Charlie Euchner has had a varied career—or careers (plural). But each one, inevitably, brings him back to writing and teaching.
From his early days as a journalist to his recent adventures as an author and the developer of a brain-based system for mastering writing, Charlie has always been fascinated with the process and power of the written word.
“Writing is the ultimate superpower, no matter what you do,” he says. “Even if you dislike writing, it’s still a path to discovery and influence, creativity and efficiency. There’s a saying: ‘He who keeps the minutes, sets the agenda.’ And it’s true.”
Besides the core purpose of a business or organization—making software, managing supply chains, crunching numbers, settling disputes, and whatever else—writing and communication gives you more power than anything else. Writing offers the blueprint, the fuel, and the purpose for everything we do.
See this recent interview on the business publication Go Solo.
Clients
Euchner has worked with a wide range of organizations. Besides teaching at Yale, Columbia, and SUNY-Purchase, Euchner has taught his writing seminars at Axa, Chevron, NetCom Learning, Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock, the National Education Association, HealthFirst, Sandler Training, Gen Re, Pitney Bowes, Vanderbilt University, various literary festivals and schools, and independent writing groups across the U.S.
Professional Background
A graduate of Vanderbilt University (B.A.) and the Johns Hopkins University (M.A., Ph.D.), Charles Euchner began his career as a staff writer for Education Week.
At Education Week, Euchner covered technology in education, the teaching profession, and state and local politics. You can see a couple of his favorite pieces here and here and here.
After graduate school, he taught political science. Itching to “not just understand but also change things,” he coordinated the City of Boston’s longterm planning process before returning to academe. He was the founding director of Harvard’s Rappaport Institute. All this time he published books, reports, articles on public policy and planning.
Then he made a big break. He decided to devote himself wholly to writing. He has written acclaimed books on baseball, the civil rights movement, and writing. He is in the process of publishing books on Woodrow Wilson, political activism in the U.S, and the challenges of teaching and learning in “the age of the screen.”
Euchner also has a strong background in business writing. He was a case writer and editor at the Yale School of Management. His case studies explored the federal Corrupt Practices Act, the battle between Apple and Samsung, the Manchester United Football Club, Herman Miller, scandals at the general Services Administration, and AARP, and an amaranth producer in Mexico, among other topics.
Euchner has taught writing at three major universities—Yale, Columbia, and SUNY-Purchase. He has developed books for teaching writing in high school and college. He has also authored a guide to the “six traits,” a system for teaching writing in K-12 education.
As all this was going on, Euchner developed the only comprehensive brain-based system for mastering writing in all fields. The Elements of Writing mixes and matches 79 simple and intuitive skills and hacks. This system works because it understands “what the brain wants—and what it doesn’t.”
Education
Charles Euchner, a native of Huntington, N.Y., earned a B.A. in political science at Vanderbilt University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the Johns Hopkins University. At Johns Hopkins, his focus was urban politics and policy. He wrote his M.A. thesis on the politics of sewerage construction at the turn of the century (published in a different form here). His Ph.D. thesis explored the politics of stadium construction in modern cities (published in a different form here).
A Q&A with Charlie
What three or four words describe your facilitation style?
Interactive. Simple and intuitive. Surprisingly fun—and emotionally as well as intellectually rewarding.
How did your academic career affect your development as a writer and teacher?
It taught me how to go deep with research. No answer is never enough—there’s always another book, article, lecture, data set, archive, or interview. That can be paralyzing. But it also teaches a respect for whatever subject you’re exploring.
How has your experience with government influenced your life as a teacher and writer?
When I went to Boston City Hall, I wondered whether I wanted to keep writing. I was burned out by academe. I just wanted to get out into the community and meet people and make plans to improve the community. But I found myself going home for lunch—I lived five minutes from the office—and writing. I didn’t even realize what was happening. If I wasn’t sure about writing before, I was then.
As for teaching, in a way I don’t even believe in teaching. I believe in learning together. When I worked for the city, I went to 150 meetings of people from the neighorhoods and different stakeholder groups—architects, preservationists, park people, developers. My job was to shut up, listen, and follow up with what they said. They taught me plenty, but I also think I taught them a little. That’s what learning is all about—relationships, figuring stuff out together, sharing ideas.
One more thing: At City Hall, I developed an appreciation for official documents—memos, reports, proposals, RFPs. I realized that there is an art to all these documents. The better you master this art, the more efficient and creative you will be. That’s when I learned that dictum: He who writes the minutes sets the agenda.
Clients rave at your ability to connect, directly, with everyone in the room. How does that happen?
I love sharing what I have learned. I joke that I have made just about every mistake a writer can make. I learned the hard way—by trying different things, making mistakes, trying to teach myself new techniques. My mission is to help flatten the learning curve for other people. I am thrilled when people learn tricks that save them time and frustration—and also make them more creative and have fun.
In your seminars, people get into action and move around. How does that work?
I once took the Dale Carnegie Training program and learned how quickly people learn—and internalize what they learn—when they do something in front of a group. It’s scary at first but it’s also transformative. I’ll always remember one woman who grew up in ab broken household who dropped out of high school and became a janitor—and she hated public speaking. Well, in a couple of weeks, she was killing it. With a couple simple techniques, she could really connect with others. Surprisingly, the most reserved people are the ones who enjoy it the most. It’s like they get permission to be someone else.
We do a lot of team exercise and group activities. We try to apply everything we learn, with simple prompts for using these tricks once they get back to their computers.
What topics do you most enjoy teaching and coaching?
I one took a class on Shakespeare and asked my professor, Ann Cook, what was her favorite play. “Whatever I’m reading or teaching at the time,” she said. That’s how I feel. They’re all related in some way. Each program helps me understand the larger process of writing
in fresh ways, every time.
What is the number one challenge you most often see with the various clients for whom you work?
Following up. Once people give themselves a little time and space to learn something new, they plunge in with incredible excitement. They learn a lot and have a ton of fun. They’re also incredibly generous colleagues to each other and warm hosts to me. But the pressure
of “getting back to work” sometimes means they don’t use what they learn. That has motivated me to create very simple tools that work right away—with even less effort than they would ordinarily use. But habits are still tough to adjust.
Tell me about the clients you most enjoy.
Every group offers a glimpse into an amazing and rich world, but I’ll mention one—one of the biggest health-care providers in New York. I worked with a group of really dedicated professionals whose job it was to connect local communities with health care.We worked on how to improve their presentations for a day—and they just soaked up everyth
ing. Then a couple weeks later, we met again. They showed me how they changed their presentations. I was bowled over. I could hardly believe how must more engaging their presentations. And their enthusiasm was overwhelming.
But, you know, everyone is like that in their own way—teachers, businesspeople, government workers, nonprofit people. They’re all there because they want to make a difference. My only rough spot was a company that was in the middle of a bitter battle over which phones to use—the iPhone or Blackberry. It was like a war and it spilled over into o
ur sessions. But when we got working, they forgot about their feud. Spoiler alert: the iPhone won that battle.
You seem to write just about everything there is to write. How did that happen?
Not sure. I’ve just had incredible opportunities—and have always tried to take advantage. I love the immersion of a book project, but I also love the immediacy of journalism. When I worked in government and think tanks, I loved how we could take on complex issues that might have an impact. Writing case studies at Yale School of Management and evaluations of innovative programs at Harvard, I loved to get a “peek behind the curtain,” to see what amazing people are doing in their own worlds.
You have a real passion for learning. Where does that come from?
We always had lots of books in the home. My dad was a voracious newspaper reader. Both of my parents binge-read books and binge-watched quality TV—from “Masterpiece Theater” to operas.
Just as important, I had teachers who encouraged us and celebrated our successes. M
y World Lit class in high school, taught by a brilliant man named Robert Leonard, with a college-quality reading list. We read Ionesco, Woolfe, Sartre, Kazantzakis, Solzhenitsyn, and Kafka, to name a few. I also had great mentors in college and grad school. My best teachers always wanted to give students their excitement of discovery. That makes an impression.
When you’re not working, what are your interests?
Not surprisingly, I read a lot—history, psychology, philosophy, business. I love great movies and TV—from Casablanca to Succession. I try to stay in shape by running and swimming. I’m a lifelong baseball fan and sample other sports when I get a chance. And I see family, which is scattered from New Hampshire to San Francisco.