Of course your people can write.
But does their writing produce the outcomes you want?

Judgement. Confidence. Action.

Decision makers rely on four things from writing. Clarity is one - they need to know what a piece of writing is about.

But to make good decisions, they also need:

Judgement: What does this mean for me or the organisation?
Confidence: Why should I believe it?
Action: What decision or response is needed?

Writing to Influence Decisions helps technically capable people move beyond simply presenting information, and instead write in a way that supports confident decisions and action.

Who is this for?

Writing to Influence Decisions is ideal for professionals who produce:

• reports
• recommendations
• audit findings
• risk assessments
• business cases
• advisory papers
• decision briefs
• strategic analysis

What the training looks like

Here's an example of the kind of work we do in Writing to Influence Decisions. Below is a clear but ordinary piece of writing. It's informative, but it doesn't support good decision making.

Weak version

The team has reviewed current reporting processes and identified inconsistencies in how regional offices submit monthly data. These inconsistencies may affect the quality of reporting and should be considered as part of future process improvement work.

Participants are invited to revise this paragraph from the reader’s perspective, ensuring:

• The decision is visible.
• The consequence is clear.
• The recommendation is specific.
• The timing matters.
• The writing helps the reader act.

After reworking, the paragraph looks something like this:

Stronger version

We recommend introducing a single reporting template across all regional offices from 1 September. Current reporting differences are creating avoidable gaps in monthly performance data, which means the executive team cannot reliably compare regions or identify emerging delivery risks. Standardising the template now will improve reporting confidence before the next quarterly review.

One interesting feature of the revised paragraph is that it's longer than the original. While brevity is to be applauded, more important is how useful the writing is to the reader. This is one of the features that makes Writing to Influence Decisions a business course, not simply a course in how to write elegantly.

Who uses this training