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February 26, 2009
When bad writing happens to good communicators
Yesterday my colleague Joe and I led a learning session with a client team. The day included a workshop on using storytelling to improve writing. To give the team an opportunity to practice, we provided an example of bad writing and invited the team to suggest ways to make the example better.
To create the example, Joe revisited a past project—announcing an initiative at a large corporation—and changed some of the facts, but otherwise left it as it was.
Here’s how it began:
[Name of initiative] is a major change initiative that began earlier this year. We’re writing to provide an update on this exciting initiative.
[Name of initiative] was launched in our largest division last summer to an enthusiastic response from all levels of employees. Since then, significant progress has been made toward implementing the initiative. These efforts include included:
• Launching pilot programs in various business units to test the usability of the process and tool (There were four more bullets along these lines.)
And here’s how it ended:
[Name of initiative] training is a three-part program with a focus on practical application and lessons learned from our pilot projects.
While we recognize how difficult scheduling can be, this training program is crucial to the successful implementation of [Name of initiative] across our entire company. If you haven’t already done so, please register for a workshop session as soon as possible. Thank you in advance for your participation and commitment to this initiative.
Our clients yesterday had trouble starting the exercise (to suggest ways to improve the announcement) because they couldn’t get over how bad the writing was.
“This is terrible!” said one. “How did this happen?”
And another team member asked us, “Did you work on this? It’s dreadful corporate speak that doesn’t say anything!”
Joe and I had to admit that, yes, in fact, we had worked this project. And the memories starting flooding back of how difficult it was to provide our initiative client with good advice.
There were lots of problems, but the major ones were:
- Initiative team members were in love with their own project. Hard as we tried, Joe and I couldn’t convince our clients that not all employees were interested in process details. The clients insisted we include all that junk.
- Team members were also very linear. So they had to communicate in chronological order, and couldn’t understand why we kept trying to put the news (or the action) up front.
- Whenever we tried to use simple language and construction, the clients edited our writing to “make it sound more impressive.” We fought many battles about corporate speak, and won only a small percentage of them.
The initiative announcement was a helpful bad example, but it was painful to remember how difficult it was to see our good work went bad.
Posted by Alison Davis at 03:14 PM | Comments (2)
February 20, 2009
And the Oscar goes to . . .
This Sunday night (February 22) I will be glued to the television, devoting three (or more hours) to the 81st Annual Academy Awards. Even in years when I haven’t seen any of the nominated films, I can’t stop watching—I’m drawn to the bright lights and the red carpet and the stars and the glamour of it all. (Acknowledging addiction is the first step toward rehabilitation.)
In addition to being an Oscar addict, I’m also a member of the Hollywood Marketing Fan Club. Actually, there is no such organization; I made it up. But if such a club existed—an organization whose members appreciated how well movie studios market their products—I would be a card-carrying member.
No one is better than the studios at being able to distill a product into just a few words, and to make that message absolutely riveting to audiences around the world. Hollywood is the master of telling stories and appealing to people’s emotions, and doing so in the blink of an eye: a poster with a single image or a 30-second TV commercial.
The foundation of Hollywood’s marketing is a message platform called the “high concept.” The idea is that, in order to pitch a movie (to a producer or the audience), you have to convey what a movie is about in 12 to 15 words.
You can picture the producer in his posh office, interrupting his phone conversation only long enough to say to the aspiring screenwriter, “Okay, kid, you got 20 seconds. Gimme the high concept.”
To show you how this works, I’ve provided a quiz where I provide the high concept lines, and you guess the Academy Award nominated films.
A. A disgraced former president and a talk-show host meet in a historic interview.
B. One man fights prejudice during the ‘70s to become America’s first openly gay elected official.
C. A teenager is one question away from winning India’s "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." But is he cheating?
D. A child is born with the body of an old man, then becomes younger.
E. Years after a teenage boy has an affair with an older woman, he learns she has a secret.
What I love about high concept is that you can use it to communicate anything: a new initiative, changes to a benefits program, a company strategy. The key is to boil down even a complicated idea into its essence, something your audience can understand instantly.
You may not work in Hollywood, but you can use high concept to make your messages more compelling.
(BTW, I haven’t provided the answers to the quiz because they’re pretty obvious. If you’re stumped, let me know.)
Posted by Alison Davis at 08:29 AM
February 18, 2009
President Obama knows: It’s all about me
My colleague Catherine predicts that President Barack Obama will set a new standard for the way leaders (of countries or companies) communicate.
I think it may be too early to tell, but I am sure that there’s sure something different about this guy.
For instance, no sitting Commander in Chief ever sent me an e-mail before. (Actually, no former presidents have done so, either.)
And yet yesterday, there it was in my in box: a note from Barack, sent directly to me. (I’d like to think that he personally sent it from his new secure Blackberry-like device, but I’m not quite so delusional.)
In any case, the e-mail was all about me. The President informed me that he had signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law and wrote:
“This is a historic step -- the first of many as we work together to climb out of this crisis -- and I want to thank you for your resolve and your support.
“You organized thousands of house meetings. You shared your ideas and personal stories. And you informed your friends and neighbors about the need for immediate action. You continue to be a powerful voice for change throughout the country.”
And then the President gave his call for action. “Accountability begins with you,” he wrote. “That's why my administration has created recovery.gov, a new website where citizens can track every dollar spent and every job created. We'll invite you and your neighbors to weigh in with comments and questions.
Our progress will also be measured by the tens of thousands of personal stories submitted by people who are struggling to make ends meet.
“Your stories are the heart of this recovery plan, and that's what I'll focus on every day as President. With your continued support, we'll emerge a stronger and more prosperous nation.”
Obama may be President, but his e-mail is so compelling because he made it about me. Maybe Catherine is onto something.
Posted by Alison Davis at 04:42 PM
February 16, 2009
You know your job’s in jeopardy when . . .
We were just trying to cheer up our friend when things go a little out of control. Our friend’s company is in serious trouble, with depressing rumors swirling about customers defecting, massive layoffs, Chapter 11, etc. So we took this friend out to a bar, and ordered a drink, and then another, and maybe one after that. (My memory gets a little fuzzy at that point.)
And that’s when it happened: Someone said, “You know your job’s in trouble when . . .” and, once we got started, we just couldn’t stop:
You know your job’s in jeopardy when . . .
- Your boss wears sunglasses to avoid making eye contact.
- You get a new assigned parking space—in a different company’s lot.
- You’re told you don’t have to the weekly staff meeting because “nothing we’re discussing applies to you.”
- Security installs a lock on the restroom door and doesn’t give you a key.
- You come into work and discover yellow Crime Scene tape around your cubicle.
- You stop receiving e-mails. And when you try to send a test e-mail to yourself, you get an automatic response, “No longer at this company.”
- Your HR rep offers to help you update your resume “just in case.”
- When you finish your work at 2 p.m. on Monday, your manager suggests you take the rest of the week off.
- Your department head holds a meeting to raise morale. When he finishes talking about the company’s plans, he says, “I want everyone who’s on board—who’s going to work with us to make this company a success—to stand up.” You start to rise and he says, “You can stay seated.”
Funny? As our friend pointed out, only when it’s not happening to you.
(Also not funny: my headache the next day. Guess I deserve it. Ouch.)
Posted by Alison Davis at 01:06 PM
February 09, 2009
They're just not that into you
The top movie at the U.S. box office this weekend was a new romantic comedy, He’s Just Not That Into You (starring Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Ginnifer Goodwin and others), which tells the story of attractive people looking, often in vain, for love.
Part of the premise is that women misread men’s signals, trying to find meaning (and commitment) where none exists.
These days, unfortunately, a similar problem exists for senior leaders, who communicate as if employees are hanging on every word—when, in fact, employees are just not into what leaders are saying.
So leaders send e-mail messages to all employees, “write” (or have ghost-written for them) blogs, talk for 40 minutes during town hall meetings, and participate in web meetings, conference calls and other information-sharing venues.
Meanwhile, a percentage of employees may be facing the stage and opening the message, so on paper they’re on board, but the reality is that their minds are elsewhere. They’re worried about losing their jobs, or meeting their goals, or their boss’s increasing anxiety, or their customers’ increasing elusiveness, or a million things other than what the CEO is saying.
How do you know if you have this problem—if all that communication is falling upon deaf ears?
First, you must stop assuming that communication delivered has resulted in increased understanding and agreement. You need to use measurement—surveys and focus groups—to determine what’s happening with employees.
Second, once you know for sure that you’ve got a problem, you’ve got to change the way leaders communicate (which, by the way, is long overdue in any case). The leader’s communication role is not to deliver information—it’s to provide the focus and context so employees know what to do to help the company succeed (or survive). That’s very different than a 44-slide PowerPoint deck.
I haven’t seen the new movie, but I’m seeing the “they’re just not that into you” problem in almost every organization. Time for a change.
Posted by Alison Davis at 01:24 PM
February 02, 2009
Stick to your knitting
My sister Jennifer was visiting from Minnesota last week, and it was clear that knitting, once a casual hobby, had grown into an obsession: She brought two projects in progress—a sweater and socks—and was constantly working on them.
By the second day, I had caught her fever. I wanted to be a knitter, too. (About 15 years ago, I tried to learn to knit, but I couldn’t figure it out.) So I asked Jennifer to help. Turns out she’s a terrific teacher, and, before she left for the frozen north, she helped me master the basics: casting on, knitting and purling.
But I worried about what I would do when I was alone with the yarn and the needles. How would I learn new techniques? What if I ran into trouble? What if I simply forgot how to do something?
Since Jennifer has her own life, she didn’t agree to my proposal to set up a 24-hour video iChat help line. Instead, she suggested that there might be other resources available. For example, you only have to Google to find hundreds of how-to videos, on nearly every aspect of knitting:
This is not your grandmother’s knitting circle! Last time I tried to learn knitting, help was only available by reading a book, going to a class, or relying on a person you knew. But now you could be completely alone anywhere in the world, and help is as close as your computer.
You’ve been waiting for me to relate this to communicating with employees, so here goes: Have you explored opportunities for how-to video on your intranet? Videos could be used to communicate safety. Sales. HR programs (“How to have a performance discussion. How to think about benefits choices.”). Quality. Process improvements.
Actually, the possibilities are endless. And, as you see in the knitting examples, you don’t need professional quality—homemade and handheld are fine.
Consider how video could give employees the how-to help they need.
Posted by Alison Davis at 11:19 AM