To write a good business or government report, you need storytelling and analysis in equal doses. But that doesn’t mean you need one star writer who can do it all. It means you must draw on the right skills of different team members, at the right stage of the process.
To digress for a moment, your organisation writes reports to achieve an outcome. It must ultimately persuade readers to do something – take a recommended action, rethink an attitude, or simply engage with you. You will always need to address several readers, in addition to the one who acts on your advice. As a result you need to address various possible objections, such as the business, social or other impact of your initiative.
That’s why it’s essential that you harness all the possible skills that can be found in a writer, starting with storytelling, and continuing through to developing the tone, analysis and finesse of the writing.
Perhaps your organisation employs one or more fine individuals who possess all of these skills. Maybe you personally have several of these skills yourself, or your have learned them from colleagues. Read on to find out where they apply to report writing.
1. The analyst
A powerful report is nothing without some solid number crunching, and this is where your analyst comes in. If left to their own devices, this person could happily write your whole report on background theory alone. Pair your analyst with your storyteller, however, and they’ll source the best facts to back up the storyteller’s message. Where do analysts reside? You’ll find them at their desks long after everyone has left, fervently doing some ‘background reading’.
2. The storyteller
The storyteller has a knack for knowing what will move their reader. They can hone in on the facts with the most meaning to others. Note that the storytellers in your organisation may not initially appear to be the most vocal ones. They sit back, listen and digest – and then they tell those stories. Find them by the coffee machine during breaks, holding colleagues spellbound with their gripping or offbeat anecdotes.
3. The wordsmith
This talent is the natural choice for unifying the voice of your report, making sure that arguments are balanced with facts, sentence grammar is clear and jargon is minimal. They’re also something of a mimic at heart. The wordsmith can get inside the headspace of an audience or organisation, replicating their language without hesitation. With a little attention to detail and some quality writing resources, almost anyone can learn to be a wordsmith. Otherwise, you’ll find your team wordsmith patiently answering their colleagues’ spelling and grammar queries, all through the day.
4. The detail-nut
Not everyone on your team can spot an errant apostrophe, misused word or incorrect font size. But your resident detail-nut can. While most of Australia skipped their grammar education, this splendid individual somehow managed to soak up all there was to know about grammar, style and the punctuation that binds it all together. When your team has read and re-read the piece so many times they have report-fatigue, hand it to your detail-nut or grammar whiz for that final finessing.
