TZL 1548 (web)

BUSINESS NEWS BOWMAN’S BRUCE LABOVITZ HONORED AS PUBLIC COMPANY CFO OF THE YEAR BY NORTHERN VIRGINIA TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL Bowman Consulting Group Ltd., a national engineering services firm, announced that Bruce Labovitz, the company’s chief financial officer, has been named Public Company CFO of the Year by the Northern Virginia Technology Council. This award recognizes Labovitz’s outstanding

leadership and significant contributions to Bowman and the broader business and technology communities in the National Capital Region. Labovitz has been with Bowman Consulting since 2013 and played a pivotal role in guiding the company through its successful initial public offering in May 2021. His leadership has been instrumental in driving Bowman’s growth and financial strategy.

Gary Bowman, founder and CEO of Bowman, said, “We are incredibly proud of Bruce and this well-deserved recognition. His dedication, expertise and strategic vision have been vital to our success. Bruce’s leadership during and since our IPO has been exemplary, and his ongoing commitment to financial excellence continue to drive Bowman forward.”

However, having clear, overt, and written standards and expectations for writers (hence No. 3 in this list) will help with this problem because it takes a “free-for-all” review and forces it to be focused, giving writers and reviewers laser-like aim on clearly defined, shared goals. 5. No dialogue between reviewers and writers. Writers and reviewers need to talk with one another. A quick sit-down or phone call to discuss why the writer made certain moves and why the reviewer thinks something should be changed is much faster (and more efficient) than multiple emails going back and forth trying to decipher what the other person means. But isn’t that what track changes and comment bubbles are for? In part, yes. Yet, miscommunications happen, and if the feedback isn’t on point to begin with, your writers and your reviewers will be thrown into a cycle of miscommunication, frustration, and inefficiency. 6. Little (if any) constructive feedback on the writing. Bad feedback is often generalized feedback. “Reword,” “unclear,” and “awkward” are examples of bad feedback because they aren’t specific or constructive and don’t provide the writer a path forward for revision. Instead, writers must guess what the reviewer wants and hope they guess correctly. Still, perhaps worse than bad feedback is no feedback. Writing isn’t an arena in which no news is good news. Writers need specifics, and they need to know what should be changed, how to change it, and, more importantly, why it should be changed. They also need to know what they’re doing well so they can continue with those positive behaviors. The more constructive the feedback, the more the writer will learn, and the better their documents will be. Resolving leadership mistakes in your organization’s writing processes can take you from villain of the story to heroic champion of your team’s writing. The change will take time and work, but the benefits are worth the effort. Besides, everyone loves a good redemption story. Elizabeth Preston, Ph.D., is an executive consultant for Hurley Write and the producer and co-host of The Writing Docs podcast. Connect with her on LinkedIn. For more information, contact info@hurleywrite.com.

ELIZABETH PRESTON, from page 9

in and – poof – the writing is suddenly done. Written deliverables and their drafts need deadlines, and writers need time within the project timeline to get the writing done. 2. No time scheduled for focused writing during the workday. Team members need time within their workdays to write without distractions. The time doesn’t have to be every day, but focused writing time needs to be part of the workweek if you expect your team to produce documents that aren’t cringe-worthy. Research shows that distracted writing produces inferior documents when compared to focused writing. But one small phone call, one little email, or one tiny question from a colleague wouldn’t hurt, right? Wrong. Research finds it takes approximately 23 to 25 minutes for people to get back on task and into the swing of writing after attending to a distraction. So, if your team member sets aside one hour for “focused writing” and they get distracted twice, then they probably enjoyed a whopping 13.5 minutes of productive writing time. 3. No clear standards and expectations for the writing. Standards and expectations are different. A standard is a level of quality, something that is accepted as a norm, and generally used as a basis for judgment. An expectation is a belief something is going to happen or a feeling someone is going to achieve something. Standards are the stepping stones to reach desired expectations. For example, you can have both a standard that your writers adjust the technical language in their documents to meet their target audience’s knowledge level and a standard of defining any unfamiliar jargon for the target audience. Those standards can then guide your writers to achieve expectations for writing a “clear” document. The problem arises when expectations may be expressed, but standards are implied or missing. You can, and should, have expectations. But your team needs clear, overt, and written standards if they are to meet expectations. 4. Unclear and/or unreasonable expectations for reviewers. Expecting reviewers to “fix” writing doesn’t give reviewers standards by which to judge written documents, provide feedback, and help writers improve. Mostly, it frustrates and confuses.

THE ZWEIG LETTER AUGUST 5, 2024, ISSUE 1548

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