Situation
Have you ever been sent a report, started reading it with interest and then become frustrated by its sheer monotony and failure to retain your attention? Sadly, a high proportion of reports falls into this category.
One UK city council produces so many reports in one year that if each were read cover to cover, it would take someone over a year’s full-time work to read every one. On this basis, if everyone who was supposed to read these reports did so thoroughly, then there would be no time for the other work for which they were being paid.
The upshot of too many over-lengthy reports is, of course, that they do not get read thoroughly, they do not communicate the full understanding that was intended and therefore cannot be fully effective.
If you were to ask someone what a report was about, you would probably be given a verbal precis that covered just a few key points. It is unlikely that you would be given a detailed account, but simply the highlights that made the biggest impact on the report’s reader – assuming, of course, that they had read it thoroughly. It may often be that key points are not made until after many pages of reading and may, as a consequence, be lost among the detail as compared to being highlighted early on. A good report will have ‘navigation aids’ and a structure that enables particular points or ‘landmarks’ to be identified more easily.
Of course, reports are produced in many different ways for many different purposes and can include journalistic reports, meet- ing minutes, inspection reviews, performance appraisals, monthly management reports, research feedback, accident records and so on. The common factor is that they are written (or spoken) for someone else and not for the author’s own gratification.
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Bearing this in mind, the overarching principle is that they should take account of the recipients’ needs and wants in relation to the reported information. The starting point for any report is thus to consider the specific impact you want to achieve and the best way to ‘get into the minds’ of your audience.
Behaviour
Contrary to the writer’s probable intention, most reports will not be read from beginning to end. The usual pattern of behaviour is to read the first few lines (to establish context) and to skim the document as a whole, looking for the most interesting bits. Some of the interesting bits may be read and many of the less interesting bits will be skipped over or completely ignored.
Some interesting research by Professor Colin Mason and his team at Southampton University investigated the extent to which potential business investors, or ‘business angels’, would read the business plans of companies seeking investment from them. Despite most business plans being at least 60 pages long, the average amount of time spent by the investor on reading the plan was eight minutes – a mere fraction of the time it would take to read it thoroughly. This is despite the large sums of money that are probably at stake. The fastest reader took just eight seconds to make up his mind.
If you are recruiting people and are sent several CVs, if you are like most people, the chances of you reading each one thoroughly are extremely remote. The normal pattern of behaviour is to seek interesting highlights and to accept or reject the CV on the basis of an impression rather than a full analysis. Although a CV is not described as a report as such, the same reading principle applies to any kind of informative document. Just as you make your mind up as to whether you like people or not in the first few seconds of meeting them, the same approach will usually apply to written information.
From the writer’s perspective, it is often the case that what he or she wants to put across assumes greater emphasis than what the reader wants or needs to read. Reports are then often written ‘the wrong way round’ and are less effective as a result.
NLP observation
Whatever you write triggers a response of some kind. The response may be enthusiastic, apathetic or somewhere in between. It depends on the interest stimulated by the content, the sequence of that content and the language. People see the world through their own eyes and their perspectives will inevitably be different to that of the writer. The writer therefore needs to anticipate the likely responses of readers and present information accordingly. Where there is a relatively large audience for the report or the characteristics of the recipients are not known, you should make allowance for the variation in the way people most naturally use their different senses to respond. Whether more readily stimulated by what they see, what they ‘hear’ (from the words in the text) or what they feel as a consequence of reading, all have a bearing on how they will respond.
Because the written word does not have the advantage of tone of voice, facial expressiveness or other forms of body language, it is comparatively limited in what it can put across. The researched data, as mentioned previously, is that in any verbal communication, 7 per cent of the meaning comes from the words themselves, 38 per cent from tone of voice and 55 per cent from body language. Thus, in any report, the capability of the words to convey information is limited to the 7 per cent, which highlights the need for those words to be succinct, accurate and unambiguous.
As UK Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill said over half a century ago in a memo entitled ‘Brevity’:
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To do our work, we all have to read a mass of papers. Nearly all of them are far too long. This wastes time while energy has to be used in looking for the essential points.
The aim should be reports which set out the main points in a series of short, crisp paragraphs. If a report relies on detailed analysis of some complicated factors, or on statistics, these should be set out in an appendix. Often the occasion is best addressed by submitting not a full-dress report, but an aide-memoire consisting of headings only, which can be expanded orally if needed.
Let us have an end to such phrases as these: ‘It is also of importance to bear in mind the following considerations’ or ‘Consideration should be given to the possibility of carrying into effect’. Most of these phrases are mere padding, which can be left out altogether or replaced by a single word. Let us not shrink from using the short, expressive phrase, even if it is conversational. Reports drawn up on the lines I propose may at first seem rough as compared with the flat surface of officialese jargon. But the saving in time will be great, while the discipline of setting out the real points concisely will prove an aid to clear thinking.
Although predating NLP by many years, the principles of com- munication are the same. Reports should be easy to understand, useful, and relevant to the reader. They should take account of the reader’s ease of using them and ‘do their work’. Generalizations should be avoided if they add nothing of value to meaning and there should be a balance between what is written and what is subsequently discussed.
A good pointer is to consider how reporters write their news- paper articles. The headline is to attract attention, bold text amplifies the headline and reinforces interest that in turn draws people into the piece – assuming they still remain interested. In a similar way, reports should stimulate attention, maintain interest and lead to the necessary outcome. A typical report structure could be as follows:
Contents list
Summary (Executive summary) – this may start with conclu- sions
Introduction/Objectives/Terms of reference – Purpose of the report
– Background to the report – Who the report is for
– How the work was done (methodology) – Costs/timescales (if relevant)
– Sources/acknowledgements
The body of the report
Conclusions/Recommendations
Appendices/Annexes.
In management reports in particular, if you accept that the func- tion of management is to manage activities, people, resources and information, it will be in the best interests of the company or organization, clients, stakeholders and employees that the reports produced confirm that objectives are being achieved and that any exceptional items are being flagged for information or decision. What people are generally interested in includes: what has been achieved (as compared to what has merely been done); those obstacles to progress that have been identified; what has been or will be done to address such obstacles; and the specific objectives for the next period to be reported upon.
This follows closely the NLP structure of knowing your out- come, knowing how you will achieve your outcome, adaptability to changes in circumstances and a working schedule for future achievement. In this way, attention will be focused on business and organizational priorities and not dissipated on non-critical matters.
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