Tone Tips, Part 7: Watching Your "But"

We all know what's going on in the mind of insincere communicators who say, "I agree with you, but," or "You did a good job, but." They really don't agree with us, and they actually think we did a bad job. We especially see through such disingenuous expressions in writing, since we assume writers took the time to craft their point.

But they either don't always take the time to reflect on their readers' feelings, and even if they do, they might not have the same writing awareness as they do reading awareness. So here are three tips for watching your but if tone matters to you.

1. Explain your positives. Instead of writing "I agree with your proposal to move our corporate offices to New York, but it's too expensive," describe why you agree—or don't write that you agree. Let's see how both situations would work.

If you agree, but with reservations, you might write:

I believe your proposal to move our office to New York makes sense for three reasons: 1) it will give us greater visibility in one of the most important financial centers in the world; 2) it will give us greater access to more prospective clients; and 3) it will expand our talent pool selection. For these reasons, we need to do a cost analysis of these potential gains against the moving and increased rental expenses.

If you simply disagree, you might write: 

Your proposal to move our corporate offices to New York is too expensive, as it will cost us $109,000 in moving expenses and an annual rent increase of $531,000.

2. Replace but with so. Most times, finding another word for but is a no-brainer. And I don't mean however, which is just a fancier but, implying the same meaning. One I commonly use is so. Examples:

Replace "Your report was on schedule, but I found two mistakes" with "Your report was on schedule, so we have time to fix two mistakes in it." 

Instead of  "Your presentation is credible, but your conclusion isn't focused," write "Most of your presentation is credible, so you'll want to revise your conclusion to better focus your audience."

3. Use but after negatives, not positives. Decide which of these two sentences has a better tone:

• You handled that difficult client well, but you could have offered him another choice. 
• You could have offered that difficult client another choice, but you handled him well.

If you think the second one is an improvement, as I do, then you'll want to end on a positive note by placing but after the negative, not the positive point.