Passive
Voice = Unprofessional
I was getting ready for a
presentation several months ago, and a client was printing our
materials. At the last minute, the client point of contact called and
said, there's a problem, the
decks didn't get printed.
A couple of weeks ago, at a
hotel before a presentation, I was told by the front desk staff, Unfortunately,
the room isn't ready.
A client executive told me
recently, That action didn't
get done.
My all time favorite example of
this sort of stuff? Mistakes
were made.
These are examples of a
grammatical construction called passive voice. Passive
voice use is
growing, and I think it's an annoying and unprofessional trend.
I
wonder whether when you read the examples, and up until the last one,
you thought, I wonder where's
he's going with this... this seems fine
to me... what's his point?
Here's the problem: we've all
gotten too used to shortening the passive voice into an actor-less
passive voice. For instance, feedback
was given, or, mistakes were
made.
I think what comes across here is an effort to make the person
who did or didn't do something BLAMELESS by leaving them out of the
statement.
If you think this is clever,
it's not. This is not the way to avoid blame for something you didn't
do. (BTW: The way to avoid blame for something you did or didn't do is
to confess to it. You might get the consequences, but blame and
consequences are two different things. Professionals don't shy away
from consequences. They TAKE responsibility.)
At the risk of sounding like a
grammar coach, here's how to avoid the passive voice: state
the person
doing the action first, rather than the thing they acted upon or did.
In the examples above, the decks, the room, action and mistakes were
all things that happened (or didn't), or things that something happened
TO. They are the OBJECT of some action by an actor (a person who takes
an action is an actor; we're not talking about people who make movies
;-) )
What ought we have said?
I
didn't print the decks in time.
We
haven't made the room ready yet.
I
didn't do that.
I
made a mistake.
Stay
in the active voice. It
makes you sound...professional.
PS:
Go back to my first example, the one about the decks not getting
printed. Doesn't it just make you think of little decks running around
all by their lonesomes, hoping to find a way to get printed? I thought
not...but it's a little funny anyway. ;-)
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