Most of the time, if you say “You’re wrong” to someone, you just get his back up. Even if you make it funny (“R-O-N-G: wrong!” my dad used to declare), the accused gets accused, gets defensive, argues or pouts and probably shouts.

But if you can find a way that’s fresh, aim a light that illuminates differently, then you have a chance that the wrongdoer will perceive himself in the act. Then there’s a shot at correction.

I’ll tell you an extreme example. Once upon a time, every tax-qualified retirement plan was sent to the IRS for an approval letter. It was part of my accidental career to submit plans for those letters, and there came a day (17 years ago) when I received about 45 approval letters in one delivery.

As my eyes scanned the mail I started to notice mistakes. Some letters referenced the wrong effective date, most contained inappropriate caveats, a few had both and some had other problems.

I was supposed to write to the IRS about each flawed letter, respectfully requesting a corrected version. But that’s tiresome, even with editing tools. I thought it would be more satisfying to present them all together.

It turned out to be more effective, too. I know from experience that the individual letter request almost always succeeds eventually, but never produces any result except the individual correction.

I sent the IRS a short courteous missive, in which I described the mail-opening experience. I observed that the letter flaws fell into a few categories, and I included a spreadsheet. My enclosure listed all the bad letters by name and case number, and then had several “flaw” columns where I put an X if applicable. The visual impact was strong.

Yes I received corrected letters. In a batch. But I was also asked to help the IRS perfect the letter-screening routine they then instituted. Like I said: satisfying.