There are many secrets to Jeff Bezos’s success. But one you can apply in your job – whatever your level in the organization – is that he writes and speaks in plain language.
Carmine Gallo, who has chronicled the communications habits of top leaders, found that although Mr. Bezos graduated from Princeton University in electrical engineering and computer science and considered being an astrophysicist, his communications tend to be written for a person with a high school education. Indeed, his famed commencement speech to the 2010 graduating class at that university – surely a time to display erudite touches – registered a readability score of Grade 7 on the standard Flesch-Kincaid scale, indicating it was likely to be understood by someone at age 12. “Bezos delivered a profound message in simple language, making it an instant hit,” Mr. Gallo writes in his book The Bezos…
