The Bullet That Hides Its Own Verb
A slide deck for a board update contains these bullets: "Implementation of the new intake process - completed Q2." "Vendor contract review ongoing, pending legal." "Customer satisfaction scores improved, up 12 points, driven by faster response times, which the team should be proud of." A director says the deck "reads like notes, not a board document" but has only 30 minutes before the meeting and cannot restructure the slides. The board's expectation, stated in the deck template, is that each bullet leads with a result and names an owner.
1. Diagnose what makes these bullets read as notes rather than board-level writing, using the template's two expectations as the standard.
Read the worked answer
Measured against "lead with a result" and "name an owner," each bullet fails differently.
- Bullet one leads with a process noun, "Implementation," so the reader must reach the end to find the outcome ("completed"). It names no owner.
- Bullet two leads with a noun phrase and buries the status in an adjective ("ongoing"), then adds a dangling condition, "pending legal," with no subject. No owner.
- Bullet three leads with a result, which is good, but then attaches a self-congratulatory clause ("which the team should be proud of") that addresses the team rather than the board, and it still names no owner.
The common fault is nominalization: abstract nouns where a verb and an actor belong. Board readers scan for who did what and what changed. Notes record topics; board documents record results and accountability.
2. Rewrite all three bullets to meet the template, and explain the one bullet where meeting the template requires a decision rather than an edit.
Read the worked answer
Rewrites:
- "Completed the new intake process in Q2 - owner: [name]."
- "Legal is reviewing the vendor contract; review continues until counsel signs off - owner: [name]."
- "Raised customer satisfaction 12 points through faster response times - owner: [name]."
Each now opens with a verb and a result, and each ends with an accountable owner. The third drops the "should be proud" clause because it addresses the wrong audience; pride is not a board metric.
The decision case is bullet two. Rewriting it as a result requires knowing whether the review is on schedule or blocked, and "pending legal" does not say. "Legal is reviewing" is safe because it restates only what is written. But if the director knows the review is behind, the honest bullet is "Vendor contract review is behind schedule pending legal sign-off," which is a different claim. The editor should not choose between "on track" and "delayed" on the writer's behalf; that is a factual decision for the owner, and it should be resolved before the meeting rather than papered over with neutral wording.