Revise the message below implementing an effective persuasive strategy.

Persuasive Message – “Miserable Meetings”

The following e-mail message suffers from many writing faults, including poor tone and poor
persuasive strategy. It originated with a manager and is addressed to his boss.

Your Task. First, list at least seven of Clint’s writing weaknesses.

Then revise the message
below implementing an effective persuasive strategy. Include ideas and examples in
conducting and participating in productive meetings.

To: Charlotte Cohen

From: Clint Johnson

Subject: Miserable Meetings

Cc:

Attached:

Good morning!
I wonder if you know how bad meetings are around here. We seem to have endless
meetings that drag on and on forever. I myself attended five meetings within the building but
also was forced to participate in three more conference call meetings. And that was just last
week! Nearly every one of those meetings was poorly run. Some should never have been
called because they merely announced information after a decision had already been made.
Some could easily have been handled in an e-mail. Sometimes I think our meetings are
really opportunities to socialize under the guise of “work.” Our meetings are huge time
suckers.
I’m going to level with you and tell it like it is. Something needs to be done about the lost
productivity and sagging employee morale around here. No one likes to waste valuable time
attending poorly run or unnecessary meetings. Apparently, our managers have not been
trained in how to conduct meetings, although I realize that all of them are professional and
have business training.

What we need is a meeting policy or something like that. We need some guidelines or
training about how to conduct meetings. Has anyone thought of that? I can think of many
ways to improve meetings. Could we please talk about this?

Clint Johnson

Project Manager