Writing, Revising and Reviews

The problem with business writing, and the expectations of those who need you to do it, is that writing is an art not a science. It’s a beautiful, solitary, nerve wracking, anxiety filled, cathartic art form that has given us sublime sonnets and pandering political speeches (and annoying alliteration, apparently). There are few things as maddeningly exhilarating or horrifying as staring at the blank white page of Microsoft Word.

And yet, when the RFP is out on the street, the Capture Manager is scrambling for intel, and the C Suite is asking why the proposal wasn’t finished yesterday, it means it’s time to give your team their marching orders and write winning content. Sadly, a proposal manager can’t bring them into a room and drop their ceremonial offerings of boilerplate into the Bullshit O’ Matic 5000 as it blasts out a compliant, compelling (and winning) proposal like a creatively rabid wood chipper.

However, one of the important aspects the proposal process is founded on is the cycle of “think, write, revise.”

While some may think that the ability to write is all about using a bunch of words that don’t sound like the alphabet spun in a blender set to frappe for far too long, the often overlooked and underrated part of writing is revision. Revision is where a writer takes a block of words metaphorically carved into the rough shape of a human body, and like Michelangelo, skillfully get rid of the unneeded bits or refine the parts you need until you’ve crafted a literary Statue of David. And if you think that description makes revising sound easier than it really is, then you better believe it.

I’ve spent far too many hours staring at my own writing, both professional and personal, either tearing through pages in record time, or spending slow hours agonizing over whether to use “happy” or “glad.” Revising can be fun, adventurous, tortuous, and/or immensely fulfilling. John Irving (The World According to Garp) once said, “Half of my life is an act of revision.” Bernard Malamud (The Natural) declared, “Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.” Kelly Barnhill (The Girl Who Drank the Moon) bittersweetly observed, “That’s the magic of revisions – every cut is necessary, and every cut hurts, but something new always grows.” And Don Roff mused, “I've found the best way to revise your own work is to pretend that somebody else wrote it and then to rip the living shit out of it.”

And that’s pretty strong coming from a man who wrote a few works of children’s literature.

The proposal process differs in one important aspect from traditional writing, instead of evaluating and revising your own work, you get to have other people read it, assess it, and “rip the living shit out of it.” Few things induce fear like presenting your work to the world and awaiting the response to it. With proposal writing, you’re denied the comfortable distance from your audience. Instead, there’s a panel of peers, colleagues, and senior leadership ruthlessly diving into your work and looking you in the eye as they offer their feedback.

I had no idea what to expect for my very first Pink Team review, but I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach as I opened up the Word document and saw page after page filled with dozens of comments and a rainbow of track changes. The reviewer comments ranged from loving accolades of specific sections with minor tweaks, to rage filled manifestos explaining how an entire section missed the point. It wasn’t even my writing, but the lead weight in my belly convinced me that the proposal was a piping hot mess and I’d be firing up my resume by dinnertime. What I didn’t know then, but sometimes take for granted now, is that no one expects a first draft to be perfect, and while reviewer comments can be harsh, they should never ever be taken personally. Now, that doesn’t make it any easier when trying to absorb critical feedback and figure out how to address it in your revisions, but you learn that there’s no pride of ownership in business writing. And if you’re working with a team of coworkers, they’ll be professional enough to offer constructive feedback in those comments, and not indulge themselves as callous assholes who love punching holes in other people’s hard work.

And then there’s the art of running a good debrief.

I’ve ran review debriefs where no one wanted to talk. Imagine a conference filled with your proposal team and a panel of reviewers either staring blankly at the proposal on the screen, or at their phones and laptops. And trying to break through that kind of social inertia is no mean feat when you’re as much of an introvert as I am. On the other hand, I’ve ran review debriefs where the reviewers were anything but shy about how they felt about a proposal. I’ve sat in debriefs where it was nothing but praises and positive feedback, others that got so loud and heated that I was told by coworkers later how they could hear the conversation down the hall, and others where adults nearly burst into tears. I even saw a group of male executives practically break down into a fistfight with each other over a proposal that none of them were happy about (or me for that matter, but that’s a story for another time).

Of course, these are very much the exceptions to the rule. Most reviews I’ve run were professional and positive experiences offering teams the guidance and reassurance that a proposal was on the right path. And a lot depends on what the opportunity is, the challenges presented in the response requirements, and if the effort is a “the future of the company is at stake must win,” “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” blue bird, or “fire and forget” response. And then there’s taking into account all of the variables inherent with a group of reviewers – different backgrounds, educations, political views, opinions on how to use the Oxford comma, whether they love dogs or cats, or choose Star Wars or Star Trek.

The beauty of the Pink Team, Red Team, Gold Team process is while reviews can be painful experiences to endure, each one should get a little easier as the content is refined and crafted into a document that everyone can live with, if not wholeheartedly agree on. And sadly, like any good writer will tell you, there’s never any definitive end to revisions – there’s always one more typo, one more word you wished you had and hadn’t used. As the old saying goes:

Proposals are never done, they’re only submitted.