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Why consistency is over-rated - and Novak kicking out
In reports, many people strive for ‘consistency', they feel it’s the crock of gold at the end of the report-writing rainbow. I don't, and today's email explains why.
OK...firstly, yes, we should be consistent in our reports' goals – we want reports to be clear, the right length, etc. People then believe that consistency helps us achieve those goals - and they create ‘content’ templates, e.g. ‘Section.1: summary; Section.2: background, etc.
And why not? Surely templates prevent omissions, plus ensure reports have a similar order – which must help bosses when reading them all, no?
No. Templates hinder, as these two previous emails explain. By way of summary, templates don’t solve the problem of bad reports; often, they are the reason for bad reports.
But even if templates aren't the panacea, maybe consistency still is, so perhaps we should seek other ways to get consistency. After all, when we manage staff, we strive to be consistent - if we scold Pat for being late, we should also scold Les if they’re late.
Now imagine we've two staff, and one is great and the other rubbish. We don't give the same bonus to both just to be 'consistent'. As Thomas Jefferson said: “There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people”.
So too with report-writing.
Not all report-writers are equal: there’s nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal report-writers. Writing abilities vary a lot. Some writers are great, others need help to ensure they include all key facts - I often read Proposals whose Summaries forget to say how much the projects will cost.
Maybe a checklist or template would help - but imagine how long it needs to be to prevent every possible omission. And it’s unlikely to help – even with it, bad writers will still do bad reports. We give people section headings to follow, yet don’t teach them how to write well. Result: they populate the sections with rubbish.
It’s a weird process and not one we'd embrace outside work. I play hockey, and I could give a bunch of non-hockey players a ‘template’ for the game: “You’ll play left back, so you mark the opponent’s right wing. You’ll play right back… so please sit on their left wing” etc. Would they play well? Of course not. Yes, I’ve told them who to do what and where – a ‘template’ - but I forgot to teach them key stuff: how to hit a ball, stop a ball, etc.
That’s what we do with templates: “We won’t teach you how to write well, but here’s some headings to fill in – good luck!”. It’s an idea that's doomed to fail.
To conclude, it's wrong to treat all report-writers consistently. But there's more.
Not all reports are equal: to paraphrase Jefferson again: “There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal reports”. There's no such thing as a 'best' order for reports, for it depends on many factors. Are we pushing on an open or closed door? How familiar are readers with the problem or proposal? How easy is it to grasp? How engaged are readers? How quickly can we describe the before? Etc.
OK, certain bits are sacrosanct, e.g. the Summary should come first… but what after that? Perhaps more background, followed by problems, options, evaluation, benefits, conclusions, next steps. Then again, maybe More Background is for the Appendix – but that means we start with problems, and that’s negative. And how to structure something multi-layered? Imagine we’ve five problems, and for each, a recommendation. We could do two sections: The five problems, then The five recommendations. Or five sections, one for each problem and its recommendation. What’s best? There is not One Template To Rule Them All.
So it's also wrong to treat all reports consistently. But there's more.
Not all report-lengths are equal: on training days, I’ve seen two eight-page reports, and their authors told me that one report should actually be just three sentences, and the other was justifiably eight pages. But – I suppose – if they’re both eight pages, at least it's consistent… (and templates helped them both stretch to eight pages).
Perhaps we could give writers guidance on report-length, e.g. “one page max for the summary”. But the best length of a summary is (wait for it...): whatever it needs to be. It depends on what it’s summarising. A summary for a two-pager will be shorter than a summary for a 200-pager. Also, it depends on what we need to convey – if all is fine, be brief (“It’s fine”).
To conclude, consistency is over-rated. Report writers are different. There's no 'content’ template to rule them all. And the ideal report-length is… well, it depends.
What to do instead? Next month, we look at the antithesis of consistency in reports: creativity. (Spoiler alert: creativity is great, but most people have flawed ideas on how to get it…) You also see a trick for conveying lists with more oommpphh.
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