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August 30, 2005

What’s right about the inverted pyramid

As soon as I saw the “key message platform,” I knew it was in trouble. Created with the best intentions—as a framework for communicating a major change program to employees at a large corporation—the message draft was dense and difficult to understand. It was structured kind of like an academic paper, starting with a premise, adding evidence, then gradually building to a conclusion.

That meant that anyone attempting to read it would have a difficult time finding the “news”—what was changing and what it meant to employees. I could easily imagine someone opening an e-mail based on the key message, scrolling down to try to find the meaning, then pressing the “delete” button in frustration.

Naturally, I wanted to help, so I asked my standard set of questions: “What is the one thing you want people to know about this? What do you want people to remember most? What do you need them to do?”

But then it occurred to me that, although these questions were a good start, the big problem with the key message was structural. What seemed logical to the author—starting at the foundation and building up—would be ineffective at immediately catching the audience’s attention and quickly delivering meaning.

What this message needed was to be restructured, using a classic, but sometimes-maligned message form: the inverted pyramid.

Anyone who’s taken a journalism course is familiar with the inverted pyramid. Here’s an easy way to think about it, according to Ken Blake, Ph.D., associate professor of journalism at Middle Tennessee State University. Picture an upside-down triangle, with a broad base on the top and the narrow tip on the bottom. “The broad base represents the most newsworthy information . . . the narrow tip represents the least newsworthy information,” Mr. Blake writes. When you write using the inverted pyramid format, you put the most important information at the beginning and the least important information at the end. (Mr. Blake has authored a very useful overview on the inverted pyramid.)

Legend has it that the inverted pyramid came into use in the days of the telegraph, when unreliable service meant that if you wanted to make sure you got your message through, you put the most important information at the top. In any case, the inverted pyramid came into general use in journalism in the mid 19th century and remained the standard throughout most of the 20th century, when the newspaper was the major news channel, and editors needed to quickly cut a story from the bottom if the piece ran long. The inverted pyramid made it easy for readers to get the gist of what was happening, even if they had only a moment to scan the story.

Although the inverted pyramid had somewhat fallen into disfavor for being too staid, it has had a comeback with web writers, who know that the most important information has to be first, since only the most interested web site visitor scrolls down past the first screen.

The reason I find the inverted pyramid useful—at least in drafting messages—is that it disciplines you to order information according to priority. The process of deciding what’s really important, what’s slightly less important and so on, helps you think about what’s important to the audience.

Give the inverted pyramid a try. You’ll be glad you did.

Posted by Alison Davis at 06:09 PM | Comments (1)

August 23, 2005

The novel vs. NASCAR

If I could convince communicators to do just one thing differently, it would be this: Stop writing as if employees have unlimited time and attention.

That may seem kind of funny, coming from me (the weblog writer), but let me explain: In a world that’s information-overloaded and starved for time and attention, employees’ willingness to read long prose is declining rapidly.

And yet every day I see communicators engaging in egregious acts of writing excess: The 600-word intranet entry. The 750-word CEO e-mail. The 1500-word newsletter article.

If these missives seem too long to me (the avid reader who communicates for a living), imagine how harried employees must react: “I’ll just skim this,” “Maybe I’ll get to it later,” “Forget it; I’m too busy.”

Here’s the hard reality: For an increasing number of people these days, reading is an obligation, not an avocation. For proof, peruse the 2004 study from The National Endowment for the Arts, Reading At Risk, and consider these facts:

Contrast this with the rapid rise of NASCAR (The National Association for Stock Car Racing):

Although literature still has the lead, at this rate NASCAR will overtake novels on the next lap.

But I know what you’re thinking: Don’t people who watch NASCAR also read novels? And vice-versa? Sure, but you can imagine the Friday night conversations across America:

“Wow, it’s been a long week. Let’s do something fun this weekend—you know, kick back, relax, let loose.”

“Great idea, honey. What do you have in mind?”

“I know: Let’s get really crazy and tackle Anna Karenina.”

Not likely. My point is simple: Your employees are the same people who are rejecting reading literature as a leisure-time activity. Instead, they’re loading the kids into the RV, putting on their Jeff Gordon caps and driving out to the speedway.

Until your communication vehicle is a race car, better put the brakes on the word count.

Posted by Alison Davis at 01:05 PM

August 16, 2005

Don’t let your CEO be the judge of that

Your CEO is probably smart, hard-working and decisive. He (or more rarely, she) may be articulate and a good listener. But he is also probably a poor judge of how to effectively communicate to employees. The reason is simple: What’s easy for him is hard for most employees.

CEOs experience the world very differently than everyone else, according to Russell L. Ackoff and Sheldon Rovin, authors of Beating the System: Using Creativity to Outsmart Bureaucracies (Berrett-Koehler). In an interview in the July/August issue of Across the Board magazine, Mr. Ackoff points out that CEOs “don’t experience the same problems that you and I do. As an ordinary consumer, sometimes you don’t know whom to call to get a problem fixed. You call and get a pre-packaged message from some synthetic voice that gives you ten alternatives, none of which cover your question. And you’re left either hanging, puzzled, or trying all kinds of nonsense.”

However, Mr. Ackoff explains, “if you’re the CEO of a large corporation, you know the CEOs of other large corporations. If you get abused by the system, you pick up the phone and call a friend, and you get your problem fixed.”

What’s true in customer service is true in communication as well. Consider just a few ways CEOs—and other senior leaders—are different than everyone else:

Technology
CEOs have all the latest gee-whiz gizmos, if they want them—and if they don’t, their assistants will manage technology for them. They never have to try to use a kiosk (like manufacturing employees who don’t have their own computers), or try to get online via slow dial-up (like sales and remote employees often do).

Information Overload
Senior leaders do have to process an alarming amount of information. But there are two key differences between CEOs and us in this regard: First, they have assistants to run interference, and trusted VPs and advisors to tell them what really matters. Second, it’s their job to make sense of data and take action on it. For the rest of us, managing information is an extra responsibility, on top of our day-to-day work.

Context
When a CEO asks the question, “What does this mean?” someone is there to provide an answer—or get it fast. Senior leaders aren’t out there in the organization like the rest of us, wondering, “How does this affect me? What should I do differently?” and finding out that no one—even our manager—has the answers.

What can you do about the fact that CEOs have a completely unique—and skewed—communication experience? Mr, Ackoff suggests that “top management place themselves in the position of the customer, like a CEO of an airline flying in coach.” But if your CEO won’t spend his day in a warehouse, replicating the communication experience of those employees, you need to bring the warehouse to the CEO. Make sure you have both accurate data (such as what percentage of employees have electronic access) and compelling qualitative feedback (such as how employees feel about information overload) to bring the employee experience to life.

Unless you do so, the CEO may well insist on a communication approach that works only for him—and is ineffective for everyone else in the organization.

Posted by Alison Davis at 03:05 PM

August 09, 2005

Lawrence Welk’s words of wisdom

There, tucked among the obituaries on July 25, 2005, was a notice that Myron Floren had died. Don’t remember Myron? He was Lawrence Welk’s accordionist and sidekick.

If you’re young, or sophisticated, or both, even Lawrence Welk’s name may not be familiar to you. But I vividly remember Mr. Welk, and his television show that ran on Saturday nights on ABC from 1955 to 1971.

My grandfather, who was an amateur trumpet player, loved old-fashioned music. So when I went to visit my grandparents for Saturday-night sleepovers, we had a little ritual: We’d eat dinner or snacks on TV tables in the living room, and watch every minute of “The Lawrence Welk Show.”

Mr. Welk referred to the format as “champagne music:” easy-listening old-fashioned ballroom tunes delivered by his “family” of wholesome musicians, singers and dancers. (To add to the “champagne” effect, every show featured a very active bubble machine.) The format was the opposite of cutting-edge; it was designed to be safe, familiar and homey.

Mr. Welk himself seemed very modest and approachable . . . even a little ridiculous. He was born in North Dakota (in 1903) to Alsatian parents in a German-speaking farm community; after dropping out of school in the fourth grade, Mr. Welk spoke no English until he was 21. And he had a thick accent and a stiff stage manner that was often imitated by comedians in his day.

But there was nothing funny about Mr. Welk’s ability to understand what his viewers wanted. When ABC cancelled the show in 1971 because it was “too old,” Mr. Welk lined up 200 independent stations to create his own syndication network. The show was produced and ran for 11 years. In 1987, reruns began appearing—they’re still shown on many public television stations, where the show has the highest ratings of any syndicated program, reaching three million households every week.

In last week’s weblog, I wrote about the idea of loving your audience—my premise being the more you respect your employees for who they are, the better you can communicate in a way that really connects.

Lawrence Welk understood this concept. Even when he became very rich and very famous, he never looked down on those folks singing along to his music. “Keep it simple so the audience can feel like they can do it, too,” he said. “You have to play what the people will understand.”

Perhaps that’s why three million viewers still watch his show every week. And that doesn’t even count the reunion television specials that are made every so often, the Welk live shows in Branson, Missouri and on the road, or the three Welk Resorts, in San Diego, Branson and Palm Springs.

If you happen to catch “The Lawrence Welk Show” today, no doubt you’ll think it’s corny. And it would be easy to dismiss fans of the genre as hopelessly out of touch. But it’s possible that someone you want to reach is a secret (or out-of-the-closet) Lawrence Welk devotee. You don’t have to love the music. But, to be successful at communication, you need to love the audience.

Posted by Alison Davis at 12:44 PM

August 02, 2005

Love your audience

“Know your audience” is one of the oldest tenets of communication. The concept, of course, is that the better you understand the demographic profile, needs and preferences of the people you’re trying to reach, the better you can design communication that will actually reach them.

It’s certainly a sound principle, but I don’t believe it goes far enough. In order to break through today’s noise and nonsense, I think you have to go well beyond simply knowing: You have to love your audience.

Your love has to be real—not manufactured or manipulative—and unconditional. You have to clearly see your audience members’ faults, but love them anyway. Your love has to be unwavering, despite your audience’s inattention, inconstancy and even infidelity.

Only by truly loving your audience can you communicate in a way that’s truly about them, not about you. The leap to loving brings you in touch with what matters to people. Suddenly you’re able to communicate in ways that profoundly connect. You’re not on the other side of the chasm from your audience members: You’re right there next to them, talking softly, saying what they’ve always wanted to hear.

Am I serious? Absolutely. Think of those who are absolutely brilliant at honoring, respecting and, yes, loving the people they’re trying to get through to:

All this talk about love, and I can just picture you squirming in your chair. But the “love your audience” concept is pragmatic as well as philosophical. Far too often, I see employee communication that’s so attuned to the needs of senior management that it is unintentionally disrespectful of employees. Consider the use of jargon, acronyms or corporate speak that creates confusing communication employees don’t understand. Or the choice of channels (especially electronic) that every employee can’t easily access. Or communication that’s all one-way, not allowing employees to comment or even ask questions.

You can’t change everything, but I believe that if you lead with love, the rest will follow.

Posted by Alison Davis at 02:44 PM | Comments (1)