In my line of work I am often asked how to write a good memo. By “good,” of course, I take it to mean that a memo that doesn’t bristle with anger, spite, or venom. That type of memo is the easiest thing to produce. All you have to do is settle down on your desk while your temples are still throbbing from some slight or simple injustice, imagine your perceived enemy to be a dragon or a monster and you are Sir George, and start clacking away on the computer keyboard or furiously scribbling with your ballpoint pen until the ink spatters on the copy paper. It’s really all that simple. You will feel good at the moment and the words will wonderfully flow like water from a newfound geyser.
But I am usually more circumspect than that. I always assume that instead, you want the memo to be sensible. You want it to (a) state your case clearly, (b) help the addressee quickly reach a receptive frame of mind, (c) make the addressee think mostly of good things about you before he decides on your case or fire back a memo in retaliation, and (d) get you the results that you so fervently desire. Now, of course, this is not as simple as it sounds. Some corporate types have actually recognized how complex it is and have even made a whole science of it. They have termed it as the “two-way interactive communication feedback loop” or something. For me, though, I simply call it the art of making a memo.
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The first thing to do when writing a memo is not to be neurotic about your English. That will often strike you dead on your tracks or force you to retreat behind what the pros call “the writer’s block.” Let good English wait for later. Instead, start by clearly visualizing in your mind, whether in English or the vernacular, exactly who you are writing to. Figure out precisely what kind of person he or she is, what quirks he has, the men and women he likes around him, the club or bar he frequents. You have to intimately know what makes the guy or lady tick and what gets his or her goat. If he loves to have his “Dr.” out front before his name, or his Ph.D., ABC, or DVD at its tail end, give it to him. Depending on your point of view, you will be pleasantly surprised or profoundly shocked at how great the store they put on these things.
Once, I heard a friend with a doctorate lament that the guy who addressed him in a memo forgot or deliberately omitted the “Dr.” before his full name. To add insult to injury, the guy also forgot or deliberately omitted the “S.” of his middle initials. My friend couldn’t get over the slight for days. He spent hours trying to figure out how to get back at his transgressor. His preparations for it became so intense that it assumed the proportions of a major commando raid. Finally, he was ready. He sat down and composed a memo to the transgressor. Licking his chops, he deliberately and triumphantly omitted not only the latter’s “Mr.” but also his first and middle initials as well as his “Jr.” Then, after positioning himself so that he could see the transgressor’s reaction at his cubicle a few meters away, he asked the office messenger to personally hand the memo to him right then and there. I leave it to you to imagine what happened next.
So what is the moral of this story about memos and the corporate environment? It is that when writing a memo, you should never take anything for granted. Be conscious of both the verbals and nonverbals swirling around you. Learn to listen and feel your way around first before writing the memo. Take time to act. Your situation in the corporate, government, or military organization is like that of a cellular phone. You know that it has no wires but a thousand and one wavelengths of messages are impinging on it every second, wanting to get in but could not either because they are not for you or you do not wish to listen to them. But the frequencies are there whether you like it or not. Sometimes, by a fluke or by Divine Providence, a fugitive one manages to squeak through. Some people call it guilt. Some people call it hunch. Some people call it conscience. Some call it inspiration. Some people call it intuition. Some call it fate.
Whatever its name, this fugitive frequency is the one that tells you to catch the writer of the dastardly memo in an unguarded moment—probably eating a ham sandwich or having coffee at the office canteen or whatever. Gently tap him or her on the shoulder, say “Hi!”, admit your mistake or transgression, and say you’re sorry. When you do this, he or she will likely smile at you and the two of you will begin to talk. Oh, just trifles, nothing of much consequence! You just fiddle on the ham sandwich and dawdle over your coffee. You simply remember your good times together and you both forget the bad. Funny that when you do this, you seem to reach a common mental state and a union of sorts. There must be something after all in this nonsense they call face-to-face communication. You become active partners in the corporate organization again.
After the ham sandwich and the coffee, and the parting handshake after that, the corporation suddenly becomes a friendlier and a decidedly less dangerous place. And I will bet you that you may not have to write that memo after all.
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