Case Study
Course Code
Course Title
MBA554
Communication and Writing for Accountants
Course Instructor
Coursework format

Part A: Case Study Part A
Part B: Case Study Part B
Part A: 5%
Part B: 15%
Part A: not specified.
Part B: 2000 words
(always +/- 10% of the word limit) excluding
references
9th May, 2024 at 10pm
Weighting
Word limit
Submission date
Part A: Bad Writing Is Destroying Your Company’s Productivity
Required :

Read the Harvard Business Review Article, ‘Bad Writing Is Destroying Your Company’s
Productivity’ by Josh Bernoff. This article is uploaded to the Case Study folder. This will help
you complete the task below.
Task:

The Josh Bernoff article briefly discusses four issues as mentioned in the table below. In
response to the ‘Article Issues’ listed in the table below, draw on your own professional
(work-related) or educational (university) experiences in which you have come across ‘bad
writing’. You may briefly share your thoughts/experiences/if you agree or disagree and why
with each of the ‘bad writing’ issues in the ‘Personal Reflections’ section in the table
below*. Please keep your reflections anonymous!
*a template of the table below has been uploaded to Moodle.
Article Issues
Personal Reflections
1. Vague writing dilutes leadership.
2. Clarity in marketing tells customers
– and workers – that they can trust
you
3. Fuzzy writing allows fuzzy thinking
4. A culture of clear writing makes
managers more productive.
Part B: When The Tone of An Email Went Wrong
Required : Read ‘When the tone of an email went wrong’ case uploaded to Moodle.
Task: Answer the following questions:
1. What factors make an email a difficult medium of communication? Emails are regarded as a
form of low-information media. Exolain your understanding of the term ‘low-information
media’ in the context of emails.
2. What factors contribute to the tone of writing, and how can we improve the overall tone of
our email?
3. Discuss the situations in which email should be avoided in favour of other media of
communication.
4. Identify the reasons for the failure of email communication in the situation involving
Sharma, Singh, and Kumar.
5. Write email responses as Sharma, Kumar, and any other member of the group, as each
attempts to defuse the tense situation.
Word limit: 2000 words
Refer to the Portfolio guidance document for formatting, referencing and bibliography,
submitting your Portfolio task and Turnitin etc.
W16282
WHEN THE TONE OF AN EMAIL WENT WRONG
Mukesh Kumar, Archana Parashar, and Sanjeev Prashar wrote this case solely to provide material for class discussion. The authors
do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguise d certain
names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality.
This publication may not be transmitted, photocopied, digitized, or otherwise reproduced in any form or by any means without the
permission of the copyright holder. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights
organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Ivey Business School, Western
University, London, Ontario, Canada, N6G 0N1; (t) 519.661.3208; (e) [email protected]; www.iveycases.com.
Copyright © 2016, Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation
Version: 2016-05-18
“Even if you are not a student, you should not use such filthy language with a teacher,” an infuriated Manish
Kumar wrote to Meeta Singh.
On April 1, 2015, the Premier School of Management in New Delhi, India, was abuzz with issues related
to inappropriate tone and lack of etiquette in an email they had all received. Professor Pradeep Sharma had
mistakenly sent a confidential email to a group email address. On receiving the professor’s email, Singh,
an alumna of the school, responded to Sharma, advising him to refrain from using the group email to
circulate his test paper.
Because professors held revered positions in Indian society, etiquette dictated that students should not
confront them. Thus, the school’s students were shocked that the alumna had used what many believed to
be offensive words in addressing Sharma, their professor. Many students reacted. One commented, “Singh
knew little of Indian culture and lacked decorum in communicating with the academic.”
After a few email exchanges on the group email, Singh felt that she was being vilified by the students even
though she had not intended to offend the professor and had quickly apologized after Sharma had
reprimanded her. Hurt by the words of several members on the group email, the alumna decided to sever
her connection with the school.
THE EMAIL EPISODE
In the Premier School of Management, email was the preferred mode of communication between the faculty
and office staff. Faculty members even sent evaluation and assessment documents, such as question papers,
sample answer sheets, and grade sheets, as email attachments.
On March 31, 2015, Sharma had inadvertently sent the question paper for the postgraduate program’s endof-term examination to the wrong email address — one that was intended for interaction among students,
alumni, and professors. Sharma did not realize that he had sent the paper to the wrong email address until
the office called, asking him to send the question paper, which the office had not yet received. Sharma was
a little annoyed when he received this call; however, after logging in to his email account, he found that he
had emailed the question paper to the wrong email address. Fortunately, he had another question paper
ready, which he immediately emailed to the office.
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Page 2
9B16C013
Singh, an alumna and a recipient on the group email, responded to Sharma on April 1, 2015, asking the
professor not to send the question paper to the group email. Everyone, including alumni, had received the
question paper. Upon receiving Singh’s reply, Sharma had written back, informing her that he had heard
from several others recipients about the delivery of this confidential message to the group. He clarified that
he had not intended to use the group email for sharing the question paper. Also, he wrote that her choice of
expression was impolite for an interaction with a faculty member (see Exhibit 1, Email 3). Both Singh’s
message to Sharma and Sharma’s response to Singh were sent to all members of the email group.
Because Indian society regarded professors with extreme respect, the message from the alumna had
astonished everyone, including many present students, who were also listed on the group email. They were
critical of the alumna’s conduct and felt that Singh should not have responded publicly to the professor in
that manner. Enraged by her behaviour, Kumar, a student at the school, wrote Singh a private email,
condemning her actions and describing her conduct as ill mannered. Singh took Kumar’s message as poor
treatment from someone who was her junior and asked to be removed from the group email.
PROFESSOR PRADEEP SHARMA
Sharma, about 55 years old, was a student-friendly, polite, and approachable professor at the Premier School
of Management. With a pleasant smile, he always received students affectionately. Students reciprocated
with deep respect for him; for many, Sharma was both a guardian and a mentor. Students often visited
Sharma and his family at their residence. Many students who could not visit their own homes during
festivals were invited to celebrate with Sharma’s family. Many students were also friends with Sharma’s
son and daughter.
Because of heart disease, Sharma had been admitted to hospital several times in the past. The students at
the school were aware of Sharma’s medical condition, which sometimes led to his absence for many days
at a stretch. Also, the students were aware of his fading memory. He sometimes called them by the wrong
name or asked about projects that had never been assigned. Sharma was aware of his forgetfulness and
would himself joke about his behaviour.
MEETA SINGH
Singh had been a student at the school a year earlier. She was known as being sincere, ambitious — and
outspoken. Being extroverted and intelligent, she was well known among the students’ communities. With
little inclination for higher education, Singh had enrolled at the school with her pre-determined career goals
in mind. She devoted most of her time to preparing for the examinations for a government administrative
job.
Singh did not spend much time with her classmates. Most of her neighbours in the student accommodation
where she lived admitted that Singh was rarely seen outside of her room interacting with the residents. Her
roommate described her as direct and straightforward. She recalled that when she first met her, Singh said
that she would not interfere in her roommate’s personal life and, in return, would expect the same conduct
from roommate. Although the roommate had initially felt that it would be difficult to share a room with
Singh, they resided amicably together for a year.
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Page 3
9B16C013
MANISH KUMAR
Kumar enrolled at the Premier School of Management two years earlier after completing his postgraduate
work in journalism at another university. Kumar was a research scholar, and had recently been awarded
two scholarships from the Government of India.
Kumar was perceived as being traditional, conservative — and at times, unreasonable. Many at the school
maintained a distance from him. For them, Kumar often appeared to be abrupt and irrational. Undiscouraged
by their evident dislike of him, Kumar persistently made efforts to be involved and interact with other
students. Still, despite having attended the Premier School of Management for two years, Kumar had more
friends where he studied journalism, and would often hang around with them.
CLOSING
After reading the email from Singh to Sharma, many students at the school discussed Singh’s behaviour
during her tenure as a student one year earlier. According to many, Singh had always been a rude student
and such students should not be allowed to pursue higher education. However, a small group sided with
Singh, suggesting that she had not done anything wrong. According to them, Sharma’s reply to Singh’s
email had been rather sarcastic. These students felt that the professor should not have publicly reacted to
Singh’s email.
Although students held different views on this episode, they were all worried that this situation might spiral
into a verbal duel on the group email, resulting in both the alienation of the school’s alumni and a rift
between the current students and alumni. Because Singh insisted on leaving the group, many students
blamed Kumar for his abrupt response. Some of these students wanted to resolve the differences and
encourage Singh not to leave the group email.
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Page 4
9B16C013
EXHIBIT 1: EMAIL EXCHANGE ON THE PREMIER SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT’S GROUP EMAIL
Email 1: Professor Sharma’s Email to the Google Group, sent March 31, 2015
Dear Nitin,
Please get 20 copies of the attached test paper for the test today at 11 a.m., and give them to Bushra
Khan, who will be conductive the test.
Pradeep Sharma
Professor, Organizational Behaviour
Premier School of Management, New Delhi
Tel.: +91 11 262 534
Email 2: Response from Singh (Reply to All), sent April 1, 2015
Dear Sir,
I would suggest that you refrain from using Google groups to circulate test papers. I am an alum and I
have received the Test paper as well.
Regards,
Meeta
Email 3: Reply from Professor Sharma (Reply to All), sent April 1, 2015
Dear Mita,
The test paper was sent on the googlegroup.com by mistake. We use a similar email id for
correspondence with the office. This was an exception and not a regular thing. I have been told about
the goof by other people as well. Incidentally, the expression “I would suggest that you refrain from
using. . .” is not polite for a student to teacher communication.
Thanks, anyway.
Pradeep Sharma
Professor, Organizational Behaviour
Premier School of Management, New Delhi
Tel.: +91 11 262 534
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[email protected] or 617.783.7860
Page 5
9B16C013
EXHIBIT 1 (CONTINUED)
Email 4: Second Response from Singh (Reply to All), sent April 1, 2015
Dear Sir,
As I had mentioned before, I am an alum and not a student. If I have insulted you in any manner, my
profound apologies.
Regards,
Meeta
Email 5: Professor Sharma’s Second Reply (Reply to All), sent April 3, 2015
Dear Mita,
I know that you would not “insult” me. I recall you pleasant presence in class sometime ago. It is just
that I thought that I should let you know that the expression is impolite.
Incidentally again, there is no word like alum that is related to being a student in the past. What you
meant I guess was alumnus.
Take care. Best wishes,
Pradeep Sharma,
Professor, Organizational Behaviour
Premier School of Management, New Delhi
Tel.: +91 11 262 534
Email 6: Third Response from Singh (Reply to All), sent April 6, 2015
Dear Sir,
Again my profound apologies! But it seems that a particular student from the department has taken up
the cause and wrote back to me. However, I have answered his mail and have promptly asked him to
take me off the Google group. I am, however, copy pasting the mail below. I rest my case.
Response from Kumar, a current student at the school, to Singh (Reply to Singh only), sent April 2,
2015
Dear Meeta,
Even if you are not a student, you should not use such filthy language with a teacher. Everyone here
questions your being an alum of our department. This is not your business to give suggestions to
teachers.
Manish
Regards,
Meeta
Source: Created by the authors.
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REPRINT H0345X
PUBLISHED ON HBR.ORG
SEPTEMBER 06, 2016
ARTICLE
BUSINESS WRITING
Bad Writing Is
Destroying Your
Company’s
Productivity
by Josh Bernoff
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[email protected] or 617.783.7860
BUSINESS WRITING
Bad Writing Is Destroying
Your Company’s
Productivity
by Josh Bernoff
SEPTEMBER 06, 2016
A hidden source of friction is slowing your company down. Your workers are complicit in it. So is
your management. And it’s driving everybody nuts.
It’s bad business writing.
COPYRIGHT © 2016 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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2
I surveyed 547 businesspeople in the first three months of this year. I looked specifically at people
who write at least two hours per week in addition to email. They told me that they spend an average
of 25.5 hours per week reading for work. (About a third of that is email.)
And 81% of them agree that poorly written material wastes a lot of their time. A majority say that
what they read is frequently ineffective because it’s too long, poorly organized, unclear, filled with
jargon, and imprecise.
Entry-level employees get little training in how to write in a brief, clear, and incisive way. Instead,
they’re immersed in first-draft emails from their managers, poorly edited reports, and jargon-filled
employee manuals. Their own flabby writing habits fit right in. And the whole organization drowns in
productivity-draining blather.
Consider:
Vague writing dilutes leadership. Yahoo has suffered from dithering management focus for a decade.
Now CEO Marissa Mayer has agreed to sell it to Verizon. Here’s a passage from her recent email to
staff on that occasion: “…our incredibly loyal and dedicated employee base has stepped up to every
challenge along the way….The teams here have not only built incredible products and technologies,
but have built Yahoo into one of the most iconic, and universally well-liked companies in the
world….I’m incredibly proud of everything that we’ve achieved, and I’m incredibly proud of our
team. I love Yahoo, and I believe in all of you.”
That’s four uses of “incredible” or “incredibly” in a single paragraph. All that cheerleading reads like
misdirection. It’s going to be challenging for Yahoo to continue to succeed as part of Verizon, and
happy, vacuous language certainly won’t inspire the workers who haven’t quit yet. (The rest of the
email is similarly vague.)
Contrast this to how Apple’s Tim Cook communicates — as in his clear, jargon-free defense of the
company’s decision not to crack the encryption on a terrorist’s iPhone.
Clear leadership, expressed in writing, creates alignment and boosts productivity. For example, in
writing email, managers from the CEO on down must set an example by communicating exactly what
they want, clearly, in the subject line or title and the first two sentences of everything they write. The
workers reading it will just skip to the key facts anyway, so lose the filler and don’t waste their time.
Do this right, and you’ll get a reputation for truth. Your workers won’t waste time on the
Kremlinology of reading your intentions; they’ll get to work on accomplishing the goals you set out
for them.
COPYRIGHT © 2016 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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3
Clarity in marketing tells customers — and workers — that they can trust you. How do your
marketers and PR people communicate? Do they put out press releases filled with industry jargon
and meaningless superlatives?
When clarity and truth are core values for marketers, they can spend time trumpeting what works,
rather than concealing what doesn’t. For example, here’s what Google writes about how it treats
customers:
Focus on the user and all else will follow.
Since the beginning, we’ve focused on providing the best user experience possible. Whether we’re
designing a new internet browser or a new tweak to the look of the homepage, we take great care to
ensure that they will ultimately serve you, rather than our own internal goal or bottom line.
Every customer can understand that, and it rings true. It inspires workers as well. So marketers and
the rest of the company can move forward in a united and productive way.
Fuzzy writing allows fuzzy thinking. Clear writing uses well-organized, active-voice sentences to
explain what is happening, what ought to happen, and what people need to do. Conversely, inexact
and passive language reflects gaps in thinking.
A great example is the report that the UMass Donahue Institute published about the economics of
hosting the 2024 Olympics in Boston. Its passive-voice analysis hid who was responsible for
important parts of the bid, with sentences like these:
[These] are issues that will need to be closely monitored in order to ensure the public sector is
protected from extensive financial commitments.
To date, using insurance to protect a host city from cost overruns has not been used extensively.
Questions like who would monitor expenses and who would secure hypothetical insurance loomed
over the bid. In the end, these uncertainties caused the citizens and political leaders of Boston to
reject an Olympic bid.
Requiring clear, direct, active language has two benefits. It forces writers to think through what they
really mean and the arguments they can use to support it. And it makes smart people stand out. If
you prize clarity, the clear thinkers will rise to the top.
A culture of clear writing makes managers more productive. It means that the material that ends up
on your desk will be clearer too. Senior managers can waste time rooting through their subordinates’
fuzzy writing, or they can spend effort changing the culture to one that prizes brevity, clarity, and
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[email protected] or 617.783.7860
4
directness. That’s worth the effort, because it means everyone in the organization — especially
management — will end up more productive.
It’s time to clear all the crap out of your inboxes and make those 25.5 hours per week more efficient.
It’s time to commit to a culture of clarity. It could make a big difference in how smoothly your
business runs — and it could make your day a lot less annoying.
Josh Bernoff is the author or coauthor of six business strategy books, including Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your
Career by Saying What You Mean. His blog is at bernoff.com.
COPYRIGHT © 2016 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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