Business Writing

The
Business Science of Strong
Writing
by Bill Birchard
From the Magazine (July–August 2021)

Martina Paukova 

Summary.   Brain scans are showing us in new detail exactly what entices readers.
Scientists can see a group of midbrain neurons—the “reward circuit”—light up as
people respond to everything from a simple metaphor to an unexpected story twist.
The big takeaway?... more
Strong writing skills are essential for anyone in business. You need
them to effectively communicate with colleagues, employees, and
bosses and to sell any ideas, products, or services you’re offering.
Many people, especially in the corporate world, think good writing is
an art—and that those who do it well have an innate talent they’ve
nurtured through experience, intuition, and a habit of reading often
and widely. But every day we’re learning more about the science of
good writing. Advances in neurobiology and psychology show, with
data and in images, exactly how the brain responds to words, phrases,
and stories. And the criteria for making better writing choices are
more objective than you might think.
Good writing gets the reader’s dopa­mine flowing in the area of the
brain known as the reward circuit. Great writing releases opioids that
turn on reward hot spots. Just like good food, a sooth­ing bath, or an
enveloping hug, well-­executed prose makes us feel pleasure, which
makes us want to keep reading.
Most of the rules you learned in school—“Show, don’t tell” or “Use
the active voice”—still hold. But the reasons they do are now clearer.
Scientists using MRI and PET machines can literally see how reward
regions clustered in the mid­brain light up when people read certain
types of writing or hear it spoken aloud. Each word, phrase, or idea
acts as a stimulus, causing the brain to instantly answer a stream of
questions: Does this promise value? Will I like it? Can I learn from it?
Kent Berridge, a pioneering University of Michigan psychologist and
neuroscientist, notes that researchers originally believed that the
reward circuit largely handled sensory cues. But, he explains, “it’s
become clear in the past 50 years from neuroimaging studies that all
kinds of social and cultural rewards can also activate this system.”
Whether it’s a succinct declarative statement in an email or a complex
argument in a report, your own writing has the potential to light up
the neural circuitry of your readers’ brains. (The same is true if you
read the words to an audience.) The magic happens when prose has
one or more of these characteristics: It’s simple, specific, surprising,
stirring, seductive, smart, social, or story-­driven. In my work as an
author and a writing coach for businesspeople, I’ve found those eight
S’s to be hallmarks of the best writing. And scientific evidence backs
up their power.
Simplicity
“Keep it simple.” This classic piece of writing advice stands on the
most basic neuroscience research. Simplicity increases what scientists
call the brain’s “processing fluency.” Short sentences, familiar words,
and clean syntax ensure that the reader doesn’t have to exert too
much brainpower to understand your meaning.
By contrast, studies have shown that sentences with clauses nested in
the middle take longer to read and cause more comprehension
mistakes. Ditto for most sentences in the passive voice. If you write
“Profits are loved by investors,” for example, instead of “Investors
love profits,” you’re switching the standard positions of the verb and
the direct object. That can cut comprehension accuracy by 10% and
take a tenth of a second longer to read.
Martina Paukova

Tsuyoshi Okuhara, of the University of Tokyo, teamed with colleagues

to ask 400 people aged 40 to 69 to read about how to exercise for
better health. Half the group got long-winded, somewhat technical
material. The other half got an easy-to-read edit of the same content.
The group reading the simple version—with shorter words and
sentences, among other things—scored higher on self-efficacy: They
expressed more confidence in succeeding.
Even more noteworthy: Humans learn from experience that simpler
explanations are not always right, but they usually are. Andrey
Kolmogorov, a Russian mathematician, proved decades ago that
people infer that simpler patterns yield better predictions,
explanations, and decisions. That means you’re more persuasive
when you reduce overdressed ideas to their naked state.
Cutting extraneous words and using the active voice are two ways to
keep it simple. Another tactic is to drill down to what’s really salient
and scrap tangential details. Let’s say you have researched crossover
markets and are recommending options in a memo to senior leaders.
Instead of sharing every pro and con for each market—that is, taking
the exhaustive approach—maybe pitch just the top two prospects and
identify their principal pluses and minuses.
Specificity
Specifics awaken a swath of brain circuits. Think of “pelican” versus
“bird.” Or “wipe” versus “clean.” In one study, the more-specific
words in those pairs activated more neurons in the visual and motor-
strip parts of the brain than did the general ones, which means they
caused the brain to process meaning more robustly.
Years ago scientists thought our brains decoded words as symbols.
Now we understand that our neurons actually “embody” what the
words mean: When we hear more-specific ones, we “taste,” “feel,”
and “see” traces of the real thing.
Remarkably, the simulation may extend to our muscles too. When a
team led by an Italian researcher, Marco Tettamanti, asked people to
listen to sentences related to the mouth, hand, and leg—“I bite an
apple”; “I grasp a knife”; “I kick the ball”—the brain regions for
moving their jaws, hands, and legs fired.
Using more-vivid, palpable language will reward your readers. In a
recent letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos didn’t say,
“We’re facing strong competition.” Channeling Tettamanti’s research,
he wrote, “Third-party sellers are kicking our first-party butt. Badly.”
Another specificity tactic is to give readers a memorable shorthand
phrase to help them retain your message. Malcolm Gladwell coined
“the tipping point.” Management gurus W. Chan Kim and Renée
Mauborgne came up with “blue ocean strategy”; essayist Nassim
Nicholas Taleb, “black swan event.”
Surprise
Our brains are wired to make nonstop predictions, including guessing
the next word in every line of text. If your writing confirms the
readers’ guess, that’s OK, though possibly a yawner. Surprise can
make your message stick, helping readers learn and retain
information.
Jean-Louis Dessalles, a researcher in artificial intelligence and
cognitive science at Télécom Paris, conducted an experiment that
demonstrated people’s affinity for the unexpected. He asked
participants to read short, unfinished narratives and consider
different possible endings for each. For example, one story read: “Two
weeks after my car had been stolen, the police informed me that a car
that might be mine was for sale on the internet….The phone number
had been identified. It was the mobile phone number of….” The
choices were (a) “my office colleague,” (b) “a colleague of my
brother’s,” or (c) “someone in my neighborhood.” For 17 of 18 stories,
the vast majority of people preferred the most unexpected ending (in
this example, the work colleague). They didn’t want a story that
fulfilled their predictions.
So reward your readers with novelty. Jonah Berger and Katherine
Milkman, of the Wharton School, saw the impact of surprising
content when they examined nearly 7,000 articles that appeared
online in the New York Times. They found that those rated as
surprising were 14% more likely to be on the newspaper’s “most-
emailed” list.
Readers appreciate unusual wordplay, too. A good example is John
McPhee’s characterization of World War II as a “technological
piñata.” Or consider how a Texas-based conglomerate described itself
in its 2016 shareholder letter: “Think of Biglari Holdings as a museum
of businesses. Our preference is to collect masterpieces.”
Stirring Language
You may think you’re more likely to persuade with logic, but no. Our
brains process the emotional connotations of a word within 200
milliseconds of reading it—much faster than we understand its
meaning. So when we read emotionally charged material, we
reflexively react with feelings—fear, joy, awe, disgust, and so forth—
because our brains have been trained since hunter-gatherer times to
respond that way. Reason follows. We then combine the immediate
feeling and subsequent thought to create meaning.
How sensitive are we to emotion? Experiments show that when
people hear a list of words, they often miss a few as a result of
“attentional blinks” caused by limits in our brain processing power.
But we don’t miss the emotionally significant words. With those there
are no blinks.

When we read emotionally charged

material, we reflexively react with
feelings—fear, joy, awe, disgust, and so
forth. Reason follows.

So when you write your next memo, consider injecting words that
package feeling and thought together. Instead of saying “challenge the
competition,” you might use “outwit rivals.” In lieu of “promote
innovation,” try “prize ingenuity.” Metaphor often works even better.
Canadian researchers Andrea Bowes and Albert Katz tested relatively
bland phrases like “What a very good idea!” and “Be careful what you
say” against more-evocative expressions like “What a gem of an
idea!” and “Watch your back.” Readers reacted more strongly to the
latter.
Just a small touch can drive the neural circuits for emotion. So before
you start composing, get your feelings straight, along with your facts.
Zeal for your message will show through. And if you express your
emotion, readers will feel it.
Seductiveness
As humans, we’re wired to savor an­tic­ipation. One famous study
showed that people are often happier planning a vacation than they
are after taking one. Scientists call the reward “anticipatory utility.”
You can build up the same sort of excitement when you structure
your writing. In experiments using poetry, researchers found that
readers’ reward circuitry reached peak firing several seconds before
the high points of emphatic lines and stanzas. Brain images show
preemptive spikes of pleasure even in readers with no previous
interest in poetry.
You can generate a similar reaction by winding up people’s curiosity
for what’s to come. Steve Jobs did this in his famous “How to Live
Before You Die” commencement address to Stanford University’s
class of 2005. “I never graduated from college,” he began. “Truth be
told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today
I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just
three stories.” Are you on the edge of your seat to hear what the three
stories are?
So start a report with a question. Pose your customer problem as a
conundrum. Position your product development work as solving a
mystery. Put readers in a state of uncertainty so that you can then
lead them to something better.
Smart Thinking
Making people feel smart—giving them an “aha” moment—is another
way to please readers. To show how these sudden “pops” of insight
activate the brain, researchers have asked people to read three words
(for example, “house,” “bark,” and “apple”) and then identify a fourth
word that relates to all three, while MRI machines and EEGs record
their brain activity. When the study participants arrive at a solution
(“tree”), brain regions near the right temple light up, and so do parts
of the reward circuit in the prefrontal cortex and midbrain. The
readers’ delight is visible. Psychological research also reveals how
people feel after such moments: at ease, certain, and—most of all—
happy.
How can you write to create an aha moment for your readers? One
way is to draw fresh distinctions. Ginni Rometty, formerly IBM’s
CEO, offered one with this description of the future: “It will not be a
world of man versus machine; it will be a world of man plus
machine.”
Another strategy is to phrase a pragmatic message so that it also
evokes a perennial, universal truth. The late Max De Pree, founder
and CEO of the office furniture company Herman Miller, had a knack
for speaking to employees this way. In Leadership Is an Art he wrote:
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to
say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant
and a debtor.” That’s wisdom not just for business managers but for
parents, teachers, coaches—anyone in a guiding role.
Social Content
Our brains are wired to crave human connection—even in what we
read. Consider a study of readers’ responses to different kinds of
literary excerpts: some with vivid descriptions of people or their
thoughts, and others without such a focus. The passages that included
people activated the areas of participants’ brains that interpret social
signals, which in turn triggered their reward circuits.
We don’t want just to read about people, though—we want to
understand what they’re thinking as quickly as possible. A study led
by Frank Van Overwalle, a social neuroscientist at Vrije Universiteit
Brussel, found that readers infer the goals of people they’re reading
about in under 350 milliseconds, and discern their character traits
within 650 milliseconds.
One way to help readers connect with you and your writing is to
reveal more traces of yourself in it. Think voice, world­view,
vocabulary, wit, syntax, poetic rhythm, sensibilities. Take the folksy—
and effective—speeches and letters of Berkshire Hathaway CEO
Warren Buffett. His bon mots include “Someone’s sitting in the shade
today because someone planted a tree a long time ago,” “It’s only
when the tide goes out that you discover who’s been swimming
naked,” and “Beware of geeks bearing formulas.”
Remember also to include the human angle in any topic you’re
discussing. When you want to make a point about a supply-chain
hiccup, for example, don’t frame the problem as a “trucking
disconnect.” Write instead about mixed signals between the driver
and dispatcher.
Another simple trick to engage readers is to use the second person
(“you”), as I’ve done throughout this piece. This can be particularly
helpful when you’re explaining technical or complicated material. For
example, psychologist Richard Mayer and colleagues at the University
of California, Santa Barbara, ran experiments with two versions of an
online presentation on the respiratory system. Each included 100
words of spoken text paired with simple animations. But one version
used the impersonal third person (“During inhaling, the diaphragm
moves down, creating more space for the lungs…”), while the other
was more personal (“your diaphragm” and “your lungs…”). People
who listened to the latter scored significantly higher than their
counterparts on a test that measured what they had learned.
Storytelling
Few things beat a good anecdote. Stories, even fragments of them,
captivate extensive portions of readers’ brains in part because they
combine many of the elements I’ve described already.
Research by Uri Hasson at Princeton reveals the neural effect of an
engaging tale. Functional MRI scans show that when a story begins,
listeners’ brains immediately begin glowing in a specific pattern.
What’s more, that grid reflects the story­teller’s exactly. Other
research shows that, at the same time, midbrain regions of the reward
circuit come to life.
Experiments by behavioral scientists at the University of Florida
produced similar results. Brain images showed heightened activity in
reward regions among people who read 12-second narratives that
prompted pleasant images. (A sample narrative: “It’s the last few
minutes of the big game and it’s close. The crowd explodes in a
deafening roar. You jump up, cheering. Your team has come from
behind to win.”)
When you incorporate stories into your communications, big payoffs
can result. Consider research that Melissa Lynne Murphy did at the
University of Texas, looking at business crowdfunding campaigns.
She found that study participants formed more-favorable impressions
of the pitches that had richer narratives, giving them higher marks for
entrepreneur credibility and business legitimacy. Study participants
also expressed more willingness to invest in the projects and share
infor­mation about them. The implication: No stories, no great
funding success.

...
The eight S’s can be your secret weapons in writing well. They’re
effective tools for engaging readers because they trigger the same
neural responses that other pleasurable stimuli do. And you probably
understand their value intuitively because millions of years of
evolution have trained our brains to know what feels right. So
cultivate those instincts. They’ll lead you to the writer’s version of the
Golden Rule: Reward readers as you would yourself.
ABusiness
version Review.
of this article appeared in the July–August 2021 issue of Harvard

Bill Birchard is a business writer and writing

coach. His sixth book, tentatively titled Eight
Secrets from Science for Aspiring Writers, is in
progress. His previous books include Merchants of
Virtue, Stairway to Earth, Nature’s Keepers, and
Counting What Counts. Learn more about his
work at billbirchard.com.