William C. “Bill” Taylor is a co-founder of Fast Company magazine and the author of several books, most recently, Simply Brilliant: How Great Organizations Do Ordinary Things in Extraordinary Ways. You can read my review of the book here.
He did a short video for HBR titled “Why You Should Read Your Memo Out Loud.” I love that advice. I didn’t think of it first, but I sure give it to all my clients because your tongue will catch things that your eyes miss. In the video, Taylor tells a story about how he and Alan Webber, the other founder of Fast Company, would read important pieces aloud to each other in “funny voices.” Then (at about 1:54 of the 3:04 video) he says this:
“I feel it’s a tremendous discipline to force me to ask myself, not only am I saying this as clearly as I can, but am I saying it as memorably as I can.”
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