Creativity Tips

To begin with, let us understand how business writing is different from other styles of writing.

Business writing entails the use of highly formal language. This style of writing is also very structured. Whether it is an email, report, or article, writers are required to stick to a particular format.

Secondly, there is no room for elaborate prose in business writing. Once you enroll for courses in business writing, you will become acquainted with the emphasis given on concisely presenting concepts, without the fluff.

Lastly, like every style of writing, business writing has its own jargon and grammar that you must acquaint yourself with.

There are many types of business writing. They include the following.

1. Instructional

This type of writing provides readers with accurate and concise information that they can follow. It might include writing steps to complete a task or solve a problem. You might use or sample instructional business writing in memos, user manuals, and product or design specifications.

2. Informational

This type of writing offers information to readers, which they can refer to and make informed decisions with. Business reports, financial statements, and meeting minutes are examples of informational business writing.

3. Transactional

This type of writing refers to the routine communication held among employees. Professional emails, letters, direct messages, and invoices all fall under this category of business writing.

Moving on to the glaring question, how do you choose the best business writing course?

Free or paid?

When you search for courses in business writing, you will find both free and paid online courses. Choosing between the two depends on your means and your areas of weakness.

While a free course may not be as intensive, immersive, or thorough, it could prove useful if you are only beginning and want to understand the basic principles of writing.

Correlate course content with your strengths and weakness.

No matter whether you are looking at a free or a paid course, it is always wise to read the course content carefully. You can then correlate the content that is being taught to what you wish to learn. If it is a match, then you can consider going ahead.

In addition, you must remember that effective business communication is not restricted to one skill (writing). It is a curious amalgamation of knowing and honing different crafts, such as grammar, editing, proofreading, formal language, persuasive writing, paragraph structuring, and the like. With this in mind, you can look at courses in business writing that offer a wholesome course outline, as opposed to restricting it to the principles of writing.

Alternatively, depending on the type of writing you use more frequently, you can focus on courses that cover the art of writing resumes, emails, cover letters, and so on.

Furthermore, you can take an objective look at your previous business writing samples or ask a trustworthy instructor to grade your skills and identify your weakest areas.

For instance, your grammatical and spelling prowess may be superlative, but you may need to master the art of writing formally. Identifying your strengths and weaknesses is a crucial step that promises to help you get the most out of any business writing course.

Lastly, do check the qualifications or publications of the instructors helming the business writing course you are interested in. Ideally, they should have a Masters or a Doctorate specific to business writing with literature publications to support their qualifications.

Reviews of other students who have attended the course you are interested in are also a great help in knowing more about how people have benefitted from the course, in their professional careers.

Creativity in business people is highly underrated. Often the corporate environment takes a toll on the thinking ability of even the best white collar-worker. Faced as they are with routine tasks most of their time, corporate workers go about mechanically doing their work. The power of habit makes them apply their skills mechanically even to tasks that require a bit of creativity. Needless to say, this has an adverse effect both for the employer and the employee. So what’s the way out? Some critics say that creativity is stifled by most business environments. In the name of keeping their employees occupied, managers load them up with repetitive routine work. Let’s explore some of the ways creativity in business can be explored fruitfully by employers and employees:

Allow Room for Innovation

Businesses try to carry out their operations with order. This means that often employee actions are guided down to the last detail. However, such processes can get stifling for the employee and result in a sense of ennui for them. Practising innovation in the workplace is the best way to spark creativity. Innovation does not mean just thinking outside the box. Each business process should have a set of guidelines specific to it for guiding innovation. New practices coming up from the workforce must be highlighted and encouraged. This leads to a virtuous circle with more employees thinking creatively and applying the effects of innovation to the process or even the organisation as a whole.

Leave Time out for Introspection

Activity in the workplace is too often measured in the form of giving or letting employee energy outward to a variety of tasks like reports, meetings and presentations. You may see employees feeling exhausted inwardly at the end of the day purely by cerebral labour. Inculcate the practice of introspection among the employees as an optional feature. A little time can be set aside before starting the task for the employee to focus inwardly and visualise some calmness. This can be considered akin to meditation and the beneficial results do become apparent over a period of time.

Adequate Time for Task Completion

This could be a bit of a no-no with bosses because it is necessary to push the employees towards completing work and they have to face the music if work does not get done. However employees feel harried as they multi-task and rush from routine to routine. Managers can let employees plan their work and ensure they stick to the timelines, so that a last minute burst is avoided. The benefits of adequate time for task completion are that it allows the mind to suggest ways and means of actually improving the output rather than just focusing on the completion part of it.

Take Team Meetings Away from the Office

By now, we accept routine kills creativity. So breaking routine might just help in recharging your team’s creativity. Hold a meeting in a park or by a poolside and keep it relaxed. Use such occasions to allow freethinking and calmness among the team. A casual atmosphere and relaxed conversation are very conducive to sparking creativity among team members. It also forms bonds of friendship among the members which can reflect in their output in the office.