Intervention: Coaching, Training, and Organisational Development

Abstract

This chapter explains and discusses the research-based measures which were implemented with practitioners in real-world settings. The interventions include coaching, training, and organisational development.

Interventions cannot be but intrusive. They “come in between” (lat. intervenire) what have been comfortable and contented habits and routines. Carrying out interventions in a professional setting therefore is a delicate matter; it necessitates mutual trust and understanding—as well as a sound transdisciplinary collaboration: all stakeholders need to be committed and dedicated to aim for the best outcome even if it means to throw overboard long-standing procedures, attitudes, and routines. This requires that interventions integrate the stakeholders’ background and context, e.g., professional setting, workplace, legal framework, and time constraints.

From a theoretical perspective, theory building can benefit from intervention design in two complementary ways: on the one hand, the developed interventions can be tested in practice, on the other hand, the feedback from stakeholders on the applied interventions ideally allows to further develop existing theories and improve proposed measures. From a practical perspective, intervention repertoires should include flexible and easily operable working tools and techniques that enable stakeholders to implement feasible and sustainable solutions. These solutions have to integrate well into existing structures and need to be applicable on scaling levels.

The interventions in this study were developed with and for practitioners, based on the research explained so far: they draw on case stories, reflecting critical situations and good practices as identified in the financial community (Chapters 4–6) and as analysed with progression analysis on coachees’ writing processes (Sect. 8.2). Thereby, the interventions are a starting point for collaborative learning of the researcher and the practitioners (e.g., Christinck & Kaufmann, 2018). At the same time, interventions are not endless support programmes; rather, the tools and knowledge gained in the interventions should enable the stakeholders in the mid or long term to find solutions for their problems themselves.

Given their complementary characteristics (Habscheid, 2015), three different forms of intervention are explained in this study: coaching, training, and organisational development. In coaching, the coach helps a single person clarify the initial situation, the problem, and the field of tension. Then, coach and coachee jointly set goals, develop measures, and evaluate the result (Sect. 9.1). In training, the trainer supports a group of trainees in the process of achieving goals based on the assumption that the trainees as a group are not able to find the solution themselves (Sect. 9.2). In organisational development, the focus of the intervention shifts to an entire organisation that seeks guidance in recognising the underlying problems, setting goals, and developing measures to achieve the defined goals (Sect. 9.3).

1 Coaching: The Fishing Rod, Not the Fish

Coaching refers to a consulting format in which a coach supports a coachee, i.e., the coached persons, methodically professionally, co-actively, and dialogically in the process of clarifying his or her initial situation in the systemic field of tension between person, roles, and organisation (Albrecht & Perrin, 2016, p. 428; based on Kühl, 2008). Thereby, the stakeholders set goals, develop functional means to achieve goals, use the means to achieve the goals, and evaluate what has been achieved as a new starting position for further development. Methodically professionally means that methods of coaching have been developed and critically questioned, recognised and further developed in the professional community. Co-actively and dialogically means coach and coachee each contribute to solving the problem and coordinate the measures with each other.

It is pivotal that the coachees finally achieve the solution of the problem themselves, on their own initiative, at their own pace, with a coach who helps them broaden their view and see in a new light what they have already known. This enables the coachees to identify the solutions that have been found to the supposedly unsolvable problem (e.g., Albrecht & Perrin, 2016; Kühl, 2008). In other words: coaching does not offer a cooked fish on a plate, coaching enables the coachees to handle the fishing rod and catch fish themselves in the future.

Of course, it only makes sense to develop solutions in this way where standard solutions are not yet available. In text and writing consulting, coaching usually focuses on process aspects of text production (Perrin, 2006). What constitutes a good product may already be established and recognised in an organisation, but it is still not clear how, for example, individual writers, with their personal and professional background and their skills and limitations at work, can write a text in such a way that it ultimately corresponds to the ideal text product defined by the organisation. In principle, however, coaching can also focus on context (Sect. 9.1.1), text product (Sect. 9.1.2), and writing process (Sect. 9.1.3).

1.1 Coaching with Focus on Context

In the case of the Bank 1, the ultimate goal was to produce better quarterly and annual reports, and therefore, sustainable measures and tools were required (Sect. 8.2). As progression analysis showed, the skills of the writers examined diverged widely (Sect. 8.2.2). Systemic coaching tries to use such differences productively; if the inexperienced writers can learn from the experienced ones, the whole team can approach the goal—more functional text products through more functional writing processes. More functional means: closer to the addressee and more resource-efficient for the bank respectively.

Coaching with focus on context, therefore, aims to solve problems that writers face in their internal and external environments. These problems include performance pressure and work overload; writing inhibition and fear of failure; conflicts at interfaces in document cycling; ambiguities in the writers’ mental representation of the addressees; and pitfalls related to the writing tools. The following example focuses on the last two points: the diagnostic data from the Bank 1 case shows how differently experienced and inexperienced writers perceive the expectations and prior knowledge of the addressees and use the writing tool computer. How the empirically based knowledge can be incorporated into the individual coaching of employees is then explained.

The progression graphs (description see Sect. 8.2.2.2) of the writers S1 and S2 show clear differences at first glance. While S1 writes through the text from top to bottom in one go, S2 jumps back and forth in the resulting text. So, what is on the left happened early in the writing process, whereas what is on the right happened late. Dots at the top of the graph represent changes at the top of the finished text and vice versa (Figs. 9.1 and 9.2).

Fig. 9.1

Progression graph for the writing process of S1

Fig. 9.2

Progression graph for the writing process of S2

The progression graph does not show exactly what has been changed, but it shows how the attention of the writer has moved through the resulting text. The difference between writer S1 and writer S2 is considerable, even though both solve the same task, namely write a text of about 3000 characters as a conclusion of their analyses. Where these differences come from can be inferred from the statements of the writers: firstly, in the interview conducted at the beginning of the progression analysis with all the writers examined, about their writing biography, their workplace, and their routines; and secondly, in the retrospective verbal protocol which is created after the writing has been recorded.

These data suggests that S1 has been trained in professional writing and understands writing as a project and process, not just as a product. Before writing, S1 plans the main message and the stage goals in his head and as a sketch. This is done with regard to the communication goal and the addressees. Only when he sees the script for the text before his inner eye, does he start writing. S2, on the other hand, had little opportunity to learn professional writing systematically. Therefore, S2 thinks exclusively in terms of the end product and understands the writing process as a collection of facts, whereby the individual pieces of information are pushed back and forth on the screen until they fit together at the level of the individual words and sentences.

In coaching, both approaches are scrutinised after the coachees have looked at both processes and compared the progression graphs. Where are the advantages and disadvantages of writing as accumulating facts and figures, and where of writing as communication for certain addressees? By using the stage technique (Sect. 8.3.3) in exercises, for example, S2 type writers find their way into the flow of writing and move away from the idea that they have to perfectly revise everything they have just written before they can continue writing. They see how much easier it is to write a text that they have thought through, then outline the big picture, and finally, using the bonsai technique (Sect. 8.3.4), for example, revise the text so that it is correct in all its details and comprehensible to the addressees.

1.2 Coaching with Focus on Product

The previous section has shown how coaching, which is based on empirical diagnoses, focuses on dealing with contextual factors in the writing process. The same applies to work on the product. Coaching, in its core process-oriented, can help think the writing process from the end product and solve writing problems that are directly and visibly reflected in the resulting text product. These problems are, for example, the text dramaturgy as basis for the reasoning in recommendations for investors (Sect. 5.4.2.2), and fragmented writing as omitting or obscuring key information for investment decisions (Sect. 5.4.2.1).

Text dramaturgy means the role play of the main actors on the text stage, such as the interplay of company history, forecast development, financial consequences, evaluating experts, and finally the recommendation derived from all this. This interaction can be logical and easy to understand, but gaps, breaks, or contradictions can also occur—places where thoughts do not fit together, transitions are not right, the text breaks apart. Linguistics then speaks of coherence problems. Writing research finds that such coherence problems often occur in the text when the writing process is highly fragmented (Perrin, 1999).

Fragmented writing means: A text passage, for example a sentence or a paragraph, is not written in one go, but as a mosaic of fragments that are pushed back and forth and into each other. The same spot is processed several times but remains a construction site for a long time (Fürer, 2018). This can lead to writers losing the overview and no longer being able to see what the end result is for someone who only sees the last version. This is the case when writers, who know all the old, partially deleted versions and read them from memory, so to speak, read the text on the screen. This is illustrated in the writing process of S3 (Fig. 9.3).

Fig. 9.3

Progression graph for the writing process of S3

The progression graph shows that S3 has edited several places in the text numerous times, for example, the places which are depicted with rectangles in Fig. 9.3 here. In the first of these places, S3 first wrote linearly (revisions 64–90 on the x-axis), later returned briefly to this place (131–137), then, after a detour further down in the text, again (152–155, 157) and again (206–236). Thereby, this last sequence of revisions is continuously interrupted by the smallest revisions downwards and upwards. In contrast, the second outline shows a text passage that S3 writes almost linearly (305–399) and then revised once, in one move, from top to bottom (417–424).

A glance at the S-notation of these two passages confirms the assumption that the fragmented revision in the first case led to coherence problems, i.e., to gaps, breaks, contradictions (Figs. 9.4, 9.5, 9.6 and 9.7); however, the revision in the reading direction improved one coherent passage in detail (Figs. 9.8 and 9.9). The first part of the text is first written linearly (Fig. 9.4, revisions 64–101), then revised locally (Fig. 9.5, revisions 131–137), later revised locally again (Fig. 9.6, revisions 152–157), and finally completely rewritten—and deleted (Fig. 9.7, revisions 206–236).

Fig. 9.4

S-notation: S3 writes linearly

Fig. 9.5

S-notation: S3 pushes the verb forward

Fig. 9.6

S-notation: S3 changes the verb time

Fig. 9.7

S-notation: S3 deletes the text passage after conversion work

Fig. 9.8

S-notation: S3 writes almost linearly

Fig. 9.9

S-notation: S3 revised almost linearly

At the end of the first, almost linear passage, there is a text section in which readers can find out how two “demand components” (“Nachfragekomponenten,” Fig. 9.5,Deletion 131), exports and inventories, developed in the fourth quarter of the corresponding year. Exports increased slightly, but not as strongly as many would have expected due to exchange rate developments. The reason: a depreciation of the Swiss Franc has a delayed effect on export balances. The author S3 promises to come back to this last point in the text. Later, the author revises the beginning of this passage syntactically and stylistically by moving the verb forward in the first movement (Fig. 9.5).

A later, once again slight revision applies to the tempus of the shifted verb: S3 changes it from the present tense to the simple past, from “it remains” to “it remained” (“bleiben” vs. “blieben,” Fig. 9.6, Revision 152–153) and back again. The author also deletes a few blank lines at the end of the position. Such a procedure proves epistemic writing: in the discussion about the text, S3 finds the formulation and representation that seems most appropriate. In the end, nothing is gained in the product, but perhaps in the process, since S3 is now more conscious of the choice of the word. During this fine-tuning, S3 reconsiders the text passage each time, reloading it into the mental processor (Fig. 9.6).

But then, the author rebuilds this place extensively: S3 moves the first two sentences downwards, subsequently changes the connections between the moved fragments, adds background information—and deletes the whole text part after all the work on the text and thus the discussion of the thematic aspects described here. As is often the case after such detailed alterations with a radical end; however, it turns out that the thematic aspects are missing in the final text. S3 reads it while reading the text; he or she reads it, so to speak, from the text in the head, where the information has burned itself in in several processing phases. The author, therefore, does not notice that the text addressees can no longer find out what the deleted, carefully prepared text passage would have said (Fig. 9.7).

So S3 worked on this first passage in four phases, doing a lot of formulation work, tweaking details, and testing conversion variants before deleting the passage completely. The writing process data covers epistemic writing, writing to think. From the perspective of the process, however, the question arises as to whether the elaborate balancing of the dramaturgy and formulations of this paragraph were necessary, when the whole aspect of the subject dealt with is simply omitted in the end. In addition, from a product perspective, the information is missing in the final text: there is a gap in the argumentation in the text dramaturgy. After all the formulating, this information was so evident for the author that the absence of it was not noticed in the end.

In the second text passage of the writing process of S3, which is examined in more detail in the following, the revision leads to a completely different result: coherence improves, and facts are clarified. The first version of the passage is again rather linear (Fig. 9.8, revisions 306–399). Then S3 revises the text passage from top to bottom, in the reading direction (Fig. 9.9, Revisions 417–433).

In this passage, S3 explains why the Bank 1 is “temporarily” (“vorläufig,” Fig. 9.5) adhering to the “loose monetary policy” (“lockere Geldpolitik,” Fig. 9.5) and why it considers an inflation risk to be low, despite “strong money supply growth” (“kräftiges Geldmengenwachstum,” Fig. 9.5). This attitude and corresponding actions of the bank are reflected “in the interest rates” (“in den Zinssätzen,” Fig. 9.5), according to S3. The author revises this part of the text somewhat later, again from top to bottom (Fig. 9.9). S3 writes an explanatory addition (revision 421), moves a part to another paragraph (417), but deletes the connector (422), and adds a description of how “loose monetary conditions” (“lockere monetäre Bedingungen,” Fig. 9.5) are “reflected” (“widerspiegelt,” Fig. 9.5) in interest rates (Fig. 9.9).

Due to the changes in the revision, the text passage has become dramaturgically even more coherent. What was slightly distracting in this part as secondary information, namely the information on competition and free capacities in the labour markets, was moved to a more appropriate place in the text, and information that was missing after the first run and that an interested readership could ask about is supplemented in the right place, namely where the reader might raise the question how exactly the “loose monetary conditions” are “reflected” in interest rates. These are details in the text product—but decisive details in the communicative potential of the text.

1.3 Coaching with Focus on Process

Text deficiencies (Sect. 9.1.2) or contextual problems in text production (Sect. 9.1.1) call for solutions. An integral part of these solutions consists in assessing, rethinking, and improving the process from the first idea regarding a text to the published text product. Problems in the process include: misunderstanding or misjudging the task at first (e.g., Appendix B, statement 070), being unable to treat source text as basis for developing the own stance (e.g., Appendix B, statement 075), getting stuck in writer’s blockades (e.g., Appendix B, statement 136), producing large passages for the trash (e.g., Appendix B, statement 115), constantly changing the idea of text message and structure during writing and therefore having to fundamentally rebuild the resulting text several times (e.g., Appendix B, statement 016). All of these issues cost nerves and time.

The progression graphs of the writers S4 and S5 show different ways of controlling the writing process: S4 writes text parts linearly, but the whole text is written in stairs, so to speak, which means that longer parts are inserted into already existing text (Fig. 9.10). S5, in contrast, writes epistemically at the beginning, i.e., in a write-think way, develops ideas on the screen until the core message of the text is established in the abstract and introduction. From then on, the entire text is created practically in one move in the reading direction. At the end, the author reads the text again completely, from top to bottom, in the reading direction (Fig. 9.11).

Fig. 9.10

Progression graph for the writing process of S4

Fig. 9.11

Progression graph for the writing process of S5

The three-phase process of S5 created a text product that systematically asks a central question and then clarifies it step by step. In the first phase (up to revision 102), the text is written epistemically and establishes the base for the main part. In the second phase (revisions 103–512), S5 executes the writing plan like an algorithm, i.e., the author can tell the text linearly from top to bottom. The smooth writing in the reading direction ensures that all transitions are correct. In the last phase (from revision 513), S5 only changes minor items. Since the data in the Bank 1 project must remain anonymous, the text product is reproduced here schematically (Fig. 9.12).

Fig. 9.12

Text product of S5, anonymised extract

In the writing process of S4, however, the insertion of paragraphs leads to coherence problems between the paragraphs and thus to breaks in the overall text dramaturgy. This is shown by a small, again anonymised section of the text, a transition between paragraphs. At the beginning of the text, S4 describes a large-scale development in the financial market: gold price and inflation had moved in parallel for a long time, but now this no longer seemed to be the case. The reasons for this development had to be explained. The last sentence of the paragraph reproduced here contiguously announces reasons “in the case of gold” (“Im Fall des Goldes,” Fig. 9.5). The subtitles above the following two paragraphs, which have been shortened here, refer to the “gold supply” (“Goldangebotsseite,” Fig. 9.5) and the “gold demand” (“Goldnachfrageseite,” Fig. 9.5), but then, somewhat surprisingly, the “money supply” (“Geldangebotsseite,” Fig. 9.5) comes into play before the perspective on gold has been summarised (Fig. 9.13).

Fig. 9.13

Text product of S4, anonymised extract

As shown above, coachees are asked to recognise and interpret connections between the writing process and the text product from data. The goal is that writers realise that not only a text product, but also a writing process can be planned and realised like a project and, for example, the writing flow can be managed, which, in general, leads to more coherent products. Anyone who writes on a computer can jump back and forth to any text passage at any time. But the diagnosis shows that there are different kinds of jumping. Jumps between concluded writing phases, as in S5 between writing and reworking, create distance to the text, which then is reworked, but no longer with the eyes of the writer, but of the editor or reader. In contrast, jumps in the middle of writing phases most often lead to breaks in coherence (e.g., Appendix B, statement 077).

The coachees become aware of their own behaviour by analysing data from their writing processes and text products and by comparing them with data from other writers in similar roles. Such, they discover rules and regularities of writing processes, for example, that jumping back and forth under certain conditions leads to coherence breaks in the text product. Habits and routines that prove to be hampering the writing process can then be overcome with working techniques such as the Mugging Test (Sect. 8.3.1) or the Finger Technique (Sect. 8.3.2), which are also used and applied in writing trainings.

2 Training: Four Modules for Better Writing

Training differs from coaching in its more directive interventions. Put simply: the trainer knows how to do it and demonstrates it. Training, too, is a consulting format in which a trainer supports a trainee methodically, professionally, co-actively, and dialogically in the process of achieving the goals in the systemic field of tension between person, roles, and organisation. During training, however, the interventions are based on the assumption that the trainees themselves do not want to or cannot find the path from the problem to the solution themselves—even if they ultimately have to do so (Perrin, 2013, p. 277). This is why the trainer supportively instructs the trainees. This format is well suited for heterogeneous groups, rather technical problems, and quick solutions. From a practitioners’ perspective, the ultimate goal of transdisciplinary collaboration regarding financial texts usually is product aspects, i.e., better texts. However, as shown in Part II, product aspects cannot be improved solitary, they need to be combined with process and context perspectives.

In the Bank 2 project, around 60 financial analysts were trained in four selectable modules by the researcher. The aim was to show financial analysts with different levels of experience ways of writing that would enable them to produce texts that correspond to the bank’s quality expectations under any circumstances and in the required time. The text products had to fulfil the following requirements:

• regarding the product function, the texts needed to offer a comprehensible and comprehensive basis for investment decisions (Sect. 5.4.2.1) with a conclusive reasoning (Sect. 5.4.2.2);

• regarding the product structure, the texts had to provide the basic elements of financial analysts’ text products (Sect. 5.4.3.1) and the particular information that is indispensable for each key genre (Sect. 5.4.3.2);

• regarding the product context, the texts needed to obey to the rules for publication (Sect. 5.4.1.1), and the financial analysts’ were obliged to reach an independent opinion (Sect. 5.4.1.2).

To achieve these requirements, four modules for writing training were developed (Sects. 9.2.1–9.2.3). In the modules, the groups of trainees consisted of peers from different financial analyst teams. Within these groups, uncorrected texts were used for the exercises, as the analysts would have delivered them in document cycling to the editorial office (Sect. 8.2.1). All of the trainees worked in the same bank, but as financial analysts they covered different areas—equities, bonds, funds and sustainable investments, micro, and macro perspectives. In this setting, peers were like test readers—and this led to interesting results on a meta level. First, it became clear to the trainees that even colleagues from the same bank in the same department did not always understand each other’s texts. They thus experienced for themselves what it is like not to understand a financial analysis text. Second, the trainees could give qualified feedback to their peers on where texts did not work. And third, the training enabled the financial analysts to use these insights for their own future writing.

2.1 Training with Focus on Context

Module 1 focused on writing for the audience. Trainees’ language awareness (Sect. 2.4) and context awareness (Sect. 2.3) were sensitised to the different target groups and their expectations, such as understandable, conclusive reasoning as basis for investment decisions (Sect. 6.4.2).

Module 1 was a combination of writing and learning from feedback. The financial analysts had to write numerous texts, each time for a different target group that was defined prior to the writing task, e.g., CEO of a mid-cap company, wealthy dentist, elderly couple who is eager to invest. The peers in the trainees’ group then evaluated each other’s text products by asking questions, e.g., regarding the content, jargon, and reasoning, but also by proposing corrections and amendments. The results allowed conclusions as to which are the factors that influence whether a text is suitable for a target group distorting the content or omitting crucial information.

In the course of the module, two core insights emerged: firstly, the individual analysts became more aware of their language use and of the contextual factors from a reader’s perspective (e.g., Appendix B, statement 058). This enabled them to break up and reflect on their writing routines (e.g., Appendix B, statement 065), and to rethink their way of reasoning (e.g., Appendix B, statement 054). Module 1, hence, led to text products that were more audience-orientated. Secondly, it became clear that the organisation as a whole had not defined clear target groups for its publications (e.g., Appendix B, statement 001). The management was not aware that specifications and corresponding product adaptations were required in order to reach the various addressees (Sect. 8.1).

2.2 Training with Focus on Product

Module 2 and 3 focused on scrutinising and reflecting on text products with different approaches, including the requirements defined by the organisation (Sect. 9.2).

The two modules aimed at: raising the trainees’ language awareness (Sect. 2.4), for example, by analysing and graphically illustrating used metaphors; sensitising the trainees for the addressees’ financial literacy (Sect. 2.5), for example, with texts from other domains that had to be summarised by the financial analysts; examining financial analysts’ stances in the text products and their lines of argumentation (Sect. 2.9), for example, with the Re-Explaining Test (Sect. 8.3.4); and analysing texts passages that lack coherence (Sect. 5.4.2.2), for example, by applying the Finger Technique (Sect. 8.3.2).

Module 2 and 3 allowed for a key insight: the training helped financial analysts become aware of the gap between the actual and the targeted text quality that was required by the organisation. In the following examples, sentences from financial analysts’ original texts—before they went into the document cycling process—are discussed. These sentences indicate the range of issues that were addressed in the modules 2 and 3 by discussing them with all participants.

In example 1 (Fig. 9.14), questionably chosen words create problems for the readers: due to clashing metaphorical connotations, it is difficult to grasp how the “length […] remained high” and the “greatness […] small.” In the beginning, the analyst was not convinced that the sentence needs adjusting. For that reason, the trainer asked the analyst to draw a picture of the sentence on a piece of papers. Before long, it became clear to the analyst that the sentence risks not supporting sound mental representations in its current form. As the analyst put it, “it does not work.” Together with the other participants of the writing training, a new version of the sentence was developed. The solution finally was: “Der Verkaufszyklus blieb lang, und die Vertragsvolumen verharrten auf tiefem Niveau.” (“The sales cycle remained long, and the volumes of the contracts stayed on low levels.” Translation MW).

Fig. 9.14

Sentence 1 from financial analyst original text, before proofreading

In example 2 (Fig. 9.15), the structure of the sentence challenges the logic of the information. Interestingly, only one of twenty participants in the writing training immediately understood the problem. The long enumeration list in the sentence appeared to have blurred the underlying structure of the sentence and its grammatical relations. The analyst who had been intensively involved with the company for years found this passage clear and informative. With the Re-explaining Test, it finally struck the participants that the sentence, in its current form, would suggest that the company also combats the cardiovascular system, infectology, and neurology. The solution that the participants developed was this: “Dabei fokussiert das Unternehmen einerseits auf Medikamente zur Bekämpfung von Krebs, Stoffwechsel- und Herz-Kreislauf-Erkrankungen, und anderseits auf Medikamente in den Bereichen Infektologie, Schmerz und Neurologie.” (“On the one hand, the company focuses on drugs to fight cancer, metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, and on the other hand on drugs in the fields of infectology, pain and neurology.” Translation MW).

Fig. 9.15

Sentence 2 from financial analyst original text, before proofreading

In example 3 (Fig. 9.16), the reasoning is logically inverse: the analyst claims that the actual EBIT and the actual EBIT margin missed the consensus estimate. This is a prototypical example resulting from the double-bind situation in which the analyst argues based on the consensus estimate (Sect. 6.4.1.2). It took some doing to explain this inverse argumentation, as the trainees were used to such formulations and applied them as well. The following discussion among the participants did not so much concern the sentence itself but rather the double-bind situation of the financial analysts and their strategies to overcome it. Many had never questioned this inverse reasoning as it was a common practice. In the end of a fruitful exchange that had sensitised the financial analysts for their situation, the developed solution for the sentence was this: “Der Umsatz war fast 2% über dem Konsens; der EBIT und die EBIT-Marge beliefen sich auf 10.1%, was unter der Konsensusschätzung von 10.5% lag.” (“Sales were almost 2% above consensus; EBIT and EBIT margin were 10.1%, below the consensus estimate of 10.5%.” Translation MW).

Fig. 9.16

Sentence 3 from financial analyst original text, before proofreading

In example 4 (Fig. 9.17), the analyst indicates that a revision of the consensus estimates might happen. The sentence contains a lot of detailed information and is phrased in a way that leaves it open whether or not the consensus estimates will actually be revised. Some of the trainees did not really understand the sentence and the author had to explain what exactly was meant. This made all the trainees aware of how difficult sentences like this are: for them, as experts, and even more so for the audience, as laypersons. As in example 3, the discussion among the trainees concerned more their situation and the mechanisms in the financial community than the problems with this particular sentence, raising their context awareness. The final version of the sentence read as follows: “Angesichts der neusten Entwicklungen erwarten wir, dass die Konsens-Gewinnschätzungen revidiert werden. Gründe dafür sind: erstens eine Eintrübung des Marktumfelds, zweitens eine EBIT-Marge, die tiefer ausgefallen ist als bisher geschätzt, und drittens Margen für 2012 (11.2%), 2013 (11.6%) und 2014 (11.9%), die wir als relativ hoch erachten.” (“In light of the latest developments, we expect consensus earnings estimates to be revised. The reasons for this are: first, a deterioration in the market environment; second, an EBIT margin that is lower than previously estimated; and third, margins for 2012 (11.2%), 2013 (11.6%), and 2014 (11.9%) that we consider relatively high.” Translation MW).

Fig. 9.17

Sentence 4 from financial analyst original text, before proofreading

In example 5 (Fig. 9.18), the message is not clear, as it is not obvious how the two parts of the sentence are logically connected and what the causality between the parts is. Moreover, there is no explanation which strategy is meant: the calculation strategy of the financial analyst, or the strategy of the company Kardex? And why does the analyst calculate higher estimates such that the company is attractively valued, when there is the risk of the company’s strategy failing? Furthermore, why does the analyst write “would”? Is this a hypothetical pondering, or a consideration for another scenario? The feedback from the other trainees pointed out these issues to the author. In the end, the group of trainees had developed this version: “Vorerst bleiben wir bei unseren deutlich höheren Schätzungen, mit welchen Kardex attraktiv bewertet ist. Gleichzeitig sehen wir ein Risiko, dass die Strategie von Kardex scheitern könnte; sollte dieser Fall eintreffen, werden wir unsere Schätzungen anpassen.” (“For the time being, we are sticking to our significantly higher estimates, at which Kardex is attractively valued. At the same time, we see a risk that Kardex’s strategy could fail; should this occur, we will adjust our estimates.” Translation MW).

Fig. 9.18

Sentence 5 from financial analyst original text, before proofreading

In addition to writing training in groups, individual training sessions were conducted with numerous financial analysts. The personal weak points were determined on the basis of text analysis: the researcher, in her trainer role, noted for each analyst which issues were most salient and had to be corrected over and over again. Subsequently, a list of the most urgent points to consider when writing new texts was compiled for every analyst who took part in an individual training course. Two examples of such a list are:

Analyst P.M.

• Better match title and content.

• Avoid coherence breaks in the text: e.g., use finger technique.

• Stop using main-clause-only style: more variation in text building.

• Explain abbreviations upon first occurrence.

• Avoid logically blurring repetitive use of however.

Analyst S.M.

• Shorten text sections: use more intertitles.

• Text length limits should be better adhered to; shortenings by editors are very time-consuming.

• Do not pack too much information into individual sentences; complicated sentence constructions over more than 5 lines make reading considerably more difficult.

• Use glossary or define jargon words from the chemical industry.

• Avoid metaphor clusters and clashes; incompatible metaphors transfigure the text.

The effect of applying these simple practical measures, albeit based on theoretically grounded product analysis in context, was amazing: After only three weeks, the list of memorising points was no longer necessary for almost every analyst—the writers had quickly internalised the suggested changes and implemented them in their texts accordingly.

2.3 Training with Focus Process

Module 4 focused on the writing process of financial analysts in order to detect, analyse, and discuss writing routines and practices such that they became reflected writing activities (Sect. 2.11). The application of the writing techniques presented in Sect. 8.3 supported this development.

The first goal of the training was to become aware of one’s own writing and the processes that take place during writing. This was achieved by the accompanied, conscious working through the different writing phases (Sect. 2.11), which enabled different insights during the training. These insights were very individual—and that’s why they were so valuable: suddenly, it became clear to the writers, for example, why they had always experienced difficulties in starting to write (Appendix B, statement 017); why they had this tendency to lose track in the writing process (Appendix B, statement 019); or why it was not possible to transform pre-linguistic concepts into words (Appendix B, statement 112).

The second goal was to use the writing techniques (Sect. 8.3) to align, plan, execute, and verify the success of the writing process as a whole. This was done with a text that had to be written in a current and usual time frame, i.e., in 90 minutes from the initial idea to the finished product. The financial analysts saw that, contrary to their fears, they were much quicker to finish the text and the text was still appropriate for the addressee (module 1). Moreover, it fulfilled the requirements defined by the organisation (module 2 and 3). The analysts were subsequently motivated to use the writing techniques in everyday writing and to consciously design their writing process, which again, led to positive results. After the training, the financial analysts were able to write well-structured texts more quickly and easily (Chapter 10).

3 Organisational Development: Text Production as a Driving Force

Organisational development (OD) has the same broad effect as coaching and training but the focus shifts from individual writers and groups to the entire text-producing organisation. The addressee of the intervention, therefore, is the organisation as a whole. As in the intervention formats coaching and training (Sects. 9.1 and 9.2), the consultant supports the organisation methodically, professionally, co-actively, and dialogically in the process of clarifying its initial situation, setting goals, developing functional means of achieving goals, using the means and achieving the goals (Albrecht & Perrin, 2016, p. 428; based on Kühl, 2008).

As with coaching, the central point is that the organisation ultimately finds its own way from the problem to the solution and goes its own way, on its own initiative, at its own pace. Thereby, organisations learn to recognise similar problems in the future, to solve them and to learn further from finding solutions. And as with coaching, the solution to the problem lies in the system itself, i.e., in the organisation, for example, where “positive deviants” (e.g., Pascale et al., 2010; Spreitzer & Sonenshein, 2004), i.e., individuals who deviate positively from the majority, have long since solved a problem for themselves that is considered difficult or impossible to solve in the organisation.

At first glance, OD projects often focus on contexts, such as the relationship between an organisation and its customers and its environment. OD projects typically develop organisations in a way that enables these organisations to more easily keep pace with changes in their environment. For example, a text-producing organisation can align its management and personnel policies so that document cycling becomes more flexible in principle and adapts quickly and organically to environmental changes. As coaching and training, OD projects often connect perspectives on contexts (Sect. 9.3.1), text products (Sect. 9.3.2), and writing processes (Sect. 9.3.3), which is illustrated by the following example of the Editorial Team case.

3.1 Organisational Development with Focus on Context

Writing in the financial world places high demands on writers, both on individuals and on the whole organisation (Chapter 4). From an organisational point of view, for example, for a bank, the idea of completely outsourcing the difficult text production service is obvious. In consulting, and above all in OD projects, such radical attempts at solving problems are often the subject of debate. This section uses data from the authentic, slightly generalised case Editorial Team to discuss what considerations speak for and against outsourcing. Three alternative scenarios for effective division of the writing task were developed, as explained in the following sections.

In the case of Editorial Team, a large regional bank had over decades set up and expanded an organisational business unit with 500 job percentages that controlled the document cycling of the bank’s financial analysis business unit with roughly 60 financial analysts. This editorial team, together with the head of the financial analysis business unit, defined the quality principles for all types of texts in the business unit, advised the analysts on questions of text production, and ensured the proofreading and editing of the texts. In the wake of cost-cutting measures, consideration was now being given to outsourcing part of the work or getting rid of the editorial team. An OD project was started to provide the basis for a wise decision.

In the OD project, the project team—consultants, the head of the financial analysis business unit, and representatives of the editorial team—first examined the business field for similar cases and documented experiences. It turned out that in times of radical cost-cutting efforts, other banks had outsourced entire editorial teams to a new spin-off company, which had first reduced costs, but then caused unexpected problems: the spin-off company, thanks to its relevant niche competence, had developed into such a financially interesting organisation that it was about to be taken over by a US-based, globally active communications service provider, which bore the risk of data security issues.

Insecurities of this kind needed to be avoided, such that the costs for high-quality text production were calculable not only in the short term but also in the long term. Basically, four scenarios were conceivable:

• a. Rebranding: In this scenario, the bank would not only dispense with the editorial team, but with the entire financial analysis business unit. The bank then would buy the basics for financial analysts’ investment recommendations from its competitors, i.e., from a bank that owns a financial analysis business unit. This way, the bank would immediately save wages and structural costs for dozens of employees but lose a significant driver for market knowledge. This would weaken the basis for independent financial expertise and corresponding advice to customers. A massive loss of reputation would have to be expected; the supposed savings could therefore cost the bank considerably in the long run.

• b. Freelance network: A single member of the editorial team would work together with a network of individuals and organisations that provide services such as proofreading, editing, and translating. The main task of the responsible would be to coordinate this network. The primary reason for cost savings is that certain risks have now been outsourced: for example, working time and, indirectly, social benefits are only payable when wages have been paid. On the part of the bank, however, there are also risks: competence is vanishing gradually, and the entire text production of the financial analysis business unit would be managed by only one person, with his or her individual strengths and weaknesses.

• c. Core team plus: The editorial team remains at its core but is building a network for the peripheral tasks and for tasks that can be handled better from the outside of the organisation than from the inside. In the case of editorial team, this means a reduction from 500 to 300% of jobs, with productivity, motivation, and the ability to integrate into the team being decisive factors when considering who should continue to work in the team. The disadvantages to be expected are nerve-wracking evaluation phases, temporary darkening of the climate in the editorial team and, via formal and informal personal connections, in the entire financial analysis business unit. One of the main advantages would be that the funds saved could be used to purchase reputation-promoting services such as financial analyses by guest authors.

• d. The competent team in the company: In this scenario, the job percentages remain the same, but the organisation increases its demands on the performance of the editorial team. It checks the suitability of the employees already involved, demands and promotes further training and hires new employees when the existing ones do not meet the new profile. Similar internal reactions as in the core team plus scenario can be expected—reactions that can temporarily slow down operations because employees’ resources are tied up by change, which is not only perceived as an opportunity, but also as a threat. On the flipside, the competence as a competitive advantage is significantly increased, after the initial investment in the OD, at the same costs in the long term.

A fifth variant was finally realised, obtained from the combination of (iii) and (iv): the editorial team was cut to 400 job percent, consisting of the employees who were best qualified. This editorial team now had to master the previous task and new tasks such as developing, together with external experts, a process to enhance the writing skills of analysts across the financial analysis business unit. This writing competence should then be measured at the end of each year in an internal procedure as part of the yearly performance evaluation of the employees (Chapter 10).

Such cooperation could only succeed if the interfaces between inside and outside were clarified and determined at all levels. In this clarification and determination, the participants focused on five context-oriented activity fields in text production, which have proven to be central in practice-based text production research (Perrin, 2013, pp. 69–152): Comprehending The Task, Handling Tools Environment, Handling Task Environment, Handling Social Environment, and Implementing The Product. The following paragraphs outline these activity fields and illustrate them with examples from the OD project Editorial Team.

Comprehending The Task: at every point in document cycling, a central activity field is to comprehend exactly what needs to be done now and what does not have to be done. For example, it is not central that financial analysts write grammatically correct themselves if they are followed by an editorial team that can handle grammar, style, and orthography. However, it is crucial that they can explain their assessments of factors influencing the financial markets in a comprehensible way—such that the addressees, with their elaborate or even poorly trained financial literacy (Sect. 2.5) can understand it: they need to understand and want to understand what the analyst’s reasons and arguments were for a particular recommendation (Sect. 2.9). At this level, proofreading and editing are much more complex and expensive than corrections in style, grammar, and spelling. Writing training for analysts gains more by focusing on the complex level of comprehensible reasoning, not on linguistic-normative details.

Handling Tools Environment: writing in financial analysis, like many forms of professional writing, is increasingly characterised by a division of actual writing and automated activity. Financial analysts write on networked computers, access and analyse the sources electronically and also store their own analysis texts in databases. If writers want to use such a writing tool productively, they first have to know the tool itself, secondly, they have to constantly work their way into technologically advanced variants, and thirdly, they have to constantly reflect on the interplay between the material and the mental text processor. An example for this interaction: writers can easily delete a text passage on the screen at any time, but not in their head—and therefore the deleted passage will be added from the memory from now on when reading. This can lead to the writer not noticing the gap that occurred in the text with the deletion. Such knowledge is plausible and can be imparted in training; from the OD point of view, however, the considerations about the handling of writing tools mean a compulsion to continue learning along with the technological development.

Handling Task Environment: financial analysts write a lot, but they do not just write. Therefore, writing does not mean that analysts can work undisturbed on a single text until the task is completed and then devote themselves to the next task. The tasks compete, many things have to be done at the same time, analysis and corrections, short and long texts, with short- and long-term deadlines, for laymen and professionals. And as with apparent multitasking, in which the computer processes several tasks in the smallest of stages and intermeshes them, there can be a lot of friction loss at the transitions between the tasks: losing the thread, having to rethink, and transferring emotions from one task to the next. Whereas inexperienced writers struggle with the myriads of different tasks, experienced writers can plan such that these issues are easier to handle. For example, they stage their writing processes sensibly, use their biological daily rhythm to shape their work, and counter disturbances with composure. In cases such as Editorial Team, staff can be trained by comparing the practices of experienced and inexperienced writers (see also Sect. 9.1).

Handling Social Environment: financial analysts’ texts for investors are traces of social activity as the communicative writing is aimed at other stakeholders, i.e., at the financial community and at the whole financial sector (Sect. 4.4). The gathering of information for such texts also requires social relations: analysts know the companies they write about, and they have a network of peers who can be tapped for information as well. Good contacts to sources thus facilitate advantages in knowledge. In addition, document cycling contains social aspects as well: for example, an editorial team and analysts work together better if they know and appreciate each other’s efforts. And text quality benefits when writers understand their work as a social achievement, namely the translation between equivalent but different cultures and different levels of financial literacy (Sect. 2.5).

Implementing The Product: Writing in a narrower sense can be seen as the process that begins with the first idea for a text and ends with the last point of the finished text product. However, such an idea does not go far enough in any professional context. Texts here represent intermediate products in value chains that only achieve their goal if the text production process is coordinated and guarantees the completion of the workflow under any circumstances. From this point of view, the thorough proofreading, the careful corrections, and the questions that the editorial team members ask the financial analysts when their texts are not clear, are useful and necessary to ensure text quality in document cycling. In the case of Editorial Team, this crucial interface would have been narrowed and probably weakened with the scenarios i and ii.

Problems from these five context-oriented activity fields of text production were therefore to be solved in the case of Editorial Team. The severe measures, as scenario i and ii, would have only apparently offered the bank a solution to these problems—but the problems would have occurred again at the interface to the external communications service providers. In addition, these problems also occur within the financial analysis business unit; here, too, writing tasks must be understood, tools mastered, resources allocated, social relationships engineered, and products implemented.

The entire bank as a text-producing organisation was thus able to benefit from a basic solution which was developed using the example of the interface and cooperation between the financial analysis business unit and the editorial team. In the OD project in the Editorial Team case, the bank changed its initial intention to reduce costs in the editorial team towards the idea of generating better returns with minimal cost cuttings: more independence, more reputation, more profile. And this paid off: the bank has been satisfied with the chosen solution for several years (Chapter 10).

3.2 Organisational Development with Focus on Product

Developments of organisations and processes are not performed for their own sake; the goal is that the work will be done more effectively after an OD. More effectively means two things: internally, performance costs less in terms of resources of all kinds, such as less time and money; externally, performance is more functional in the organisation’s environment, i.e., more effective for reputation management and customer loyalty. Thereby, the hinge between internal functioning and external functionality is the product that the organisation manufactures and makes available to its environment. In the case of text-producing organisations, these products are the texts; in the case of Editorial Team, the products are financial analysis texts.

From an OD point of view, quality criteria for texts, therefore, should ensure that a text is as effective as possible externally while keeping the internal efforts as manageable as possible. In the Editorial Team case, the organisation defined the following quality criteria for texts. Texts thus have to:

• provide correct information;

• focus on the aspects that are essential and necessary for investment decisions;

• reflect the stance of the financial analyst who wrote the text;

• stage the story such that the audience can comprehend the reasoning behind it;

• establish relevance for the audience.

These criteria are linked to activity fields in text production (Sect. 2.11) in which text parts are written or further processed. For the central text criteria defined in the Editorial Team case, five product-oriented activity fields had to be taken into consideration: Finding The Sources, Limiting The Topic, Taking Own Positions, Staging The Story, and Establishing Relevance For The Audience.

Finding The Sources: In this activity field, writers search, find, and use their sources in such a way that they can access verified information and dismiss unsafe information. From the OD point of view, it is crucial that sources are tapped as early as possible, especially with regard to document cycling. The more stations a misinformation passes, the more expensive the correction becomes, because more and more decisions which were made on wrong basis have to be reversed. At the end of the production chain, at the interface to the customer, errors in content damage credibility and thus reputation—even if disclaimers point out that a bank rejects any liability for errors in the text.

Limiting The Topic: In this activity field, writers decide on the thematic frame of their text such that they are able to communicate the essence of the subject comprehensively and comprehensibly. Texts should therefore correspond to the communication situation and, after successful communication, successful actions should result, i.e., informed investment decisions by the target readers. Limiting the topic includes various factors and practices, such as consulting superiors, comparing with peers, analysing sources, checking on guidelines and the organisation’s overall investment strategy. In the best case, the text product contains only essential information and no shallow text parts that on the one hand are work for the financial analyst, and on the other hand add no value for the audience.

Taking Own Position: In this activity field, writers signal their stance and explain their reasoning. Financial analysis texts are also part of reputation management, brand building, and the differentiation from competitors. Their structure is therefore subject to audience design principles according to which the text product must meet the expectations of the addressees and at the same time differ as strongly as possible from other, similar products. Thereby, the differentiation strategy scales: by means of audience design, the bank wants to distinguish itself from other banks, the financial analyst team from other financial analyst teams, the individual analyst from other analysts. Noteworthy in this respect are the so-called star analysts. They are the gurus in the field who differ in their approaches and who are more successful than their peers. As a consequence, other market participants look at the organisation to see how the star analyst assesses the markets (Kuperman et al. 2003). This tendency is reinforced if the star analyst repeatedly receives coveted awards and prizes for his or her recommendations, which are published worldwide and attract attention (Sect. 5.4.1.2).

Staging The Story: In this activity field, the dramaturgy of the text is set up. This necessitates practices of placing information in an easily comprehensible context and thus telling the facts. If people were not so interested in narratives, a few tables and bullet points would suffice for passing on information in financial analysis. The purpose of the continuous text, however, is to take the addressees by the hand, so to speak, and to guide them through the landscape of facts, assumptions and arguments in such a way that a coherent idea of the investment story and its reasoning can be built up step by step in the reader’s mind. In this activity field, the double-bind situation (Sect. 6.4.1.2) of financial analysts is an issue: on the one hand, they should guide investors through the jungle of information about the financial markets with accurate and profitable recommendations; on the other hand, reliable forecasts are never possible given the volatility and unpredictability of the financial markets. And this often leads to strategic formulations and hedging phrases.

Establishing relevance for the audience: In this activity field, the writers have to take three aspects into consideration: firstly, a text needs to have a clear target group, secondly, the expectations as well as the previous knowledge and the willingness to communicate of this target group should be known to the writers; and, thirdly, the writers can engage with these conditions, i.e., have linguistic strategies of audience design at their disposal. For the editorial team this means that it has to substantiate its knowledge of the meaning and nature of the target groups such that it can convey this knowledge to the writers in a plausible way. And this, in return, facilitates faster document cycling, as the texts do not have to undergo drastic corrections and lavish rewriting.

In the Editorial Team case, the systemic connection between activity fields and quality requirements of the text products helped keep the competence of text production in-house and dispense with outsourcing (Sect. 9.3). Even though the main focus of OD is not on products, in this case text products, this aspect cannot be neglected as the product embodies, so to speak, the interface between an organisation and its environment. If the products are not right, the earnings of the organisation are at stake and the organisational processes must be reconsidered altogether.

3.3 Organisational Development with Focus on Process

If those involved in an OD project discover that the products systematically do not meet the expectations because, for example, they run counter to central customer needs, then the processes need to be scrutinised. It is not enough for these processes to function to the satisfaction of the organisation itself, for example, because they run smoothly and with minimum resources; the processes must also be functional in the context, in the environment of the organisation, i.e., for their stakeholders. Process quality, understood in this way, concerns the whole production process, at certain costs, of products that function, in their context, e.g., from an addresses’ perspective, in a certain desired way.

From an OD point of view, quality criteria for text production processes, therefore, should ensure that text products achieve the desired effect in their environment with as little internal effort as possible. In the Editorial Team case, the organisation defined the following quality criteria. Text production processes have to:

• include that the source texts are read diligently;

• ensure that the text products are read carefully before publication;

• enable the writers to envisage both their own and their audiences’ goal;

• balance production routines and individual patterns;

• ensure an ongoing work flow and avoid standstills;

• provide measures that check whether the produced texts fulfil the quality requirements.

These criteria are linked to activity fields in text production (Sect. 2.11) which are processes themselves. For the central text production processes defined in the Editorial Team case, six process-oriented activity fields had to be taken into consideration: Reading Source Text, Reading Own Text, Goal Setting, Planning, Controlling, and Monitoring.

Reading Source Text: in document cycling, texts are developed step by step and thus pass through a value chain. At all stages of this chain, text production involves not only writing, but also reading source material. Depending on the situation, cursory, or thorough reading may be more appropriate. One way or another, the kind of reading determines the resource input and the quality of the final text product. On the one hand, cursory reading takes less time; on the other, thorough reading facilitates to carefully develop the resulting text into a product that meets the requirements and expectations. It is cheaper, for example, if the reading takes place before a text product is revised for linguistic subtleties or has even been implemented, i.e., passed on to the next instance in document cycling.

Reading Own Text: In the production process, a new text is created which, at the time of its implementation, represents a final stage concluding a series of intermediate products. Strictly speaking, every single newly added or deleted character creates a new intermediate product, and each of these intermediate products can be re-read. Writers read such intermediate products to realise which parts of the intended text are already there and what still has to be accomplished. Writing research has shown that there are more favourable and less suitable moments to read intermediate text products before rewriting them (Sect. 8.3.3). The timing and technique of reading one’s own text, for example, by means of the Typo Test (Sect. 8.3.4), determine the success of the text production. In document cycling, a text is read several times at all stages of the value creation process and is returned in loops to stations that have already been passed through. Precise planning, for example, of the points in time when thorough reading is necessary, helps financial analysts, the editorial team, and the stations that are dependent on accurate and reliable time management.

Goal setting: in the case of Editorial Team, it turned out that many financial analysts did not know who their addressees were. Some had not really thought about the audience who would read their texts, others had their peers and superiors as readers in mind. Empirically supported diagnoses, such as progression analysis (Sect. 9.1), reveal that financial analysts tend to neglect the audience—even though writing is a central activity in their daily work. This bears the risk that target readers with low financial literacy are not taken into account and that the text products have not undergone cross-domain translation (Sect. 2.8). However, the awareness of the audience should shape text production from the very beginning, for example, with working techniques such as the Mugging Test (Sect. 8.3.1). This can prevent that text products have to be rewritten lavishly in the course of document cycling, for example, in the editorial team.

Planning: Financial analysis texts represent highly standardised types of text for which basic elements (Sect. 5.4.3.1) and key genres (Sect. 5.4.3.2) are specified. Standardisation seems to relieve the writer of individual planning of the text shape; only the most appropriate text pattern has to be chosen and then processed by pouring the new information into the old pattern. The pattern itself, however, is not set in absolute terms, but in all its variations it was created in communicative practice. As the communicative environment changes, so do the requirements for the type of text and, ultimately, the type of text itself. With each copy, the pattern is varied, and each somewhat more independent, creative variation, which is perceived by the participants as functioning better than the previous standard, can induce them to deviate from the previous pattern in the other copies as well. This is how text types change, as well as seemingly planned and established workflows. The knowledge about reproduction, variation, and change of patterns helps writers be open to development. Planning can be viewed as a scaling process: from the local planning of a sentence, paragraph, or text to the global planning of the entire document cycling.

Controlling: The same applies to the workflow. The global workflow of the entire text-producing organisation, the bank, corresponds, on a micro level, to the writing flow of the individual financial analysts as they write their texts. Those who are in the state of “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi, 2004; Rockefeller, 2011), here in the state of writing flow, experience their work as smooth and meaningful, make good progress and constantly shift their focus of attention forward in the growing text. The texts are thus created in the reading direction, from top to bottom, and are revised again from top to bottom, which minimises the risk of text breaks, gaps, and contradictions. Keeping the workflows running requires well-rehearsed, partly conscious control. At the macro level, for example, a well-controlled workflow includes adherence to explicitly agreed deadlines as much as agile, intuitive problem solving for minor delays. An internal competence centre, as in the case of Editorial Team, can intervene in a controlling manner if deadlines are regularly not met or the workflow threatens to come to a standstill. At the micro level, working techniques such as the Stages Technique (Sect. 8.3.3) help to achieve and maintain the mental state of the writing flow.

Monitoring: Check what has been produced and compare it with what was intended—this target and comparison belongs to every project on scaling levels. Immediately after typing a word, its typeface appears, which makes it easier to check whether the writer really meant the word and whether its spelling looks familiar, i.e., it probably corresponds to the spelling norm. Similarly, larger parts of the text are continuously checked during writing, for example, transitions between paragraphs. Techniques such as the Bonsai Technique or the Typo Test (Sect. 8.3.4) help effectively read entire text parts and texts. Processes, such as proofreading and editing, spontaneously or institutionalised, contribute to the quality of text products. Thereby, the framework for the activity field of Monitoring extends beyond the document cycling of, e.g., the financial analysis business unit. In the value chain of document cycling, every writing and communication activity, be it short- or long-term, global or local, must generate added value that is ultimately verifiable (Chapter 10).

In the Editorial Team case, the bank’s document cycling was checked to see whether the processes were appropriately weighted, designed, and combined such that the desired performance could be achieved from an organisational point of view. Wherever deviations from the target and the actual state became apparent, the stakeholders—from financial analysts to the members of the editorial team—acquired working techniques in coaching and training and within the OD project, with which the text production process could ultimately be improved.

4 Interim Conclusion

Interventions firstly aim at questioning routines that are no longer suitable to successfully performing the tasks in the professional setting, and secondly, interventions foster new ways of mastering the challenges with sustainable and adequate measures and processes. Carrying out interventions therefore is a delicate matter that necessitates all stakeholders to be committed and dedicated even if it means to throw overboard long-standing procedures, attitudes, and habits. The interventions in this study were developed with and for practitioners, based on the research explained so far: to facilitate knowledge transformation in the practical world, they draw on case stories (Sects. 9.1–9.3), reflecting critical situations and good practices as identified in the financial community (Chapters 4–6). Thereby, three complementary forms of intervention are explained: coaching, training, and organisational development.

The Bank 1 case (Sect. 9.1) shows where and how coaching as a form of advice can contribute to improving writing in financial analysis: coaching aims at sustainable individual solutions to complex problems. It reaches deep enough to break up and overcome routines that have been barely recognised, and it results in feasible solutions for everyday working life in a professional setting. In doing so, coaching demands and promotes the coachees’ ability to recognise writing problems themselves in the future, to develop solution variants, to find criteria for choosing the best solution, and finally to evaluate the solution. Coaching, hence, supports the coachees in finding their own successful and sustainable way in solving individual writing problems.

The Bank 2 case (Sect. 9.2) indicates that training is particularly suitable for heterogeneous groups, rather technical writing problems, and quick wins regarding financial analysis text products. This includes writing for the audience (Sect. 9.2.1), scrutinising and reflecting on text products with different approaches (Sect. 9.2.2), and questioning and improving writing activities (Sect. 9.2.3). A precondition for successful writing training is the dedication and engagement of the trainees in the interventions, and the researcher’s considerations for the trainees’ situation. This necessitates research-based writing training that includes context (Chapter 4), product (Chapter 5), and process (Chapter 6) aspects.

The Editorial Team case (Sect. 9.3) illustrates that the consulting format Organisational Development (OD) aims at the development of entire organisations, here text-producing organisations. Thereby, OD is more than the sum of the development of the individual writers: on the one hand, a cleverly organised workflow and a thought-through document cycling facilitate the improvement management of quality, e.g., by institutionally agreed quality concepts and practices for the process of reading sources or adhering to deadlines and, at a higher level, by an institutionally anchored quality discourse. On the other hand, an optimal overall performance requires individual performance and work at the interfaces, e.g., reading carefully, and adhering to deadlines. In other words: OD is an overarching process in which the writing processes and products of an entire text-producing organisation are to be reorganised and reshaped. This can be achieved by, e.g., integrating writing techniques (Sect. 8.3) and applying them into the professional setting (Sect. 2.2) of the organisation.

Taken together, the three types of interventions in text production environments and their influence on the communicative potential of financial analysis texts are of twofold relevance. From a theoretical perspective, the developed interventions can be tested in practice, and the feedback from stakeholders on the applied interventions allows to further develop existing theories and improve proposed measures. From a practical perspective, intervention repertoires should enable stakeholders to implement feasible and sustainable solutions that integrate well into existing or emerging structures and are applicable on scaling levels. Most importantly, however, interventions need to prove to be useful and to have the intended effect. Therefore, their impact and effect have to be evaluated in practice (Chapter 10).