Over the past month I've been reading a 400 page book about Executive Development. It has contributions from over 40 'gurus' and on the whole it's been a very good read.

Before reading each chapter I've first read the short biography of the chapter's author. Although these are written in the third person, I imagine that the authors wrote their own brag-a-logues.

On reading one biography I couldn't help noticing two, yes two, errors. First there was "leading leading" and then "for a large international organizations".

And, these had this impact on me.

I started to think ... if there are two errors in the biography ... how well will the chapter be written? Shall I skip it? How credible is this person's writing?

I did read the chapter; and it turned out to be very good.

But, if this had been a powerpoint slide, or a proposal, or a job application those two errors would have made a lasting and negative impression. Perhaps enough to kill the credibility of the presentation, let the competition in, or deny the job interview.

FOOTNOTE: The danger in writing this is, of course, that as a blogger I tend to write quickly and intuitively. I only briefly proof read my entries. So, I wonder, what mistakes I'm making and how these impact your impression of me.

Let me know.