Organizing Refusals and/or Negative Letters To Peers or Subordinates
General Hints:
1) Use much You-Attitude: Protect the reader's ego.
Avoid using "I" or "We" and "You".
Only use "we" if it includes the reader and is positive: We can work this out.
Only use "I" and "You" if the phrase is positive and protects the reader: I am sorry. I want to help you. You did your best.
This is one of the few places in your writing to favor the passive voice (the passive voice generally hides the subject of the sentence and begins with the object.)
Active Voice: You are delinquent in your payment. I am pissed off at you. You will suffer if you do not pay up.
Passive Voice: The delinquent payment is due. Anger is being experienced. Suffering may occur if the funds are not paid.
Hide the Negative: Bury the bad news in a paragraph so that they cannot see it when they skim the letter; this will make them read the letter before finding the bad news.
Organization:
Generally, order paragraphs and/or content in the following order:
1) Reason: When you have a good reason that the reader will find easy to understand and accept, give the reason before the refusal.
2)
Refusal/Negative News: Avoid over-emphasizing a refusal, but still make it
crystal clear.
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De-emphasizing a refusal may make the refusal unclear or confusing.
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Don’t put a refusal in its own paragraph; try to tie a refusal into the second
paragraph.
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The positive message should be directly related to the topic.
- Be sincere and empathetic; don't tell someone to "have a nice day" if you've just blown a whole in their lives.
Example: Johnny Can't Read