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Editing: the engine that drives engagement

If your pub quiz speciality is Beyoncé, how do you react when you read something about her which is patently and absolutely wrong? Or, if you know how to use the English language correctly, what’s your default action when you trip over a misplaced colon?

Generally, when we know beyond all doubt that the writer of the piece in question has got it wrong, we stop trusting them and move on. Possibly forever.

Newspapers use fact checking – sub-editing as it used to be called – to weed out the inaccurate and incorrect, plus sloppy grammar, syntax and spelling, from articles so that readers can have confidence in what they read.

It is exactly the same with business reports, proposals and other communication across the world of commerce.

Editing, and only editing, polishes the written word to transform it from raw aggregate into a polished jewel.

Possibly of even greater value, editing can save you from making an idiot of yourself – even if you are a techie and believe you rule the world and never make mistakes.

In the commercial world, where mistakes are no laughing matter and can cost firms millions, professional and dispassionate editing saves reputations, jobs and profits.

Sometimes businesses do their own editing – recent examples include Enron and Arthur Anderson – but generally that does not lead to good results…

Who had the fish?

Three people at lunch. It’s a ‘getting to know each other’ event, from which, all parties fondly hope, new business will flow and flourish.

All went well. One person from one company; two from the other.

When the bill arrived, it was automatically split into two by one of the pair which meant, effectively, that the solo person paid more than their fair share.

Does this matter, even slightly? Everyone hates those people who calculate ‘who had what’ at a group dining event. Of course it doesn’t matter, per se. But that brief moment at the end of the meal was significant. It was what is known in poker circles, as a ‘tell’.

What it told the solo person was this: the pair from the other company, or at least one of them, cannot be relied upon to be entirely straightforward about money and does not naturally consider the equal rights of others.

Can a proper business relationship be well founded and be made to thrive and prosper in such circumstances? Of course it can – so long as the party likely to be the loser is aware of the motives of the others.

From recognising and remembering little signs like this, poker players can win great sums or, by ignoring them, they can lose everything. And business is, at all times, nothing more than a gamble – unless you’re an undertaker or tax inspector.