It is still early enough to rally around a few resolutions for 2012, and one pledge worth making is to strengthen your communication skills, particularly writing.

If you are like many people, you take communication skills, oral and written, for granted. After all, you have been communicating since you were a toddler, so you assume you must be proficient. Yet, Towers Watson studies have shown that a significant percentage of employees do not think management communicates well.

As playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, "The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

Here are a few consequences of substandard writing skills:

• You lack credibility. You distinguish yourself when you can craft clear, compelling messages. It strengthens your credibility, your believability, which is a judgment that people make of you.

Tip: To strengthen your credibility, deepen your expertise and be an authority in your field. But you need to demonstrate your expertise in your communication. If you fumble your way through messages, it is difficult for people to take you seriously.

• You probably are not thinking clearly. A rambling, disorganized message reveals an unfocused mind, and there is little demand in business for muddled thinkers. And don't assume the reader will blithely ignore the haphazard writing; after all, you created more work for the reader.

Tip: The information in your message needs to have a clear sense of direction. Start with a tightly written opening that states why you are writing, then let your message unfold logically and coherently, flowing smoothly from one paragraph to the next. A key skill is to know what to include and what to omit.

• You don't appear to know what you want to say. Many managers lack the ability to write concisely, so they pour out everything they know about a problem, leaving the reader to sift through it and decipher what the core message is.

Tip: Ask the important question, "How much does the reader truly need to know?" Often, not as much as you think. As Gen. David Jones, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, once said, "Don't tell me what you know. Tell me what I need to know, what it means, and why it matters."

• You can't motivate people. When you cannot write well, it is difficult to craft a message that inspires people or influences them to do what you would like. And so much of a manager's success rests with the ability to get results through other people.

Perhaps you are trying to convince senior management that your idea is better than someone else's or that a certain strategy is better than another. You need the ability to package information in a persuasive manner.

Tip: If you are trying to move someone to action, you can build a persuasive message around something the reader wants, needs, or values (there also are other tactics). Some people are motivated by a challenge, by the possibility of promotion, by being included on a team, or by being recognized for their leadership potential.

Several of the skills needed to improve written messages are transferable to oral communication. When a person delivers a boring speech or a bland, boring presentation at a meeting, it is often because the material is poorly organized, the main points are not explicitly stated, the language is too technical or academic, and the material lacks colorful details and stories.

What we learned in communication 101 is not enough to succeed well into our career. So make this the year you sharpen old communication skills and learn new ones so that you distinguish yourself and make your messages memorable.