Suit the action to the word, the word to the action…
Here’s a story:
“When I was last in Florida, I hurried downstairs from my bedroom one lonely night, leaving my skim milk behind, when I heard the yelping of my puppy dog. Questioning the nervy animal like an obscene critic, I found his worthless rant had stopped, and even his whimpering had become inaudible. My shocked eyeball suddenly rolled toward the reason: the manager of our hotel had been eaten by a large alligator! Perhaps I was too jaded, but I suddenly had a zany thought: Were I able to undress that creature of its hide, it would make a fashionable pair of new cowboy boots.”
Wow! Quite the tall tale, huh? It would incredible if it were true.
But what’s more incredible is that there are 20 words or terms in that passage that, according to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Shakespeare invented.
The English-speaking world owes a debt to William Shakespeare. An amazing amount of our language comes from his pen. Over 1700 English words were first used or invented in his plays or poetry. When people question whether Shakespeare is relevant to us today, the answer should be obvious: he lives in our brains and our tongues in an amazing number of the sentences we utter.
Shakespeare recreated our language and, by doing so, he recreated our minds. After all, language is nothing more than a framework that allows communication of thought.
We spend most of our days communicating through the spoken word, and we generally admire people who speak well. But our most important communication comes in the form of writing. Writing is much more than conversational speech or the short form of texting or social media. Writing allows us to provide our audience with our best thinking on a particular subject. Whether we are writing a thank-you note to grandma, crafting a love poem to our fiancé, preparing a business memorandum, drafting an important speech, or writing a book about Shakespeare and Lincoln, our writing serves as the vessel for our most important thoughts.
If that’s true (and it is), then writing is a critical leadership skill. No leader can reach his or her full potential unless he or she can write well. Yet many leaders are bad writers. They draft poorly written missives that fail to communicate. They fall back on impenetrable jargon and corporatese, the bureaucratic language that hides more than it reveals. This kind of communication frustrates a team and leads to confusion, resentment, and failure.
I think there are two reasons for this shortcoming: First, leaders don’t commit to writing well. Like anything else, writing requires practice and patience. A leader who dashes off an unpolished screed is likely to miss the opportunity to communicate effectively. Like anything else, good writing takes time and practice; no leader is so busy that he or she can’t put in the work to write an important document well.
Second, leaders many times write poorly because they haven’t really refined their thinking. The best writing comes from ideas that are clear and compelling. If a leader’s writing is poor, maybe that’s because his or her underlying thought is poor. The act of writing is more than just a medium of communication; it sharpens and clarifies thought and creates a stronger underlying strategy or tactic. I used to tell my team, “If you can write it, you can think it, and if you can think it, you can do it.”
I am not a great writer. It has taken many years for me to become as proficient as I am, and I am still not satisfied. One of the many reasons why I wrote A Memorable Honor was to try to keep my skills, such as they are, sharp after my retirement.
But Shakespeare was a great writer, perhaps the greatest in history. His genius is encapsulated in his ability to write in different voices and employ words, tone, and meter to convey complicated thoughts and themes. In fact, as my book attempts to demonstrate, Shakespeare is one of history’s great philosophers, and his philosophy is manifest in his plays and poetry. In other words, it appears through and because of his writing.
Nevertheless, despite his genius, we have evidence that even Shakespeare worked and reworked his plays, constantly looking for a better text. Shakespeare wasn’t alone: Lincoln was no slouch as a writer, but he labored to draft compelling correspondence and speeches. The myth that he wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of envelope on the way to the cemetery dedication is just that: a myth. He spent many hours crafting the speech before he left Washington for Pennsylvania.
In A Memorable Honor, I have included a chapter on the importance of poetry to effective leadership. That may seem a bit odd in a leadership book, but, as I hope you’ll see, appropriately used poetic forms are essential to inspiring people in moments of crisis and opportunity. It is through the discipline of writing that men and women can develop the poetic communication skills that will serve them throughout their days as leaders.
Until next time.
Frank
P. S. If you haven’t done so, please add your name to the “Who Art Thou” link below to receive updates as we get closer to the September 15 publication of A Memorable Honor: Shakespeare, Lincoln and the Art of Leadership.
P.P.S. (1) Hurried; (2) Downstairs; (3) Bedroom; (4) Lonely; (5) Skim milk; (6) Yelping; (7) Puppy dog; (8) Nervy; (9) Obscene; (10) Critic; (11) Worthless; (12) Rant; (13) Inaudible; (14) Eyeball; (15) Manager; (16) Alligator; (17) Jaded; (18) Zany; (19) Undress; (20) Fashionable.
https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-words/
