Why “Writing like A Civil Servant” isn’t such a bad thing…
hile at a recent (and very enjoyable) panel discussion of public affairs experts, a few comments made by the speakers caused me to pause and think.
Without any major offence intended, two of the three guest speakers happen to mention how ‘writing like a civil servant’ was something they worked hard to avoid in their private sector roles.
As someone who has worked in both public and private sector communications, these casual comments did cause me to pause and think - why is the civil service seen as the more boring, beige approach to communications? And is that fair?
So here’s my two cents….
Most civil service language needs to be detailed.
A huge part of any civil service’s work is policy writing and drafting legislation, which just cannot avoid detail. I actually take comfort in this, while raising my eyes and cursing the heavens when I have to read the damn stuff. Legislation never makes for a great yarn - and boy does it mean good coffee, a highlighter pen and some decent levels of concentration - but being a best seller on the New York Times Books list isn’t in its aim. Legislation and detailed policy is also not an easily thing to whittle down into a single snappy sentence.
Civil servants don’t easily get the credit for good communications, but can easily get the blame for the bad stuff.
In my time working within Government, I was always struck by how Government/civil service/public service all gets kind of lumped together in general conversation.
Government Ministers, those working behind glass counters in Intreo offices, nurses, Guards, those leading Departments, or those running State Agencies, political advisors - all are kinda mashed together in public discourse and can be seen as just one big giant gang of public serviceness.
However, internally these differences really matter, more than people may realise. Those in the civil service have a different set of rules to public servants, as do those working ‘on the political side’ (aka Ministers and their Advisors). And there is only one group that really holds the microphone. And it’s not the civil or public servants.
Largely due to how the Irish Governmental system is built, public facing communications are left to Ministers - which makes the civil servants appear faceless or lacking accountability. And therefore easier to tar with the boring/negative/look-at-the-state-of-them/why-did-they-write-that brush. This isn’t always fair and without many opportunities to refute comments - rightly or wrongly- made about them, can really be very frustrating.
Some of the best speeches? Written by civil servants.
Some of the best speeches I’ve heard, more often than not, were written by someone working in the public sector.
From seeing how those speeches get drafted, it’s pretty usual that the first main draft is crafted by a civil servant known for having the ‘knack of speech writing’ before being polished up by the political advisor team (who, for divilment’s sake can I point out are not also working in the private sector when doing that role….). For the big flagship speeches, political advisors lead in the drafting, working closely with key civil servants to craft the final nuances of language and deliver the final polished script that Ministers take to the podium with.
Private sector isn’t always winning awards for their writing
Sure Lucy Kellaway made a career out of finding fantastic private sector speak. Why call it a redundancy when you can name it an ‘investment lay-off’ or ‘an orderly ramp down’? Just like there are some great public sector organisation communications, there's some truly terrible private sector speak that we all know about.
That's ultimately where my thoughts on this ended up at. That it’s a very natural, easy thing to use generalisations, like civil service = boring, dry language, and that it’s the private sector that is all cutting edge and packed full of whizz-bang communications brilliance.
However, having now worked in both public and private sectors, there isn't one that is great and one that is awful. What I’ve learnt is:
Waffle is waffle and everyone is at it regardless where they work
Some folk are a bit better at hacking at that waffle as well as really understanding audiences and how to reach them (and not just what they themselves like and enjoy when it comes to communications) - and you can find these folk in both the public and private sector
Regardless of where you work, we all have got to keep working on making communications sharper, clearer and information more easily understood- especially in this increasingly busy world.