A Climate of Fear among Technical Communicators?

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008 | Technical Communication

In the opening meeting of the 2008 Society for Technical Communication (STC) Summit in Philadelphia, several members of the society participated in a panel discussion moderated by Paula Berger. They spent most of the discussion talking about how the technical communicator needs to convince management that she solves business problems—specifically communication problems.

I agree that technical communicators need to provide value. Anyone in any job needs to provide value, or there’s no reason to keep you there taking up space and expending resources. But if you’re valuable, management will want you to stay. Let me illustrate.

In high school, I worked in a grocery store as a bagger with the inflated title of “courtesy clerk.” I worked through the summer and into the following school year until, in November, I decided that it was a little much in addition to my schoolwork, and good grades were more important to me than money. I put in a two weeks’ notice to my manager.

The next time I came in for a shift, this manager asked to talk to me, and he asked, “What do I need to do to get you to stay?” He did explain that because it was coming on to Thanksgiving, which of course is a busy time for a grocery store, and he was short on help, he needed me to keep working there. He didn’t say that I was an exceptional worker, but there were others that I think he would have allowed to work the last two weeks and go on their merry way. I worked hard, did everything I was asked to do, and provided some value. Therefore, the manager was willing to make a couple of concessions in order for me to keep working there.

Same situation in technical communication. But one of the feelings I came away from the session with was that there seems to be a cloud of anxiety over some of the society that the end of tech comm in your organization is imminent. You’d better get management on your side before you find yourself spending your days on Monster and Career Builder.

True, there are many technical communicators who have been casualties of downsizing and budget cuts because they and their services were seen as expendable. So you do have to convince management that you’re not. But to live your life in a daily fear that you’re going to be laid off any day now is unhealthy.

That mentality distorts your motives. It’s defensive and reactive instead of productive and proactive.

I think protection lies in being inventive. If management and your peers see that you go beyond the bare minimum and the mediocre because you’re interested in what you’re doing, they’ll see value. If you invent in order to solve problems and to benefit your team and the organization, they’ll see value. On the other hand, for most people at least, anxiety isn’t going to be productive. Some people thrive on extra stress, but for most people, it’s enervating.

My recommendation is to replace spending your day thinking how you can keep your job with thinking how you can invent and how you can strengthen your organization’s position.

I’d like to see your thoughts on working proactively instead of defensively.

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5 Comments to 'A Climate of Fear among Technical Communicators?'

Rhonda
June 5, 2008

Hear, hear!

Interestingly, I’ve heard this same fear expressed by practitioners in another ‘helping’ profession I was involved with in a previous career—librarianship.

It’s all about reinventing yourself and grasping the opportunities given to you with both hands. Sometimes it’s hard to see the opportunities, but they abound in any organisation. You just have to lift your eyes from the keyboard, remove the iPod ear buds, and think a little outside the box. That doesn’t mean changing careers—it means enhancing the one you have and becoming a valued member of the team/company/organisation/whatever. It means participating, not being a passive observer. It means stepping out of your comfort zone, and it means saying “I’ll try that” even if you’ve never done it before.

You may still get laid off, but at least you’ll have more employable skills than you had before you said “Yes, I’ll give that a go”. And you’ll have a better attitude to participatory work instead of being the person who always gets told what to do by a boss.

I wasn’t at the conference, but I’ve heard Andrea Ames speak on this before (I believe she was one of the panellists). Her message tends to be just like the one I’ve given above, and I’ve never seen it as being negative, though I’m sure others could perceive it that way. I guess it just depends on your attitude to start with…

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Ben
June 6, 2008

Great comment. I learned this lesson in college, where there were those in the tech writing program who insisted that the program wasn’t doing enough to prepare them for the profession. Others of us maximized the opportunities by first looking for them.

Some people may be shy about inserting themselves where they haven’t been invited, and that’s a valid concern. I think you usually won’t alienate people if you go about it in the right way—communicating that you want to do your job better, expand your horizons, help others, etc, rather than giving people the idea that they need to be babysat or that they’re inconsiderate for leaving you out.

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Julia
June 9, 2008

Very valid post and comments. I’ve been struggling with this at my current job, at a software development company that has never had technical writers before.

My initial ideas and thoughts about what I was going to be able to accomplish have long since gone out the window as there just isn’t enough time to actually put anything that I’ve planned into production. As my VP is very much a “results-oriented” person, I find it stressful trying to quantify what I have been doing over the last year.

BUT, this job has taken me in a few different directions, such as developing documentation on wikis, and helping out the Project Management team better plan out their documentation so that the development all goes smoothly. And I’ve gotten a few comments from my VP that even though I don’t always manage to finish off some of my projects, he knows that I give my all when I do work on all of my projects.

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Ben Reply:
June 10th, 2008 at 6:09 pm

Blazing the trail for technical communication in an organization isn’t easy. You were probably last on everyone’s priority list at first. But kudos on connecting with the project management. If they’re consulting you and keeping you involved, you’ve made leaps.

In my opinion, the fact that you’re doing all you can and aren’t always able to finish suggests that you need another team member…

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