How do you teach your non-comms colleagues to read edits?

This communicator is stuck between a rock and a hard place, and needs your help

You know that old saw: “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”? My boss is a big fan of that one, and references it frequently in terms of my work with and for our many business partners. I’d like to re-write that. Here’s my proposed version:

“If the man’s too dumb to pay attention to your fishing lessons, provided with the patience of Job over years of reiteration, beat him about the head with the smelliest fish you can find, until he either gets it, or is unconscious.”

I believe I’m a pretty patient communicator, and it has always been my approach to not simply “do” communications for colleagues, but to “teach” them how to communicate more effectively under their own steam. Not because I don’t want to help them, but because the pace of today’s business, and the fact that I am the only communications person for my entire organization, means that it simply isn’t always possible for me to do all the writing needed by my many business units within their deadlines.