Are you a leader? You really need to write things down

One of the greatest superpowers that a leader can unlock at any moment is to write stuff down. Here are a few reasons to do so.

Make more decisions

People confuse talking with decision-making. While it is true that talking is part of the decision-making process, if your decision is not written down, it will be forgotten and you will have to revisit the same conversation in the future. Once a decision is written down, it is concrete and everyone can move onto the next thing. The more decisions you write down, the more progress you make.

Write more, think better

Writing is thinking. Amazon has 1-pager and a 6-pager writing practice which encourages employees to think in-depth about their thoughts and vision for their work. As you write down your thoughts, you are forced to organise them and create a coherent narrative. If you're not writing down your thoughts, you are relying too much on your ability to articulate them. And let's be honest - that doesn't work very well. It doesn't look good when a leader stumbles over their words as they try to get your thoughts in order. You need to at least look like you have an idea what you're doing. So write down your thoughts.

Get agreement

If you don't write things down, you rely on people to spread information via word of mouth. Maybe that used to work when oral, in-person communication was the main form of communication. But in the digital age where most our work in online, relying on word of mouth isn't good enough. It takes just one person to zone out or miss a meeting for everything to be re-explained. Write things down - you will avoid repeating yourself and relying on Chinese whispers.

Write to increase your team's speed

If you don't write things down, your speed as a team, organisation or company slows down. If a decision is not written down, it's not a decision. And at the end of a meeting, if nothing gets written down, nobody knows what happens. They don't know what actions need to be taken. They don't know what happens next. "Oh - I guess we'll need another meeting". Meeting after meeting occurs with nothing written down, no sense of progress or alignment and everything slows to a snail's pace. Write all thoughts down and make sure everyone sees the decision process. At least that way the next meeting will have something to build off instead of saying "What were we talking about again?".

Here's what ineffective meetings looks like.

Compare the above to a series of meetings where everything is written down.

Write and take your work seriously

Strong writers are always viewed as professional and good at their work. A leader who writes their thoughts down come across as articulate and clear. Who know where you stand with someone who has written their thoughts down. You know what their decision process was. You know what their presumptions were.

Write more and improve your work and the work of the people around you.