Kerrying On: The Power of the Pen

In last month's "Kerrying On" I introduced you to my neighbor Dr. Alan Christensen. We found him scurrying down a mountain in Guatemala where he stumbled across a small Maya village. Today I pick up where I left off. After a lengthy introduction to the village chief and elders, Alan asked for directions down the mountain. As you may recall, he was worried about getting attacked by wild dogs and it was growing dark and dangerous. The locals assured him that his journey would be safe—one of them would accompany him to his destination.

Before Alan could continue his journey, one of the villagers asked him what had taken him up the mountain in the first place. He explained that he had been compiling a dictionary of their language. His answer took the natives by surprise. They had known that the Spanish language could be written, but it had never occurred to them that their own language could ever be captured on stone or paper. Alan assured them that not only could it be, but that there language had been written centuries earlier but lost. In fact, the land around them was filled with ancient temples that contain a great deal of early Maya writing.

"What did our ancestors have to say to us?" one of the elders asked. Alan was actually carrying the translation of one of the more famous passages (to archeologists, not to the Maya), so he pulled it out and read it to them. They sat in silence, eagerly listening. Tears ran down their cheeks as they heard for the first time the wisdom of their much-honored predecessors. "Are there other words? Where can we find all of what they had to say to us?"

As Alan explained that scholars were working on translating other writings, one of the elders asked, "Could I speak aloud to you and then you write down my words—for my children?" "Yes," the others chimed in, "Could you write our words?" Alan didn't make it down the mountain that evening. Instead, he played the role of scribe as eager fathers composed words of wisdom to their offspring. Finally, the chief invited him into his hut where he privately composed a document for his only son. He had already lost seven children, and now his only remaining son had been struck with tuberculosis. He wanted to write a message to him before he was inevitably taken by the disease. He poured his heart out as Alan sat and wrote.

As I listened to Alan tell this story, I was startled. To not know of your own written language, of even the possibility of it, struck me as almost unbelievable. I was intrigued to learn that their immediate interest was to hear the words of their ancestors—to learn from the wisdom of the ages, and that they were consumed with the ideas of writing down their thoughts for their own children.

How different we are from the Maya. For the Maya, who saw and heard the written word for the first time, the value of the written word was incalculable. To those of us who live in a veritable sea of text, the marginal utility of the next written word approaches zero. Of course, our indifference is understandable. Displaying the ingredients on the side of a cereal box makes the written word at once trivial. Since a codified system can be applied to any and all words, including Cocoa Puff ingredients, most of us have developed methods to insulate ourselves from the unrelenting deluge of minutia, sales pitches, and unsolicited advice that streams before us each day. We not only don't value the written word very much, we're sometimes annoyed by its omnipresence.

Which brings me to today's topic. Most of us don't write much of substance anymore. Unlike the Maya elders who, after knowing of their written language for only a few minutes had already composed notes of love and advice to their children, we haven't done the same with our own offspring despite the fact that we ourselves have known how to write for decades. Damn those cereal boxes. Somewhere between penning our first "I love you mommy," and writing a term paper on the digestive system of the worm, we stopped writing our feelings and deep thoughts to others.

Writing just isn't our medium of choice any more. As leaders we certainly don't write serious thought pieces or calls to action, and as parents we rarely write words of adoration or instruction. Today we compose e-mails—often unpunctuated and almost always brief. The coin of today's verbal realm is idle chit chat or abbreviated business-speak.

To put this change in communication style into perspective, consider the following startling fact: Thomas Jefferson wrote over 20,000 letters during his career. Of course, if I wrote with the majesty and eloquence of Thomas Jefferson, I'd write more letters too. But it's not just a matter of ability. Most of us no longer want to write. We choose not to. Maybe we're reluctant to express ourselves in writing because red marks scribbled on our papers have made us unduly cautious. Our first attempts to capture our thoughts and dreams typically fell under the chilling gaze of grammarians who accused us of dangling our modifiers and splitting our infinitives when all we really wanted to do was tell a story and have someone read it. Maybe even like it.

At work, we write precious little of any real substance and we write sparsely. We write bullets, and often we don't write at all. Instead we hold meetings. Talking is fast, cheap, and interactive. Talking requires no style guide, spell check, or grammar review. And let's not forget the really big benefit of oral argument: If you don't put anything in writing, you aren't committing to something that people can later rub your nose in. Nobody ever made a photocopy of something stupid you said in a meeting and circulated it around the company. But write down something dumb...

And yet, writing remains a powerful tool of influence. I once worked on a long-term change effort where I wrote a weekly e-mail to all of the leaders. In the document I described what we had done that week and why. I shared theory and philosophy. I honestly described both successes and failures. I even expressed my concerns and feelings. Often the document was a full two pages long.

At first I worried that the weekly two-pager was both out of step and over the top, but soon learned that the documents were becoming the voice of the company. People would stop me in the hall and ask questions or make comments. Consistently reading the same ideas kick-started substantive conversations. It drew people together in a way that I hadn't imagined. We didn't just work together—we were facing a common enemy and discussing the ways and means of bringing about change. Water cooler talk transformed from light-weight sports analysis and petty gripes to thoughtful discussions of where we were trying to take the company and what it would take to get there. An atmosphere of concern and criticism slowly shifted to one of guarded optimism. We were on the mend and everyone was a playing a role in the healing.

In retrospect I'm convinced that while the change project lay at the heart of the transformation I witnessed, it was the fact that the purpose and progress was written and shared that propelled it along so quickly. In one click of the send button I magically appeared before every leader and spoke my heart. I wasn't merely sending along a joke of the week or a clever cartoon, I was discussing items of substance.

Perhaps the best business use of writing is less technically mediated and more in line with the letters of Thomas Jefferson. Donald Peterson, former President of Ford Motor used to sit down each morning and handwrite thank-you notes to people he worked with. He considered the time he spent composing words of genuine gratitude the most important few minutes of the day. The people who received his simple and heart-felt words of thanks felt the same way.

And how about parents? Should they make more use of the written word? When my oldest daughter took a job in Ecuador, I wrote her letters. I expressed my love and concern for her along with daily chit chat and updates on sports and current events. They were the first letters I had composed since 1966 when I was living in Brazil and wrote to my own parents. I hadn't written a letter for over thirty years because the phone had replaced my pen. However, with the cost of international calls being sky high, I returned to letters. Since writing down my thoughts seemed more formal and important to me than merely chatting, I made an effort to express deeper and more meaningful ideas and feelings than I would have left to my natural proclivities. My daughter still has all of the letters I wrote her in Ecuador.

I'm reminded of the movie The Great Santini. When Santini's oldest son turns 16, his mother writes him a letter and places it in his lunch bag. In it she expresses her love and appreciation for the man he has become. It's a beautiful piece of writing and I've often thought of that scene, wondering how many of us have the courage to do the same. Will we take the time to place our thoughts on paper, where they are recorded forever and can be easily recalled years, even centuries, later? Mostly not. Either we don't think to write down our thoughts or we're afraid of placing them in public view—it's more difficult than it sounds. In the words of author Gene Fowler, when it comes to writing: "Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead."

But like it or not, fear it or not, the written word still has an important place in our lives. The day will come when we are gone and the only thing left of us will be our written words. The Maya understood this concept the minute they learned that they could write their thoughts to their children. I'm just now coming to the same understanding.