1.4: Why doesn’t this Book just tell me What to do?

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Especially if you went to school in an education system that emphasizes memorization and repetition, you might be frustrated by parts of this book. That’s because this book resists telling you the “right” way to do things. It will give you strategies for success, show you examples of successful workplace documents, and introduce you to people who doing workplace communication well, but you won’t find many templates.

That’s because business communication is all about making decisions. If your instructor tells you that there’s just one way to write a memo, you will struggle when you get hired in a workplace that does memos differently, or that doesn’t use memos at all. Already, social media, Slack/Discourse and other new communication platforms are changing the way we communicate in the workplace. If you can make good communication decisions and use the habits of a successful writer, you can be successful anywhere.