The following email message about travel budget cutbacks at Black & Decker contains numerous blunders. Using what you've learned in the chapter, read the message carefully and analyze its faults. Then use the questions that follow to outline and write an improved message.
Memo
FROM: M. Juhasz, Travel & Meeting Services mjuhasz@
blackanddecker.com
SUBJECT: Travel Budget Cuts Effective Immediately
Dear Traveling Executives:
We need you to start using some of the budget suggestions we are going to issue as a separate memorandum. These include using videoconference equipment instead of traveling to meetings, staying in cheaper hotels, arranging flights for cheaper times, and flying from less-convenient but also lessexpensive suburban airports.
The company needs to cut travel expenses by fifty percent, just as we've cut costs in all departments of Black & Decker. This means you'll no longer be able to stay in fancy hotels and make last-minute, costly changes to your travel plans. You'll also be expected to avoid hotel phone surcharges. Compose your email offline when you're in the hotel. And never return a rental car with an empty tank! That causes the rental agency to charge us a premium price for the gas they sell when they fill it up upon your return. You'll be expected to make these changes in your travel habits immediately.
M. Juhasz
Travel & Meeting Services
a. Describe the flaws in this bad-news email about company operations.
b. Develop a plan for rewriting the email to company insiders, using the direct approach. The following steps will help you organize your efforts before you begin writing:
1. Create an opening statement of the bad news, using the "you" attitude.
2. Decide what explanation is needed to justify the news.
3. Determine whether you can use lists effectively.
4. Choose some positive suggestions you can include to soften the news.
5. Develop an upbeat closing.
c. Now rewrite the email. Don't forget to leave ample time for revision of your work before you turn it in.