benefits international business people, or those who work in multi-cultural or distance situations.
2. Custom writing programs, to meet specific client needs. These may include corporate-specific reporting, writing for multiple-level audiences, presentation writing etc.

HR gurus repeatedly stress that written communication skills are a common key to job and organization success, and that these skills are becoming more and more important in a knowledge-based, text-based and global economy.

CPS staffers have succeeded with very large thinking-and-writing skills projects, that have saved companies many thousands of hours each year. Clients include Volkswagen, BMW, Ernst & Young, Coca-Cola, Sweetbay, Ceridian Benefits, and company-wide transformations for companies like Iscor and Sasol (the giant South African steel and oil-from-coal industries).

We build:

1) Our clients’ “IQ”, or conscious abilities to use a toolbox of various thinking skills, alone and with other people.

2) EQ or social and emotional intelligence: the competencies in the intrapersonal, interpersonal, cultural and communication skillls.

3) “TQ” or technological intelligence, the group of skills, knowledge and attitudes that are an essential part of managing information sharing, and executing collaborative work in the technology-based Age of Knowledge.

As our clients meet the challenges of the new economy, CPS supports them in retooling their people with the skills, knowledge and approaches that create success.

We also arrange the funding (from workforce development funding sources) to finance this work.

CPS does not only facilitate collaborative intelligence, we practice it. We partner with our clients to stay ahead of the curve, looking at how to build and maintain long-term competitive advantage in a new, uncharted economy.

IQ+EQ+TQ=CQ by Glynis Ross-Munro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.c-psolutions.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.c-psolutions.com.

Stop apologizing for spelling, and start using your strengths (i.e. thinking). You need some work-arounds if you are not a natural speller.  These include using spellcheck (always), building and using a homophone chart, and enjoying collaborative writing. A friendly proof-reader/copy-editor is very useful for customer-facing documents. The internet also has many editing sites that provide copy-editing for big and small companies, at very affordable rates, and they give you results within hours.

Second-language English users have several other options.  For ordinary correspondence,  simply write “I am writing in my second (or third, fourth etc) language,” early on in an email. We are a global community, working to communicate across distances and differentness, and people understand if your writing is not perfect.

Translation sites like Bablefish do not produce good English. However these sites are very helpful if your spelling is weak in your second language. Write your letter in very short ‘active’ sentences in your first language: subject, verb, object. Then clip and paste the English text into your document, and you can use this as a basis for your writing.

Create a homophone chart. Here are some ideas to start with. Here is a funny version. Edit it to suit your own problem words, and change it as you master some words, or find others that give you problems. Change the simple definitions if they do not work for you. Avoid the grammar-police-types if they try to make your chart complicated: these are the people who like to  explain things like ‘how affect can occasionally be a noun’. Don’t make your list too long – you don’t need words like wretch or leech, which you will never use in your business career.

accept – to take graciously. I accepted the gift.
except – not including. He ate it all, except for the spicy chillis.

affect – a verb. It affected me really badly.
effect – a noun. It had a very bad effect on me.

a lot – the opposite of a little.
allot – to allocate, e.g. an allotment, a lottery.
alot  – there is no such word.

all together -   everyone at once. The choir master managed to get the choir to sing all together.
altogether -  completely, everything considered. Altogether, I’m just glad it’s over.

all right -  everything correct. He got it all right.
alright – okay, adequate. I’m feeling alright today.

brake – a device to slow down a  vehicle, or keep it still.
break – to damage so that it is broken.

course – a path of study, or of a stream, or walk.
coarse – rough, abrasive.

every day – each day. She worked out at the gym every day.
everyday – ordinary – an adjective. She wore her everyday clothes.

forth – onwards. The army went forth to battle.
fourth – numerical order. She was the fourth child.

hear -to perceive with your ears or auditory sense.
here – where we are, not over there.

it’s – a contraction of it is. It’s really hot today, isn’t it?
its – belonging to it. The cupboard has a scratch in its veneer.

loose – not tight. The dog’s collar is loose.
lose – the opposite of win. I hope my team doesn’t  lose today.

manner – a way of doing something. He stalked out in an irate manner.
manor – a big house on a large piece of land. She behaved as if to the manor born!

personal – affecting a particular person.
personnel – the Human Resources Department.

principle – related to abstract values.
principal – the main or most important person, or issue e.g. he invested the principal and lived on the interest.

quite – relatively, it is quite cold today.
quiet – the opposite of noisy,

rain – water falling from the sky
reign – to rule (can be a verb or a noun)
rein – straps used to control a horse. We must rein in spending.

stationery – paper and envelopes.
stationary – standing still.

SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and strengths.
SWAT team – those scary guys in black who use special weapons and tactics.

there – not here.
their – it belongs to them.
they’re – a contraction of they are. They’re late again.

wear – to put on your body as clothes or accessories. I am wearing my favorite t-shirt.
where – referring to place. Where are you? I can’t remember where I put my keys.

yea – an old (archaic) form of yes, used when taking a vote. “The nays have it. There were only three yeas.
yay – an exclamation of enjoyment or pleasure.

CQ, or collaborative intelligence, combines the ability to think well, and to think collaboratively with other people. It is a key to innovation, corporate earnings, individual wealth and national success in the 21st Century.

CQ is also a core factor in managing knowledge workers, nationally and internationally. High collaborative intelligence often includes skills for managing different generations, as different cohorts interact differently, share knowledge in different ways, and have differing ways of using technology.

CQ often has hard skills components too. These include the ability to write clearly and quickly, and to use communication technology easily and confidently. For instance, your business may have a very valuable,  knowledgeable, and highly-skilled thinker. This person might, however be a Boomer or older GenXer who is seriously under-performing simply because s/he lacks training and confidence in using in web conferencing or use of wikis, on-line project  management etc.

CQ and other ‘New Economy” skills developments are well-funded by local government programs in the Tampa Bay counties. CPS is ethically committed to help any company seeking funding for either “new” and “old” economy skills training or career retooling, whether CPS is a supplier of the training for the required skills or not. Please email glynis[@]c-psolutions or call me at 813-598-9184.

You can guess a client’s or remote colleague’s generation from their writing, and give them appropriate service or packaged data.

Mature/Traditional: No emoticons. The writer thinks smiley faces are unprofessional and signs of lazy writing. You’ll tend to see longer, more complex sentences, and spelling is really good. Paragraphing is usually excellent, with careful punctuation.

Boomer: A few emoticons. The writer thinks that emoticons solve the time-consuming problems of conveying tone in text, and prevent costly misunderstandings. Homophones are correct. Their/there is always right, but sometimes insure/assure/ensure are confused, as are effect/affect. Apostrophes are usually correct.

GenXer: Quite a lot of emoticons, but none in formal documents like reports, resumés etc. The writer sees emoticons as valuable communication devices in a world of global communication, second language users, and lots of quick written messages. The classic GenX error is that the opposite of “a little” is “alot” instead of “a lot”. This generation may muddle homophones: break/ brake, aloud/allowed, bored/board, or even flower and flour.

GenY/Millennial. The writer considers emoticons part of punctuation. Smiley faces, hearts and creative symbols clarify the writer’s intentions. Text message abbreviations appear, sometimes with all-lower case letters. Another common sight is text without paragraphing. Your and you’re may be used interchangeably. GenYs may not know how to set out a snail-mail business letter, or even a business envelope.

These are, of course, merely general pointers. Some matures can’t string a sentence together, and many Millennials write and edit with an elegance and precision I envy.

In a time of economic weakness, it’s especially important to make sure that all your key people are financially intelligent.

And not only key people – all your people. Back in the Age of Industry, only managers were expected to understand revenue and expenditure. Now everyone needs to ask:

1) How can we increase the numbers above the line?

You can simplify this into four starting points:

a) How can we sell more of our existing products or services to our existing customers?
b) How can we sell more of our existing products and services to new clients?
c) How can we sell new products or services to existing customers?
d) How can we sell new products or services to new customers?

… and what can I, personally, and my team, do about it?

2) How can we reduce the numbers below the line?

… and what can I, personally, and my team, do about it?

3) Do you have employees who cannot sketch the company’s business cycle, or even explain their team’s place in your business process? Do you perhaps have a manager who cannot decipher an income statement?

People, who think like business people, act like business people. There is huge ROI on helping your team to understand what is important, and why it is important in making your organization run effectively.