Bank examiners at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, have dramatically improved the clarity and impact of their written reports, says Harvard Business Review.

The Philadelphia Fed hired Jessica Weber to improve the bank examiners’ writing, focusing on ways to make it more efficient and succinct, streamline the review process, and generally make the documents clearer and more effective.

The technique that Weber used to improve writing at the bank is unusual for the corporate world but common at colleges and universities: a writing centre.

In a university setting, a writing centre is a place where students can work with a tutor to improve a piece of writing.

Writing centre coaching sessions typically have two goals: to improve the specific document being edited and to train the writer in better techniques so that their writing improves over time.

Weber made some careful choices in how to run the program:

• The program was voluntary. This ensured that no one would perceive being sent to the writing centre as some sort of punishment or remedial effort on the part of their managers. Because the writers maintained control of their content, there was no stigma in participating.
• The feedback was in person or by phone. The examiners were used to getting dozens or hundreds of contradictory comments over a period of weeks from their managers and other staff. Managing and dealing with these sorts of redline markups is a huge effort, just as it is in other corporate settings. But Weber offered her feedback on one draft at a time, in half-hour sessions with an emphasis on coaching the examiners on better writing techniques — training through editorial coaching.
• The feedback was outside of normal management channels. Except in rare circumstances, the writing center did not report session results to examiners’ managers. This allowed the writers in the program to be more open about problems they were having.
• The writing centre encouraged repeat visits. About 63% of those who came for coaching returned for another session.
• They measured the results. To prove the program worked, Weber and her managers found ways to measure writing quality before and after the coaching session. Looking at 20 writing samples from before the program and 20 revisions from the writers who had gone through it, senior officers at the Philly Fed rated each piece of writing on organization, support and analysis, clarity, grammar, and other factors. To eliminate bias, the writing centre removed details from the samples that might identify the examiners who had written them or specific banks.

The experienced managers’ ratings showed:

• a 36% improvement in overall quality
• a 56% improvement in organization
• a 48% improvement in clarity
• a 38% improvement in support and analysis.
• a 20% improvement in grammar

We are convinced that a writing centre like this can improve the writing culture in many organizations.

Here’s what you need to make this work for your company:

• A belief at the top that improving writing is worth it. Bad writing is destroying your organization’s productivity. In a survey of 547 business writers, 81% said  poorly written material wasted a lot of their time. Before you can fix the problem, you need to get your management to admit that there is a problem.
• A collection of similar writers. Weber’s program worked in part because the bank examiners’ jobs are all similar. The same might apply to technical writers, analysts, or people who write internet copy. When you have a collection of writers like this, you can develop a set of criteria, materials, and training methods to help them. You can also measure the results, as Weber did.
• A voluntary programme that management encourages. While a mandatory program might work, a voluntary program like Weber’s is more likely to succeed because it selects for motivated individuals. If you can make sure that those who get the training get specific benefits, then they’ll spread word of mouth and encourage others to participate. But you’ll get nowhere unless managers see the value of the program and get behind it.
• A focus on learning through editing. ”Writing training” sounds like a chore. But editorial coaching sounds more like something helpful. Editing fixes documents. Editing with an emphasis on lessons to learn fixes writers. Editors send documents back with fixes. Editorial coaches, like Weber, take the time to make sure the lessons of their edits actually stick.
• A commitment to measure results. Succeeding is not enough; you have to prove you succeeded. Weber’s program did that, which is why she had the license to expand her work to other parts of her organization.

A writing centre is an effective way to lift an organization’s writing culture by its bootstraps. That means everybody can spend less time puzzling out incomprehensible messages and more time actually getting things done.