Steven Sinofsky recently tweeted out this thread where he talks about the virtues of writing in business. His argument: writing is thinking.

Writing is difficult. It takes a lot of time. I’ve been writing posts – albeit short ones – on this blog every day for almost 5 years and I can tell you that somedays it is downright painful. Somedays I ask myself: Would I be better served spending this time elsewhere?

It’s much easier to talk, throw down bullet points on a slide, or send out pithy emails. And because, today, we’re all so focused on “agility” and “execution”, it is easy to dismiss writing as being slow and cumbersome. 

But the act of writing is indeed thinking. To write about something you have to wade into the details and actually understand what you’re talking about. It’s far more nuanced.

One of Sinofsky’s arguments is that “execution is in a constant state of diverging as more expertise deals with more details that fewer people understand.” Business becomes “I just know.” Writing can fill in those missing parts.

Steven Sinofsky recently tweeted out this thread where he talks about the virtues of writing in business. His argument: writing is thinking.

Writing is difficult. It takes a lot of time. I’ve been writing posts – albeit short ones – on this blog every day for almost 5 years and I can tell you that somedays it is downright painful. Somedays I ask myself: Would I be better served spending this time elsewhere?

It’s much easier to talk, throw down bullet points on a slide, or send out pithy emails. And because, today, we’re all so focused on “agility” and “execution”, it is easy to dismiss writing as being slow and cumbersome. 

But the act of writing is indeed thinking. To write about something you have to wade into the details and actually understand what you’re talking about. It’s far more nuanced.

One of Sinofsky’s arguments is that “execution is in a constant state of diverging as more expertise deals with more details that fewer people understand.” Business becomes “I just know.” Writing can fill in those missing parts.