Competency and Performance Solutions

Spelling is not a moral issue. It is not an intelligence issue. Good spelling is related to factors like visual sequential memory, and good spellers were born with the talent. Richard Branson and Charles Schwab can’t spell. Spelling bees are just one more way we kill kids’ confidence in schools.

Stop apologizing for spelling, and start using your strengths (i.e. thinking). You need some work-arounds if you are not a natural speller.  These include using spellcheck (always), building and using a homophone chart, and enjoying collaborative writing. A friendly proof-reader/copy-editor is very useful for customer-facing documents. The internet also has many editing sites that provide copy-editing for big and small companies, at very affordable rates, and they give you results within hours.

Second-language English users have several other options.  For ordinary correspondence,  simply write “I am writing in my second (or third, fourth etc) language,” early on in an email. We are a global community, working to communicate across distances and differentness, and people understand if your writing is not perfect.

Translation sites like Bablefish do not produce good English. However these sites are very helpful if your spelling is weak in your second language. Write your letter in very short ‘active’ sentences in your first language: subject, verb, object. Then clip and paste the English text into your document, and you can use this as a basis for your writing.

Create a homophone chart. Here are some ideas to start with. Here is a funny version. Edit it to suit your own problem words, and change it as you master some words, or find others that give you problems. Change the simple definitions if they do not work for you. Avoid the grammar-police-types if they try to make your chart complicated: these are the people who like to  explain things like ‘how affect can occasionally be a noun’. Don’t make your list too long – you don’t need words like wretch or leech, which you will never use in your business career.

accept – to take graciously. I accepted the gift.
except – not including. He ate it all, except for the spicy chillis.

affect – a verb. It affected me really badly.
effect – a noun. It had a very bad effect on me.

a lot – the opposite of a little.
allot – to allocate, e.g. an allotment, a lottery.
alot  – there is no such word. Continue reading »

You’re dealing with a client, co-worker, outsource project team member or supplier, and need to guess more about his/her thought style to work more effectively together.

You can guess a client’s or remote colleague’s generation from their writing, and give them appropriate service or packaged data.

Mature/Traditional: No emoticons. The writer thinks smiley faces are unprofessional and signs of lazy writing. You’ll tend to see longer, more complex sentences, and spelling is really good. Paragraphing is usually excellent, with careful punctuation. Continue reading »