Creating a style guide minitially seem like a terminology affair ("option button" or "radio button" - pick one), but the real challenge lies in persuading the department to adopt new style principles. Some writers will feel threatened by change, and respond in bizarre and unpredictable ways. Whisper campaigns and ambushes may lie in wait for you. Beware, innovative editor! Before you even think about the literary details of style, prepare to do battle with the true Goliaths and Grendyls: the department itself. By following these five rules below, you can avoid an unexpected apocalypse when you reveal the new guide.
The Five Rules
Rule #1: Don't exclude people from decisions that affect them. This seems like common sense, but it's almost impossible to achieve. Try getting 12 writers to reach consensus about a controversial matter of style. You might spend 45 minutes discussing whether to call something a screen or window, and still never agree.
While too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the broth, letting one or two do all the work results in half the diners complaining vociferously about the broth. You'll have to make a tradeoff between efficiency and political appeasement. You want to let everyone have a say; however, doing so leads to chaotic and endless discussions. The trick is to make everyone feel included, even if they aren't ultimately making the decisions.
Try these ideas:
- Create a shared web site on your intranet to ask for feedback and initiate discussion
- Stop by cubes and ask for opinions
- Listen carefully and take notes
- Clarify ambiguity when it occurs and paraphrase responses to ensure understanding
Keeping your co-workers involved means keeping your efforts alive. They're less likely to reject something to which they've contributed.
Rule #2: Don't introduce new styles without good reasons. A style guide is often a collection of rules that have no firm basis in logic (unlike deciding whether to end sentences with periods). You're often merely choosing descriptors, such as whether to call squares of a dialog box "areas," "boxes," or "sections."
If there's no overwhelming reason to adopt a new convention, you're better off leaving the guide as is. New rules mean more work, and unless you're the boss, your co-workers will resent the imposition -- that is, unless you have good reasons. That a rule is decreed in the Microsoft Manual of Style is not enough to win your coworkers' hearts. In fact, it's the easiest way to create antagonism for it.
Rule #3: Don't expect any thank-you's for your hard work. You most likely have put hours into the preparation of your style guide, looking through many other style guides, drafting, editing, collecting comments, and redrafting. You may have sacrificed lunch hours, stayed late at work, or worked from home. Maybe you sacrificed a trip to Disneyland just to work on the style guide. The result? A well-polished work of art.
Don't expect anyone to be grateful for it. What you see as art is perceived by others as merely additional work. Your thick style guide is something they'll have to digest, apply, and then be corrected for misapplying. No, make no mistake about it: this style guide means trouble, and you've laid it at their door. Expect spite and resentment.
Rule #4: Anticipate not only objections, but extended, relentless wars against what you thought were inconsequential points of style. Inevitably there will be some entries in your style guide that seem inconsequential to you (for example, not introducing a table with a colon, or choosing the term "option button" rather than "radio button"). Be warned that one man's style trinket is another man's grammar treasure. A handful of your fellow writers see life in a different light and will inform you of that in no uncertain terms. When dealing with these minor issues, be prepared to make concessions. It's better to break a grammar rule than shatter relationships with your co-workers.
Rule #5: Listen closely when others express concerns. Don't make the mistake of returning belligerence with bellicosity. Clarify the reasons for objections, paraphrase to communicate your understanding, and be willing to bite your tongue and concede. One technical writer, Thomas Barker, says his ability to listen to others is what helped him advance his career. Says Barker, "If there were a single thing that advanced my career more than any other, it was learning how to listen to people carefully and respond in a way that lets them know I value their opinions." Failing to listen is a boomerang. If you don't listen to others, they won't listen to you. So listen up!
Conclusion
As you define your style guide, be sure to plan for the social impact of the new rules. We often drown ourselves in grammar minutae, obsess over stylistic consistency, or slavishly follow the Chicago Manual of Style, but these literary matters are not the biggest obstacles in creating a style guide. The biggest obstacle is how each of your teammates responds to change. Take these rules as a roadmap to dealing with their concerns and you can create and implement a style guide that everyone does not resent.
Tom H. Johnson writes online help and how-to guides for a large financial firm in St. Petersburg, Florida. He is also the webmaster for the STC-Suncoast chapter, which is based in the Tampa Bay area, and he does freelance writing.
Four steps to a Killer resume!
By Dwain Celistan
A key tool in the process of securing another opportunity is via a resume. As an executive recruiter, we typically receive hundreds of resumes per week. There are over three million resumes on the larger internet sites. Thus, it is important to breakthrough the “clutter” to communicate your capabilities to the reader/potential hiring authority.
The first element of the strong resume is to state your objective. This will help the reader know your employment desires. Defining your desires is also energizing and challenging.
The objective section will set the stage for the balance of your resume. The balance of the resume should reinforce through your experiences and education your ability to meet/exceed the requirements of the type of role(s) outlined in the objective.
Your work experience is the next most important component. For each role you should provide two components, responsibilities and accomplishments. Responsibilities are essentially items that are similar to a job description. They are the requirements for someone who has had that position. By contrast, accomplishments are the quantitative things you’ve done while in the position. The weighting should skew most heavily to accomplishments with an 80/20 weight.
Second, compose a concise two to three line statement of your major responsibilities. For each position, focus on the larger aspects of the role in an appealing manner to the reader. Stay with the highlights versus details. Remember, the hiring authorities are probably familiar with the responsibilities of your role. For example, a Director of Sales knows the content of a territory sales reps role. Similarly, a Plant Manager knows the core responsibilities of a line foreman or maintenance engineer.
Third, and arguably the most important component of your resume, the accomplishments you’ve had while in each role. Accomplishments are quantifiable benefits you delivered or led, such as, generated X revenues, reduced Y costs, efficiencies were improved Z percent, secured Y more clients, improved our satisfaction ratings Z percent, secured X more hits on our web site, etc. These points of difference separate you from anyone else that would have had that role or a similar role.
Importantly, avoid qualitative language to define your accomplishments. Most roles have a quantifiable element to them. This is the time and place to use them, regardless of how challenging you might find this step.
Fourth, there is recency bias in reviewing resumes. The positions you’ve held in the past five years are significantly more important than roles you had over 10 years ago. Therefore, weight your resume accordingly. For example, your list of accomplishments should be more robust for recent roles. However, I suggest fewer substantial accomplishments will beat a long list of modest “wins".
For positions that you held over 10 years ago, I suggest using the title and one and at most two key accomplishments that occurred during your tenure in that role. Remember, it is unnecessary to define the responsibilities of entry level or junior positions.
Net, a killer resume has four components:
• It begins with a clear objective of the type(s) of opportunities you desire.
• Each position has two elements, weighted 80/20 to accomplishments, beginning with a brief outline of major responsibilities.
• Provide quantifiable accomplishments for each role
• Skew the emphasis on the document to the most recent five years
Through this approach, hiring authorities will know your desires and can review prior successes demonstrate which suggest your potential to deliver in the future. Importantly, this approach will focus your efforts to seek your next opportunity, within or outside of your current organization.
Dwain Celistan is a retained executive recruiter who focuses on leadership talent. He has authored “5 Simple Steps to Achieving Your Dreams” and “You’re Hired! Actions to Get and Keep the Job You Love”. He can be reached via dwain@reinvent2achieve.com or 630-455-0172.
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