Use Short Words. Write simple sentences. Make Short Paragraphs. Repeat.

You talk using short words. You use second-person pronouns. You use lots of contractions. You speak in short sentences.

Then you start writing. You think you need to sound smart and intelligent. You think you need to impress people with your fancy words, like you did when you wrote your college papers.

Next thing you know you’ve got 40-word sentences that makes you look very intelligent.

Or do they?

That intelligent word salad you wrote that has all those 20-dollar, four- and five-syllable words? No one knows what you’re telling them.

That “leveraging” of your “utilization” of the English language for the “cascading messaging” you dropped on them drowned them in a waterfall of meaningless words.

Try this instead. Get in, get out and make things plain and simple. Make sure they know the “why” of what you’re telling them. Short words, short sentences, short paragraphs in the active voice.

Prune your writing for vigor. Less is more. Always, less is more.

The genius of renowned chef Jose Andres is this one thing. Do you have it?

When renowned chef Jose Andres arrived in Puerto Rico after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, he was driven to feed three million Puerto Ricans.

He had one major problem: He was stuck. Nothing in the devastated country worked.

He could have been overwhelmed. He could have thrown up his hands, or succumbed to what was likely a contagious discouragement in the face of the enormous humanitarian disaster.

But that’s not how he’s wired

He’s wired to get to work. That hurdle in front of him? Jump over it. Again and again if he must.

After landing in Puerto Rico and surveying the situation, Chef Andres made some calls. He put the word out. Got persuasive. Probably cajoled.

Whatever he said was working. Because amazing friends joined him.

They were driven. Frantic. Compassionate.

And united in one goal to feed a hurting, starving nation one meal at a time through ingenuity, creativity, and the sheer force of their will.

“So we began doing what we do best,” Andres said. “We began feeding the people of Puerto Rico.”

The genius of Andres is his calling card: He gets to work. He works relentlessly and creatively, persevering through every challenge.

I take Andres’ genius to heart in the projects I lead and work on. Do you?

Do you get to work? Get creative? How are you at persuading others to join you?

When I approach a project, I like to take action. For example, I might start writing, jotting down ideas, listening, gauging feedback. Who’s the audience? What’s in it for them?

I’ll tweak the messaging with my colleagues, getting it right and figuring out the best ways to reach stakeholders and audiences.

A chef is similar to a content strategist and writer in many ways. Both our audiences are hungry.

So how will you feed them?

The science that proves the power of strong leadership

Author’s note: I wrote this longform blog post for a client several years ago.

They are among the most prized handcrafted objects in the world.

They are precision instruments, highly specialized and known to produce refined sounds that resonate, alternately “velvety” and “stunningly brilliant,” according to experts.

They are also pure and powerful, projecting a sound that blossoms and radiates. They define their industry.

They are violins crafted by the famed Italian master Antonio Stradivari, who lived from about 1644 to 1737. His musical instruments are so treasured by musicians and collectors alike — the “Lady Blunt” Stradivarius sold in 2011 to a collector for a mind-boggling $15.9 million — you would almost think they could play themselves. 

Almost.

In the hands of a highly-skilled musician, one of the 650 surviving Stradivarius violins, or 55 cellos, or a dozen violas, produce beautiful music. Put one of them in my hands, however, and I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be beautiful music you’ll hear. 

It still takes talent, skill, expertise and 10,000 hours of practice to liberate the delightful sounds for which a Stradivarius is known around the world. Even someone who practices frequently and may be an accomplished violinist won’t make a Stradivarius sing.

It strikes me that running a business is like that. Certainly for any given business, there are plenty of talented, driven, smart and savvy people who could run it. But too often that’s not the case. 

Businesses are often left in the hands of people who don’t know how to truly coax all of the potential out of their company and its employees.

In an entrepreneurial nation where owning a business is a privilege and an honor, it’s a travesty.

Even then, though, a business can be in the hands of someone who appears to be skilled, but something’s not quite right. There’s something off.

The person might have the right pedigree, the proper degree from the right school and outwardly exhibit all the apparent qualities of a successful businessman or businesswoman.

But the company’s performance lags. It’s struggling.

It’s not making money, its customers aren’t happy, the employees who may be talented and sharp and skilled are frustrated … sound familiar? Could this be why our economy is stumbling along? Maybe this is why American businesses are dying faster now than ever before?

How could that be when by all appearances everything is in place for a business to succeed.

Let’s turn to the world of music and the science of something called “coordinated action” for the answer.

It’s a relative handful of people around the world who are privileged enough and skilled enough to coax magnificence out of a Stradivarius.

Yet put that extraordinary musician with the Stradivarius in a group, say an orchestra, and will they stand out? Or will the singular sound get lost in the accompanying strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion and other instruments?

Have you ever heard an orchestra warming up? Each musician tunes their instrument; maybe they go through the scale or play some notes from the composition they’ll perform. 

When everyone in an orchestra does his or her own thing as they are warming up, it sounds horrible. It’s hardly music.

It reminds me of listening to my lovely daughters banging on pots and pans in the kitchen when they were toddlers. That wasn’t music. It was cute, but it wasn’t music. At least to me.

It’s the conductor’s responsibility to ensure that an orchestra reaches its peak performance. Yet when it comes to an orchestra, each musician is a virtuoso who performs at the very top of their craft.

They should be able to read the music in front of them and play the song they’ve practiced over and over to produce a harmonious, beautiful sound.

A conductor doesn’t seem necessary when it comes to professional musicians. These folks are already pros, right

How can a conductor make that much of a difference? To the layperson the conductor’s baton waving looks inconsequential, silly even.

It turns out, an experienced conductor can make all the difference. 

A 2012 study by University of Maryland professor Yiannis Aloimonos and several colleagues sought to answer the influence a conductor had on these highly skilled orchestral musicians. Alomoinos and his colleagues tracked and recorded the movements of violinists and conductors during the performance of Mozart pieces to find causal relationships.

In the big picture, Aloimonos and his colleagues were studying “coordinated action.” It’s a social interaction skill at the basis of “evolutionary relevant collective behaviors such as defense, reproduction, or hunting,” according to their study. Or, I might add, the relevant collective behavior of a successful business.

To measure coordinated action and to draw a conclusion, the researchers took a conductor’s baton and installed a tiny infrared light at the tip of it. They also placed tiny infrared lights on the bows of the violinists in the orchestra, composed of professional Italian musicians. Infrared cameras were then placed around the orchestra.

The cameras were able to capture the lights as they moved to follow the conductor’s baton and the bows of the violinists. Analysts fed the light patterns into computers. Researchers used mathematical techniques developed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Clive Granger to find links between the movements of the conductor and the violinists.

The question was whether the movement of the conductor was a predictor of the movements of the violinists. If so, then the conductor was obviously leading the players.

But if the infrared patterns showed that the conductor was not predicting the movements of the violinists, then it was the musicians who were in charge.

The researchers concluded by using the Granger Causality method applied to human kinematics the conductors were leading the violinists. The infrared light patterns clearly showed that the conductors predicted the movements of the violinists.

The Leadership is REAL.

They didn’t stop there. In an interesting twist, Aloimonos and his team selected two conductors of vastly different abilities to lead the musicians:

—One was highly experienced who was a strong leader — NPR actually describes him as having an “iron grip.”

—The other was an amateur.

Aloimonos told NPR his team of researchers made a discovery.

“What we found is the more the influence of the conductor to the players, the more aesthetic — aesthetically pleasing the music was overall,” he said.

Even music experts noted a difference. Although they didn’t know which performance was led by which conductor, they unanimously concluded that the experienced conductor produced a superior orchestra.

Leadership MATTERS.

So what is all this telling us? Even the best employees with the best technology and tools (Stradivarius) need to be led by someone with the talent, experience, drive and inventiveness to coax greatness out of their subordinates.

In companies, all these employees can singularly produce good results. But pulling all the disparate parts together takes strong, determined leadership that’s decisive and visionary.

It’s the difference between good and great, or success and failure. It’s the difference between a finely tuned, expertly crafted instrument in the hands of an amateur or the Stradivarius singing for an expert.

And it’s the difference between a group led by an unaffected or inexperienced leader and one in the hands of an experienced master.

Links:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1972690

http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2012/11/27/165677915/do-orchestras-really-need-conductors

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0035757

White space is your friend. Use it. Ok?

Your reaction is predictable when you come to a web page that’s all text.

It’s negative. You’re overwhelmed. I bet you pass it up.

Big blocks of text are barriers to the reader’s experience. That’s stating the obvious, I know. But making white space your friend when you write text isn’t used enough.

I see it over and over again that people write big blocks of text. Then they wonder why nobody reads what they wrote.

Here’s the simple solution. Break things up.

Think about little chunks. Bit-size morsels. A handful. It’s similar to how you eat, right?

However you want to think about it or put it, do us all a favor. Embrace the white space. Declutter.

I’m also hoping it will help you automatically start writing simpler, cleaner copy. Making it less dense and easier to read and understand.

I believe we call that a win-win.

Your audience wants writing that is easy to read. Make it clear. Simple. Painless. Effortless.

One thing matters the most to your audience. They want to read what you write just once and “get it.”

They don’t want to read something twice to understand it. Especially three or four times.

They don’t want their eyes to glaze over.

Don’t ever forget that. You may feel like a safe play is to repeat the jargon and clunky wording of your client, especially if you work for governments.

You don’t have to use the words “leverage” or “utilize.” Steer clear of writing “cascading messaging” and “value proposition” and “lean in.”

Don’t do it. It’s annoying and unnecessary.

There’s a reason governments are on “plain language” kicks.

The Atlantic magazine even had a March Madness-style playoff of worst corporate buzzwords. Funny stuff … in a sad sort of way.

Don’t try and sound intelligent when you write because chances are you will lose your audience with big words and lots of commas. There’s a reason you like reading “Good Night Moon” or “The Cat in the Hat” to your kids.

You want to help people. You want to make things easy for them.

Short words. Short sentences. Short paragraphs. White space.

Repeat that formula.

Be a maker this year. Make things great.

Over the past couple of months I’m in a “making” frenzy. A creative frenzy.

I made two cutting boards. Helped a son and daughter-in-law do a board and batten wall in their nursery.

Made a desk for another son. Got an idea for a nightstand to make for another son.

I’m making sourdough cinnamon raisin bread this morning. Going to make spaghetti noodles and bread later today.

I have this theory about it.

At work I’ve been doing more editing than writing. I’ve been organizing, working with schedules and spreadsheets and in meetings — many meetings.

I’m about six weeks into a new job and learning about new timelines and processes. I’ve done an amazing amount of onboarding as part of three different organizations. I’ve also had time off over the holidays.

That drive to create isn’t being fed. That drive to write and market and brand and persuade. So it manifests itself in other ways.

I challenge myself to try new things and make new things outside of work. It makes me happy.

I also learn from them. I learn about processes, crafting, refining.

My next cutting board will be a little better. So will my next desk and nightstand.

The next batch of noodles I make will go better than the first.

It’s no different in writing and editing. I keep challenging myself in my writing.

I look back over what I’ve written this past year and two years and five years and see ways to improve. Cleaner. Clearer. Simpler. Better.

What about you? What are you doing better?

Here’s the real question: What WILL you do better in 2021?

Know what you’ll do better and how you’ll do it. Come up with a plan. Challenge yourself.

Seek a mentor. Seek an editor. Ask for help.

Write. A lot.

Make something. Then make it better. Make it greater.

The Question That Told Me Everything About A Writing Job Candidate

The answer to my question told us everything we needed to know about our job candidate.

We were hiring for a writer and this person was a referral. The company leadership really wanted to hire this person.

A person for a demanding writing job in our company with no professional writing or editing experience. Didn’t major in journalism, communication, writing, or English in college.

The writing examples the person sent us were college papers. Not very good ones at that. Who doesn’t have college papers to send for writing samples?

But the candidate was a “good culture fit” in the words of company leadership. I liked this person. I could see the person is thoughtful, works hard, and is someone I would say is a high-achiever.

Does all that make them a writer? Let alone a good writer?

No.

In the interview, I asked the candidate if they have a blog, have freelance writing gigs, or do their own writing. Maybe a journal or something like that.

Nope. Nothing. Doesn’t do any writing.

That’s all I needed to know

If you want to be a writer, then write. Read good writers. Learn about the craft.

Write to develop your voice and style.

Blog. Journal. Seek out freelance opportunities for local magazines or other publications.

Find out if you really love writing.

Because that’s what the candidate’s answer really revealed to me.

Why hire someone for a position if it wasn’t something they enjoyed doing on their own?

I have to write. It’s a big part of who I am. It’s why I have two personal blogs and regularly write freelance articles for magazines.

I need to write. Want to write. Love to write.

What’s writing to you?

Tell a good story. Write simply. Connect with audiences.

The goal of writing isn’t to sound smart. Don’t try and impress people with big words and fancy sentences.

Tell a story. Make it simple. Write like you talk.

The goal is connecting. You want people to read what you write.

Maybe you entertain them, or inform them and persuade them through humor or a tender story or tap into another emotion.

I learned about these things as a journalist when I developed my own brand of writing. Writing with style or flair. My editor called it “Matt Sabo style” and would ask me to write a “Sabo style” article.

I’ll give you an example. This is a story I wrote about a raid on a motorcycle repair shop in a rural Virginia community that got, well, interesting. I took an ordinary story and had fun with it.

A Virginia moonshine operation

Take the ordinary and give it your own style.

Make your company better. Make the world better.

Several years ago, a boss I worked for decided to have an end-of-year company strategy session to do some brand identity.

Figure out who we were and what we’re about as a company.

It’s all good stuff. But it struck me that this person had launched the company and was running it for five or six years and couldn’t answer that for themself. This person truly needed someone else to do it for them.

That’s not good.

What’s your company about? What’s important to your company?

It should be a big-picture statement. Like, “My company makes the world a better place because we make (products) that help other companies be successful.”

Most importantly, how does what you do help your company do that thing or those things it’s all about?

Finish this sentence: I elevate my company’s brand by _____________________________.

And this one: I make my company better because _________________________________.

Now, try this one: I could make my company better by _____________________________.

Go do it.

A Chesapeake Bay deadrise workboat and storytelling: Stories are all around us

A Chesapeake Bay deadrise workboat. The iconic boat of Chesapeake Bay.

A glance out my window this morning and I knew what I had to do.

Fog had rolled in, casting an eerie glow and shrouding the neighbor's pine trees in a misty cloud. Everything looked still, which means one thing: The water will be like glass.

Perfect for Instagram photos.

I have a "go to" spot in these situations. It's a small public landing with a rickety pier of twisted boards and precarious steps next to a decrepit marina a mile or so from my house on Sarah's Creek. 

This morning the water was indeed like glass, as I predicted. The oaks and poplars along the shoreline are shorn of their leaves in the winter chill. Looking at the reflection of their bony branches and limbs in the creek is like looking in a mirror on days like these.

I started shooting photos with my iPhone. I gingerly walked along the pier, a firm grip on my phone, steadying my feet as I went.

Tethered to the pier as it slinks along the shoreline of the Northwest Branch of the creek rests an aged Chesapeake Bay deadrise boat. The white paint is peeling. Some of the deck boards are rotting. Her best days are well past.

It's a sad sight. I'm not a boater. I've never been crabbing or oystering out on the bay, but I'm enthralled by deadrise boats. 

They're eye-catching, a combination of muscular, but lithe and sleek. Distinctive with their low profiles -- often they have V-shaped bows -- and flat bottoms, they're called the workhorses of the bay.

They're built so watermen can ply the choppy waters of the bay when the winds and storms quickly flare up and also to maneuver in the shallow waters. Every deadrise workboat has a story, as you'll see.

As I was shooting photos an older gentleman in jeans, a hoodie and black ball cap walked up. We started chatting and he told me the "Donna Jo" was his boat. 

It was built in 1988, the same year that Virginia declared the Chesapeake Bay deadrise workboat as the official state boat. He gave me the dimensions and told me he was going to repair it. But the weather abruptly turned cold, as it typically does in Virginia.

"You can't work in the cold," he said.

Instead of repairing his beloved deadrise, his wife dispatched him take care of a "honey-do" list that included replacing the bathroom floors and commodes -- his use of "commodes" instead of "toilets" kind of cracked me up -- in their house. But it would only take him about two weeks to repair his boat, he said.

He has all the lumber. He'll just have to be careful tearing off the old wood. The hull is in good shape, he said. She'll be back on the water when it warms up, he said.

He said he would spend summers on his deadrise workboat out on the bay catching blue crabs. He'd make $75,000 to $100,000 crabbing. "Some people don't think that's much money," he said.

I'm not some people.

At some point our conversation about his deadrise got derailed. Politics came up. He cussed the government -- especially Democrats -- for a good while. Every time he mentioned Democrats he included an `F'-bomb. Every single time.

He loves Trump. Really, really loves Trump. He fears for our country. He wonders what's happened to our country.

But later this spring, when the weather warms back up, he'll be giving Donna Jo a face lift. 

Look for her out on Chesapeake Bay. She'll be gleaming white beneath the broiling Virginia sun with bushels of blue crabs on her deck.