“Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club?” asked Alfred Whitney Griswold, then president of Yale University, in a 1957 baccalaureate address. His answer: “Creative ideas do not spring from groups. They spring from individuals.”
Unfortunately, in the world of nonprofits a lot of writing is done by groups. And not very successfully, either. Writing by committee has been described as the “approval death spiral”: The copy bounces from department to department, with everyone who sees it thinking they have to add, delete, or change something. The result? A mishmash beyond description that leaves readers both cold and confused.
Preamble Ramble
The Harvard Business Review, in a piece a few years back, took the Preamble to the United States Constitution and described what a committee would have done to it: “We the People [Does this include all citizens? What about people who are traveling?] of the United States [Later on you say ‘United States of America.’ Is this a different ‘United States’ here?], in Order to form a more perfect Union [You can't be ‘more perfect.’ Do you mean ‘better’? If so, you need to define better or it could open us up to litigation …]”
What Reviewers Can Do
Most people who cook wouldn’t dream of calling themselves chefs, so why do so many people who write think of themselves as writers? Ironically, many nonprofits have their own copywriters or they contract with writing professionals—and then proceed to butcher the copy that is provided by those pros. They get caught up in the syndrome of that’s-not-the-way-I-would-have-said-it. Several such folks attacking the same piece results in writing that isn’t the way anyone would have said it.
Department heads obviously need to make sure that content is correct. But when the concern is the tone or the angle, then rather than making “improvements” it is better to reconvene those who dreamed up the piece in the first place and discuss the original objectives.
What Writers Can Do
The marketing web site www.marketingprofs.com suggests that to protect themselves from destruction by committee, writers should use a goals worksheet: “a one-page document that states why you're writing the piece, what it must say, and who will review it.” In preparing the goals sheet, talk to the organization’s CEO—and to the person in the organization most likely to disagree with the CEO. Once the worksheet is completed, share it with all the listed reviewers—and share it again as a cover sheet when you send around your first draft of the copy. That helps the reviewers conform to the original goals in their reviews.
Reviewers Actually Can Help
A reviewer whose role is limited to an area of expertise can often help correct and clarify content—a crucial element to effective writing. It’s when everyone on the committee thinks they can edit and/or rewrite the piece that trouble ensues. The best committees know that is not their role.
The Greatest Example
Perhaps the most famous writing committee in the history of the United States was the Committee of Five, which was commissioned by the Continental Congress to write the Declaration of Independence. The committee of high-powered leaders (and writers) included John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and two other founding fathers who are somewhat less famous: Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston. Rather than get into a committee hullabaloo, the five discussed the general outline of the Declaration and then entrusted the first draft to Jefferson. After penning that draft he consulted with the others, made some changes, and wrote a new draft that was presented to Congress on June 28, 1776, and published … oh, about a week later.
In other words, the committee members gave Jefferson input but didn’t actually do any of the writing. The group let the creative ideas spring from … an individual.
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