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Why Your Reports Are Still Rubbish After 20 Years of "Improvements"
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Here's something that'll probably annoy half the executives reading this: your company's reports haven't improved one bit since 2004, despite seventeen different "writing workshops" and forty-three PowerPoint presentations about "clear communication."
I've been reviewing business reports for over two decades now, working with everyone from ASX 200 companies to suburban plumbing contractors, and the same bloody problems keep showing up like weeds after rain. Everyone thinks they're writing better than they actually are.
The biggest issue? Australian businesses treat report writing like it's some mysterious art form that requires a PhD in literature. Wrong. Dead wrong.
The Three-Page Rule Nobody Follows
Most reports I see could be three pages max. Instead, I'm getting 47-page monstrosities that somehow manage to say absolutely nothing useful by page 12. Last month, a mining company in Perth sent me a quarterly safety report that was longer than my mortgage paperwork. The actual safety incidents? Buried on page 39.
Here's what actually works: one page of executive summary, one page of key findings, one page of recommendations. That's it.
But no, everyone wants to look "thorough."
Why Melbourne's Banking Sector Gets It Right
The ANZ team I worked with in 2019 had this brilliant approach. Their department head insisted every report start with what he called "the car park conversation" - imagine you're telling your colleague the most important bits while walking to your car after work. No jargon. No padding. Just the stuff that actually matters.
Smart bloke. Results spoke for themselves - their departmental efficiency ratings jumped 34% within eight months.
Compare that to some government departments I've consulted for (won't name names, but they know who they are) where reports read like they've been written by committees of lawyers trying to impress other committees of lawyers.
The Aussie Problem with Data Presentation
We're terrible at this. Absolutely terrible.
I once received a report from a Sydney logistics company that had 17 different charts showing essentially the same information - that their delivery times had improved by 8%. Seventeen charts! You could have said "deliveries are 8% faster" and moved on with your life.
The obsession with looking "data-driven" has created this weird culture where people think more graphs equals better analysis. Sometimes the most important insights come from conversations with your frontline staff, not from Excel spreadsheets that nobody understands anyway.
What Brisbane's Tech Startups Taught Me
Working with several Brisbane-based software companies last year opened my eyes to something interesting. These younger businesses approach reporting completely differently. They use what they call "narrative reporting" - basically telling the story of what happened, why it happened, and what they're doing about it.
No corporate speak. No "leveraging synergies" or "optimising outcomes." Just plain English that actually communicates something useful.
One startup founder told me: "If my grandmother can't understand our quarterly report, we've failed." Brilliant attitude.
The Cost of Bad Reports
Here's a statistic that might shock you: 73% of senior executives admit they don't read full reports anymore because they're too long and confusing. They skim the first page, maybe glance at the conclusion, and make decisions based on incomplete information.
That's not a reading comprehension problem. That's a writing problem.
Bad reports cost Australian businesses an estimated $2.3 billion annually in poor decision-making and wasted time. Yet most companies still invest more money in their coffee machines than in proper writing training.
The Formatting Disaster
Can we talk about formatting for a minute? Because this drives me absolutely mental.
Reports with 47 different fonts. Bullet points that go eight levels deep. Headers that make no logical sense. Graphs with legends that require a magnifying glass to read.
I saw a report last week where the section headers were in Comic Sans. Comic Sans! For a financial audit!
Keep it simple. Use one professional font throughout. Make your headers meaningful. If you're using bullet points and they go more than three levels deep, you're overthinking it.
Why "Executive Summaries" Are Usually Neither
The so-called executive summary has become this weird ritual where people just copy-paste the conclusion and call it done. Real executive summaries should answer five questions in this exact order:
- What did we examine?
- What did we find?
- Why does it matter?
- What should we do?
- How much will it cost?
Most executive summaries I read answer maybe two of these questions, usually in the wrong order, and often with enough qualifying language to make a politician jealous.
The Adelaide Approach
I spent six months with a manufacturing company in Adelaide that had the worst reporting culture I'd ever seen. Seriously. Their monthly operational reports looked like they'd been assembled by throwing dart boards at random statistics.
We implemented what I call the "beer test" - could you explain this report to a colleague over drinks at the local pub? If not, rewrite it.
Within four months, their management meetings went from three-hour endurance tests to focused 45-minute sessions. Productivity improved. Morale improved. Even their customer satisfaction scores went up because decisions were being made faster with better information.
Sometimes the simplest solutions work best.
Technology Won't Save You
Every second company I work with thinks the answer is better software. "We need a new reporting platform!" they cry, usually while their current system sits unused because nobody knows how to write clear, actionable content.
New software won't fix unclear thinking. It won't magically transform rambling, pointless paragraphs into sharp, useful insights.
Canva and Microsoft have made it easier than ever to create visually appealing reports, but they've also enabled people to disguise poor content with pretty graphics. A beautifully designed report that says nothing useful is still useless - it's just prettier uselessness.
The Real Solution
Stop trying to impress people with your vocabulary. Stop padding reports with unnecessary background information. Stop presenting every possible data point just because you can.
Start with your conclusion. Work backwards from there. Ask yourself: if someone only read one paragraph of this report, which paragraph would give them the most value?
Write that paragraph first. Then build everything else around supporting that core message.
Australian businesses need to get comfortable with brevity. We're not writing academic papers here. We're trying to help people make better decisions faster.
Most importantly, test your reports on someone who wasn't involved in creating them. If they can't understand it quickly, neither will your intended audience.
The best report writers I know treat every document like it's competing for attention with Netflix, social media, and about fifty other urgent priorities. Because that's exactly what's happening.
Make your reports so clear, so useful, and so concise that people actually want to read them. Revolutionary concept, I know.
Want to improve your team's communication skills? Check out these resources: