The Paradox of the Business Writer
Writing in the business world can highlight a gap between a company's words and actions. A company may praise its writing teams but not give them the respect they deserve or include them in essential meetings and discussions.
At one company where I worked, a newly hired VP on another team developed a new content strategy, purchased a new tool with a knowledge base module, and created a spreadsheet detailing which pages should be public or private. Despite being the tech writer responsible for managing these pages, I wasn't invited to tool demos to assess product functionality or asked for feedback on the spreadsheet. My input on page analytics, SEO data, and overall recommendations was overlooked. After I heard about the meetings from another manager, I created a deck and proactively emailed it to my senior management, who agreed with and backed my assessments, but it should have never reached that point.
Another place had several qualified copywriters who wrote all content the company sent out, from news articles to training material, yet every week, executives (C-Suite people who managed large teams and had a lot on their plates) would gather to review and meticulously edit every line of copy before it went out to the public. I was not a writer at this company, but as a PM, I witnessed individuals who couldn't distinguish between a noun and an adjective, let alone a gerund and an adverbial clause, dictating changes to people they paid to do this work.
“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”
Of course, no writer is perfect, and feedback is essential. However, I've never seen a non-programmer critique a line of Python code to a developer, nor have I seen someone without a law degree advise the patent lawyer on the best approach for protecting intellectual property. Similarly, non-technical people don’t second-guess QA test cases, and English-only speakers don’t correct verb choices in French made by the localization team.
Why does this happen to writers? Writing is often subject to confident correction because everyone has experience writing, leading some to believe they can write just as well as the paid professionals. However, a significant difference exists between doing something and doing it well.
As such, writers can find themselves at the bottom of the decision-making hierarchy. You might expect me, as a writer, to argue that this is inherently wrong. However, it depends on the context.
Regarding content strategy, it would be wise to include the people who work on the tools and processes and ensure consistency in tone and style, particularly when implementing changes in a writer’s paradigm (e.g., product documentation, marketing collateral, or social media). By involving writers in content strategy discussions, they can ensure content aligns with broader business objectives and communication goals.
However, writers can be tactical and thus only informed (the “I” in RACI) in other aspects of their job. For example, if I ranked the most critical elements that determine the success of a communications campaign, it would look like this:
objective
target audience
distribution list
delivery strategy
content
The writer's deliverable is at the bottom because if the first four items are poorly executed, great copy won’t save the campaign.
Yet, content is still an essential item on that list in many ways because even if you excel in other areas, lousy content or grammatical errors can ruin a campaign or damage brand trust. Content is, after all, the only item on that list that the company controls and can improve.
Savvy managers understand this seemingly contradictory reality. While writers may not receive the same glory or compensation as engineers or product managers, they can thrive and grow under the right leader and team, and the paradox is not a cause for concern.