Geoff Davies takes a look at the best way to get the most out of your interviews with CEOs. He argues that it is all in the preparation and approach.
 It is an unfortunate fact that much high-level corporate communications material is characteristically bland and uninteresting. Because chief executives and others in comparable positions are typically careful people seeking to safeguard the profitability and/or public image of their companies and organisations (as well as their own future), they are perhaps often unwilling to make incisive statements that command the attention of their readers – whether these are customers, stakeholders, or their own employees.
It may be that (whatever their abilities elsewhere), these senior people simply lack appropriate skill in this particular area, or persistently allocate insufficient time to the task. Alternatively, they may allow their draft material to become disjointed by suffering the amendments of too many colleagues, failing to see that good communications are seldom written on a committee basis.
One way of surmounting these problems is to use the services of a business writer, but in this event it is best to have a good appreciation of what it is that makes a partnership with such a person work.
If it is assumed that the senior person giving the brief has a fund of knowledge and opinion on a given subject, the independent writer’s first tasks are to extract the core elements by question and answer, in order to form an appreciation of what needs to be said.
By initially knowing very little about the topic under discussion, the writer is actually well placed to avoid making false assumptions about the perspectives, priorities and existing levels of understanding of the intended readers (or listeners).
The truth is that the expertise that he/she brings to the party has very little to do with prior knowledge of the subject. It consists in being able to:
- ask the right questions,
- assimilate the information obtained,
- organise it in a logical structure,
- articulate it clearly,
- make it more reader-friendly,
- bring the key points to the fore, and
- ideally prompt a desired response.
During the briefing interview, with many of the next questions typically based on previous answers, persistent probing may take the writer progressively deeper into the client’s views and opinions about the matter being discussed.
This adds a qualitative improvement to the discussion, bringing about a degree of empathy with the motivation behind the observations made. Crucially, the client’s previously unspoken thoughts may be brought out into the light by the writer voicing perceived messages implicit in the comments, but not plainly stated until then.
This ability to probe between the lines and discover what is not yet written can build a sense of mutual trust. If the co-operation between the two people then extends into a succession of further projects, the business relationship is likely to deepen over time, ultimately enabling the writer to function almost as a mind reader as well as an interpreter. This takes time, but it certainly happens, and both parties benefit when it does.
Geoff Davies is a business communications writer with 45 years’ experience. He can be contacted on 0121 476 1301 or via enquiries@wwamwriters.co.uk |
