Tone of voice
How Enable Amazing sounds. The words, the rhythm, the attitude. A guide for every piece of content, from website headlines to LinkedIn posts to client emails.
The voice
Direct. Warm. No bullshit. Say it how it is, but say it with heart.
Enable Amazing sounds like a smart friend who happens to be really good at fixing teams. Someone who'll tell you the truth, even when it's uncomfortable, but you never feel attacked. Conversations, not lectures. Questions, not accusations. Plain English, not consultancy waffle.
Voice pillars
Each pillar has a counterweight. Direct but kind. Warm but honest. The voice only works when both sides show up.
Direct
Counterweight: kind
Say what needs saying. Don't bury the point in qualifiers, caveats, or corporate softeners. Get there fast. But the counterweight matters. Direct without kindness is just blunt. The goal is clarity, not confrontation.
Warm
Counterweight: honest
You genuinely care about the people in these systems. That comes through. But warmth without honesty becomes vagueness. You can be empathetic and still call out what's broken. Compassion with backbone.
Challenging
Counterweight: curious
Ask the questions nobody's asking. Challenge assumptions. Poke at sacred cows. But challenge without curiosity becomes preaching. You're not lecturing from a stage. You're sitting beside someone, pointing at the same whiteboard, going "what if this bit is the problem?"
Human
Counterweight: professional
Write like a person, not a brand. Contractions. Fragments. The odd swear word. Humour when it fits. But human without professional is just messy. You're still someone clients trust with serious problems and real money. The humanity makes you more credible, not less.
Do's and don'ts
Quick gut-checks for whether a piece of writing sounds like Enable Amazing.
Do
- Start with the point. First sentence should earn the second.
- Use short sentences. Then a longer one when you need to explain. Then short again.
- Ask questions that make people stop and think.
- Name the uncomfortable thing in the room.
- Use "you" and "your." Talk to people, not about them.
- Use everyday words. "Fix" not "remediate." "Find" not "identify." "Slow" not "suboptimal."
- Be specific. Real examples beat abstract principles every time.
- Let humour happen naturally. Don't force it, don't suppress it.
Don't
- Waffle. If a sentence doesn't earn its place, cut it.
- Use jargon to sound clever. "Agile transformation" says nothing. Say what you actually mean.
- Hedge everything. "I think perhaps maybe this could potentially be..." Just say it.
- Blame people. Ever. The system is always the starting point.
- Sound like a consultancy brochure. No "leveraging synergies" or "driving alignment."
- Be sarcastic at someone's expense. Punching down isn't the vibe.
- Over-explain. Trust your reader to be smart.
- Use exclamation marks to manufacture enthusiasm.
Before and after
The same message, two ways. The Enable Amazing version is what we're aiming for.
Website hero headline
| Enable Amazing | Not this |
|---|---|
| Fix the system. Free the people. | Empowering Teams Through Holistic Delivery Transformation |
Website services description
| Enable Amazing | Not this |
|---|---|
| Your team isn't slow. Your system is. I find the bottleneck, fix the process around it, and get out of the way. Most teams see results within weeks, not months. | We provide comprehensive delivery optimisation services, leveraging industry best practices to identify and remediate systemic inefficiencies across your software development lifecycle. |
LinkedIn post
| Enable Amazing | Not this |
|---|---|
| Spent yesterday mapping a team's delivery pipeline. The devs were being blamed for slow releases. Turns out every pull request needed sign-off from 3 people, 2 of whom were in back-to-back meetings all day. The code was ready in hours. The approval took days. People are never the issue. | I'm thrilled to share some insights from a recent client engagement! After conducting a thorough analysis of their software development lifecycle, we identified several key areas of opportunity in their approval workflows. By implementing a streamlined governance framework, we achieved a 40% reduction in cycle time. |
Client email, first contact
| Enable Amazing | Not this |
|---|---|
| Hi Sarah, Thanks for getting in touch. Sounds like your team's stuck, and that the usual "just work harder" approach isn't cutting it. (It never does.) Happy to jump on a call and dig into what's actually going on. No pitch, just a conversation to see if I can help. When works for you this week? | Dear Sarah, Thank you for your enquiry regarding our delivery consultancy services. I would be delighted to arrange an introductory consultation at your earliest convenience to discuss how Enable Amazing can support your organisation's delivery objectives. Please find attached our capabilities deck for your review. |
Case study opening line
| Enable Amazing | Not this |
|---|---|
| The chief technology officer told me the team was underperforming. The team told me they were drowning. Both were right, but only one of those things was fixable without firing anyone. | Client X, a mid-stage fintech operating in the business-to-business payments space, engaged Enable Amazing to conduct a comprehensive assessment of their delivery capabilities and identify opportunities for improvement. |
Error state or empty state (future product)
| Enable Amazing | Not this |
|---|---|
| Nothing here yet. That's fine. Every good system starts empty. | No data available. Please configure your workspace settings to begin. |
Word bank
Words and phrases that feel like Enable Amazing, and the ones that don't. Not an exhaustive list, but a compass for the right direction.
Words we use
fix, bottleneck, flow, stuck, unblock, broken, find, people, team, system, process, delivery, friction, energy, capacity, rhythm, actually, real, works, simple, clear, why
Words we avoid
leverage, synergy, alignment, optimise, transformation, stakeholder, best practice, deliverables, paradigm, holistic, empower, ideate, utilise, cascade, bandwidth, circle back, deep dive, move the needle, low-hanging fruit, at the end of the day
Swearing: the rules
Swearing is fine. Selectively. It adds punch when it's earned, and it signals "I'm a real person, not a brand." But there are rules.
When it works
- For emphasis at the end of a point that's already been made. The swear word is the exclamation mark, not the argument. "Your team isn't broken. Your approval process is bloody awful."
- In LinkedIn posts and blog content where it signals authenticity. "I don't care what your Jira board says. If nobody's shipping, something's broken."
When it doesn't work
- In proposals, formal emails, or anything a client might forward to their boss. Read the room. If there's any doubt, leave it out.
- More than once per piece. One lands. Two feels like a habit. Three and you've lost the professional trust that makes the swearing effective in the first place.
Voice by channel
The same voice, dialled up or down depending on context. The personality stays. The formality shifts.
| Channel | Warmth | Challenge | Humour | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | High | Medium | "Had a conversation with a product manager last week who told me their team 'just needs to be more accountable.' I asked what would happen if the team was perfect but the process was still broken. Silence." | |
| Website | Medium | Medium | Light | "Most delivery problems aren't people problems. They're system problems that make good people look bad. I find the bottleneck and fix the process around it." |
| Proposals | Medium | Low | Minimal | "Based on our initial conversation, the primary constraint appears to be in the handoff between design and engineering. I'd recommend starting with a 2-week workflow audit focused on that junction." |
| Blog and newsletter | High | High | High | "Every team I've worked with has a 'that's just how we do things' process that nobody can explain. Usually invented by someone who left 3 years ago. Usually the bottleneck." |
| Social (short-form) | Medium | High | Medium | "Stop hiring more developers. Start fixing the process that's slowing down the ones you've got." |
| Client emails | High | Medium | Natural | "Hi Tom. Quick update. Found the thing. Your deploy pipeline has a manual approval step that adds 2 days to every release. Shall we dig into who owns that and whether it's still needed?" |
Writing rules
Non-negotiable conventions. These aren't style preferences. They're rules. Follow them everywhere, every time.
1. Sentence case everywhere
Titles, headings, menu items, labels, buttons. All sentence case. Capitalise the first word and proper nouns only. The exception: proper nouns like company names, people, or apps always get their capital.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Meet the team behind Enable Amazing | Meet The Team Behind Enable Amazing |
2. No acronyms
Write it out. Every time. If someone doesn't know what it stands for, you've already lost them. The only exceptions are acronyms that have become words in their own right, things like "lol" or "FAQ" that your reader would never think to expand.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Key performance indicators | KPIs |
3. Use contractions
Always. They're how people actually talk. "We're" not "we are." "Don't" not "do not." "It's" not "it is." Writing without contractions sounds stiff and corporate, the opposite of what we're going for.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| You won't need to change your team | You will not need to change your team |
4. Active voice
Be direct. Say who's doing what. Active voice is shorter, clearer, and more honest. Passive voice hides responsibility, and we're in the business of making things visible, not hiding them.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| I mapped your deployment pipeline | Your deployment pipeline was mapped |
5. Digits, not words
Write numbers as numbers. "3 teams" not "three teams." "2 weeks" not "two weeks." It's faster to read and easier to scan. Numbers are facts. Let them look like facts.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Results in under 4 weeks | Results in under four weeks |
6. Gender-neutral by default
Use the pronouns someone gives you. If you don't know, avoid gendered pronouns. Use "they" and "their," never "his/her" or "he/she." It's simpler, more inclusive, and reads better anyway.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| When a developer finishes their work | When a developer finishes his/her work |
For the full guide, see inclusive language.
7. One name for one thing
Pick what you're going to call something and stick to it. If it's a "workflow audit" on the services page, it's a "workflow audit" in the proposal and the case study. Switching between names (assessment, review, analysis, audit) makes people wonder if they're the same thing.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Workflow audit (everywhere) | Audit, then assessment, then review, then analysis |
8. Never tell people how to feel
Don't say "you'll love this" or "exciting news." Let people decide how they feel about something. Describe what it does, what it changes, what it fixes. If it's genuinely good, they'll feel it without being told to.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Ship 3x faster with half the handoffs | You're going to love how fast this makes your team |
9. Be inclusive
Write for everyone. Avoid idioms that don't translate, metaphors that assume a shared cultural background, or examples that only represent one type of person. If in doubt, simplify. Clear language is inclusive language.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Simple, clear language anyone can follow | It's not rocket science, guys |
For the full guide, see inclusive language.
10. Oxford comma
Always use it. "Systems, people, and flow" not "systems, people and flow." It removes ambiguity, and once you start noticing the difference, you can't stop. Pick the version that's clearer. It's always the Oxford comma.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Workflows, bottlenecks, and delivery | Workflows, bottlenecks and delivery |
11. No full stops in headings
Headings, titles, buttons, labels. No full stops. They make things feel heavy and finished when headings should feel like an opening. Subheadings and body copy get full stops as normal.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Fix the system, free the people | Fix the system, free the people. |
12. Descriptive link text
Every link should make sense on its own. "Read the case study" not "click here." Better for accessibility, better for scanning, and "click here" tells you nothing about where you're going. The link text is a promise. Make it a specific one.
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Read the full case study | Click here to learn more |
13. Dates and times
Dates: day, month, year. "25 February 2026." No slashes, no abbreviations, no American format. Times: lowercase with no space. "3pm" not "3:00 PM" or "3 PM."
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| 25 February 2026 at 3pm | 02/25/2026 at 3:00 PM |
14. No ampersands
"And" is a word. Use it. Ampersands are banned in all copy. The only exceptions: when it's part of a company or brand name or a specific abbreviation or academic reference. Everywhere else, write "and."
| Do | Don't |
|---|---|
| Systems and people | Systems & people |
The acid test
Before publishing anything, ask these 5 questions. If the answer to any of them is no, rewrite.
- Would you actually say this out loud to a client?
- Could you cut it in half and lose nothing?
- Is the point in the first 2 sentences?
- Would a 14-year-old understand every word?
- Does it blame the system, not the people?