Donald Macintyre, senior consultant and former journalist at Time Magazine and Bloomberg News talks about the cost of poor communication and explains what companies can do to make sustainable improvements to employee writing skills.
Transcript: Hi. I’m Donald Macintyre. As a former journalist at Time magazine and Bloomberg News, knowing how to communicate information quickly and clearly was a big part of the job. When I moved into corporate communications, leading teams at international banks in Asia, I realized that poor writing was a real obstacle to better performance in the world of business.
Is poor communication costing you money?
What about your company? How many times do you get a poorly worded email and spend five minutes trying to figure out what it means? If everyone on your team is wasting time on emails like that… well, that’s a cost and it adds up fast.
Poor communication can also mean missed sales, project delays, even a higher cost of capital.
How can you help your team communicate better?
Writing training is part of the solution. But to make the lessons really stick, clear communication has to become part of your corporate culture. HR can start giving writing tests to job candidates. Team leads should make communication skills part of the annual performance review. And leaders need to set an example – and get everybody else on board!
If you would like to learn more how you can improve the way your teams communicate, please contact the Tantalus Group.
Want to know more?
Contact Donald at Donald@thetantalusgroup.com
Speak to Tantalus about arrange an introductory chat with Tantalus about our well reviewed writing program for your executives, coms or marketing teams.
Donald Macintyre | Senior Consultant | Vancouver, Canada
Donald Macintyre is a communications professional and former Time magazine correspondent with more than 20 years of experience working in Europe and Asia. He has led communication teams at major banks in Japan and Singapore, advising senior leaders on organizational and change communication and developing innovative content to drive staff engagement. As head of communications for Standard Chartered’s global retail banking business, he led a team that supported business process and culture change for 30,000+ employees across 30 markets in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Obsessive about good writing, he also created a style guide for the bank and developed writing training courses for mid-level managers and front-line staff. In an earlier career in journalism, Donald worked for Bloomberg and Time magazine in Tokyo and was later based in Seoul for six years as Time’s first permanent bureau chief for North and South Korea. He speaks French, Italian and Japanese and he’s working on his Korean.
The Tantalus Group is a global firm that specializes in management consulting services. We advise leaders on business opportunities and threats, from strategy, marketing, communications, organization and digital, to business transformation, change management, sustainability and mergers and acquisitions. Our management consulting services cut across all sectors and geographies.
We have a team of strategy and management consultants in Asia, Europe and North America and draw on decades of practical experience advising CEOs, CFOs, CCOs and executive committees. We also work closely with teams within companies, to deliver management consulting services to tailored to the unique demands of working in a fast-paced, changing global environment.
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