Teaching Essentials

As a professional educator, I take teaching and life-long learning seriously. Teaching poses open-ended questions for learners to ponder, discuss, and act through. Teaching offers opportunities and environments for learners to observe, learn, and experience pertinent life issues. Effective teaching insists on a safe environment in which learners can be engaged and empowered with knowledge and insight. Teaching takes commitment and learning takes awareness. The bottom-line: we are all teachers and learners. What are you doing today to teach someone close or near to you? What have you learned today? How will you acknowledge or share that learning tomorrow?

History Is Being Made

What happened to previous history when Nazis overran Germany, Communists took over Russia, when any dictator wants to delete nonbelievers or non-supporters? History becomes edited. What happens when history makers fail to record their efforts, innovations, and findings and they are overlooked by other historians who document events? History celebrates the wrong discoverers. How much history have we gotten wrong over the centuries? We are at the mercy and folly of what was or was not recorded in a place that was or was not found in time for the next edition of our human historical record. Thomas Ayers writes about such stories in That's Not in my History Book: A Compilation of little-known Events and Forgotten Heroes.
Reading this book has caused me to think about our businesses. Which stories do we choose to record or delete, and how will those choices affect our business outcomes? How do success, ethics, and profits play a part in those decisions? Who is the business editor? Good questions for business owners and leaders to answer.

Meet SHARIE during a Crisis

Both natural disasters and human-made disasters have taught us some valuable lessons in past decades. Think about the Cerro Grande fire (2000), the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004), Hurricane Katrina (2005), the Chilean mine collapse (2010), the Gulf of Mexico/BP oil spill (2010), the Japan tsunami (2011)--and even earlier in history--the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe (1986), the Tylenol murder mysteries (1982). If your business or organization faces a crisis, follow the simple lessons and steps that have emerged from the successes (like Tylenol and the mine collapse) and the failures (like Chernobyl and Katrina) of those referenced events. Although simply described, each step defies being easy to accomplish. Meet "SHARIE: A Model for Controlling Crisis" (TM):

S - State the emergency situation and all the known facts.
H - Hasten the communication and access processes.
A - Ask for help, inside and outside the organization.
R - Resource all possibilities for remedy.
I - Innovate to arrive at the best resolutions.
E - Evaluate the efforts and the results.

Discuss this model with your team: How would you implement it in a crisis? How could you use social media and press releases? Who are the experts in your industry and how can you contact them? What universities specialize in research in your industry? What partners or alliances do you have in place that could help in an emergency?

20 Words to Watch

Supposedly, the following 20  words compose 25 percent of all spoken American English words:
Pronouns: I, you, they, it, he, she, what, that, this;
Articles: the, a; 
Verbs: is, have, do;
Prepositions: to, of, in, on;
Others: not, and.
They are often the words that trip up the best typists and proofreaders.

Small Words and Fast Friends

I hear highly technical professionals say, "I'll have to dumb it down" in reference to their non-technical audience. News flash: non-technical professionals can understand technical concepts when those concepts are described and explained in common, familiar language. We can all take a lesson from a language and communication expert, as excepted below.

From Richard Lederer's essay, "The Case for Small Words":
"Short words are as good as long ones, and short, old words--like sun and grass and home--are best of all.... Short words are bright like sparks that glow in the night, prompt like the dawn that greets the day, sharp like the blade of a knife, hot like salt tears that scald the cheek, quick like moths that flit from flame to flame, and terse like the dart and sting of a bee.... Short words are like fast friends. They will not let you down."

Let's not let one another down either! Treat your audience like a "fast friend."

Tips for Writing Better Business Documents

Business writing can be ineffective: wordy, confusing, rambling, and full of acronyms. One tip for writing better documents is to follow the 10 steps below.
The Pre-writing Stage:
Step 1. Prepare (mentally, physically, environmentally...)
Step 2. Generate (question, interview, research, determine objectives)
Step 3. Organize (cluster, outline, subordinate, coordinate...)
Step 4. Develop (add details, examples, sensory word choices, action verbs, concrete nouns...)
The Writing Stage:
Step 5. Draft (a document written from the writer's perspective)
Step 6. Compose (a document written for the reader's perspective)
The Post-writing Stage:
Step 7. Incubate (allow time for relaxation or diversion from the writing task)
Step 8. Edit (add, delete, change..)
Step 9. Revise (make the edits)
Step 10. Proofread (correct any errors, distractions, or distortions)
Second Tip: Using a template for routine messages can simplify the Pre-writing Stage.
Third Tip: Write out the words of any acronym you want to use; follow the words with the acronym in parentheses, and use the acronym thereafter in the document.
Fourth Tip: Ask for help from others to edit and proofread. Remember you should be your first proofreader and your last proofreader; nonetheless, you are also your worst proofreader. Why? Because you know what you meant to say and may not recognize that you failed to say it clearly.
Fifth Tip: Use reverse scheduling to make appointments with yourself for the writing process--step by step--to be completed before your deadline!

Writer's Bill of Rights

The writer has the right
1. To ask questions to explore the audience, the purpose, and pertinent content.
2. To think and plan before writing a sentence.
3. To draft out of order and rearrange later.
4. To use punctuation to guide the reader's understanding, sentence by sentence.
5. To add transitions to plot a logical progression of thoughts.
6. To use spell check and a collegiate-size, hardcopy dictionary.
7. To use grammar check and a style guide, such as William Sabin's Gregg Manual of Style.
8. To read aloud to hear the word choices, flow, and tone.
9. To ask a trusted reader to give feedback.
10. To revise and rewrite to satisfaction or perfection, as time and task warrant.
Furthermore, these rights assist the writer in fulfilling the writer's duty: making the reader's job of reading, comprehending, thinking--and maybe, even, agreeing--easy.