<p><i>Enron´s performance in 2000 was a success by any measure, as we continued to outdistance the competition and solidify our leadership in each of our major businesses. We have robust networks of strategic assets that we own or have contractual access to, which give us greater flexibility and speed to reliably deliver widespread logistical solutions... We have metamorphosed from an asset-based pipeline and power generating company to a marketing and logistics company whose biggest assets are its well-established business approach and its innovative people.</i> (From the Enron Annual Report, 2000)</p>
<p><b>Keep the Receipts</b></p>
<p>A friend once told me that compelling voices in the corporate world are as common as brilliant statisticians playing the slots in Las Vegas. Yes, we can all point to a few celebrity CEOs who connect through charisma but, looking back, I think my friend was right. We´ve outsourced our voices to HR, legal, marketing and anyone else with a formula for how to sound corporate. There´s nothing evil about this - usually the original purpose was to keep us from ruffling the wrong feathers or committing to something we hadn´t intended. But the outcome is a sort of porridge of business speak that defies interest. Sometimes, as in the Enron excerpt, the company can´t really say what it does. Other times, it´s a parade of superlatives drowning out whatever was being described. Whether this is because HR handcuffed the guy who just wanted to spill it, or because no one actually knows what the company does, we´ve all grown accustomed to it.</p>
<p>So we tune it out.</p>
<p>There´s a fundamental gap in business communications. On one hand, we all have a keen interest in knowing how our company is going and whether the latest product hit or bombed. We all want the straight scoop. What we get instead, thanks in part to standards binders, and technology that makes it second nature to recycle last week´s platitudes, are spun, chocolate-coated and sanitized versions of the truth. The problem isn´t grammar, and it´s not wholly about jargon. It goes beyond obscurity, to bland generic messages, and the hard sell, with hype built into every pre-approved sentence. Worse, we expect that we will be bored. Consistently. And - we´re nearly always right.</p>
<p>As leaders, there are four traps we fall into that widen this gap and keep us from connecting with other people. That ´A´ you got in high school rhetoric isn´t going to save you, either. As a former eighth grade spelling champion and MBA speech seminar ace, I used to think Churchill himself would have paid to read and hear me, and that co-workers would be rushing the stage when I spoke. So, nudge those grammar-nag books off to the side, because apostrophes and active verbs aren´t going to save us.<b> </b></p>
<p><b>Me, me and come to think of it - me</b></p>
<p>The Obscurity Trap - the first of the four - seems to give grammar teachers a license to picket the Fortune 500. That´s partly true, but obscurity is more than fractured grammar and run-on sentences. Bad writing may be a chore to read, but a poor writer who truly wants us to understand will find a way to connect with us. Skilled writers who aren´t on the side of the reader are a bigger problem.</p>
<p>The Enron piece that opened this article isn´t hard to read, but empty phrases like "robust networks of strategic assets that we own or have contractual access to"are evasive, at best. The professional writer (probably) had no idea what Enron´s assets were. It turned out he was (probably) as well informed as anybody. Through evasive language, businesspeople have taught us to expect nothing useful from what they write. Why waste our time?</p>
<p>Even honest writers can lead us into a swamp:</p>
<p><i>This advisory role resonates not only with the promotion of balance sheet items, but throughout the Department as the CFO is better positioned to create a vision of high-level strategic leadership that links Secretarial and OMB priorities with legislative, financial, programmatic and stakeholder needs. Decision support and performance measurement play a larger role in this transformation as analysis, reporting and transaction processing functions are incrementally minimized. Over time, this invariably leads to reduced expenditures and a heightened focus on partnerships and value services to accomplish the agency´s strategic objectives.</i></p>
<p>It´s hard to learn anything from reading this excerpt, sent to me to review. The author is either trying to impress us with pretentious language, or else has nothing tangible to say. How does the larger role that decision support plays in this transformation invariably lead to a heightened focus on value services? How does a role resonate with the promotion of balance sheet items?</p>
<p>Where´s the Mad Hatter with my tea?<b> </b></p>
<p><b>Nothing Personal</b></p>
<p>The Anonymity Trap is a consulting tradition -- one which has infected other technical businesses. Someone creates a presentation, and everyone else spends their careers recycling bits and pieces of it. There´s even a stigma associated with invoking a few brain cells and creating something: "Don´t reinvent the wheel."</p>
<p>First, it´s a stretch to compare the regurgitated bullet points in any slide presentation to the wheel, printing press or skateboard. But more importantly, it precludes any of <i>you</i> - your stories, your humor, your opinion - from showing up. We enjoy discovering a bit of personality in a book, presentation or even that bastion of dullness, the corporate voicemail. If something sounds as though we didn´t need you, specifically, to tell us about it, then you are expendable. Really, just email the thing and we´ll delete it at our leisure. Nothing personal - on our part or yours.</p>
<p>Why are businesspeople in such a rush to trade away their human voice?</p>
<p>This brings us to the worst deal made in the name of productivity: the template. Yes, it saves time to jam your words into someone else´s presentation template. Or to get behind the podium, drone on about your title and the usual statistics about your department. But we´re more interested in the ´what´ and the ´why´ of the human being delivering the information. Great presenters drip passion all over the stage, like some 16-year old who just took his first ride in a Ferrari. It doesn´t matter whether <i>you</i> like Ferraris, Jeeps or minivans - they´ve tapped into something real.</p>
<p>Not all business presentations are going to be exciting, but just saying ´no´ to templates lets you tell the story. That leaves room for your sense of humor and opinion - the interesting bits that make us care about you and want to listen. Ultimately, the businesspeople we all want to listen to make it personal.</p>
<p><b>Buy Now</b></p>
<p>The third trap that turns nice normal people into business idiots is the Hard Sell. We can all laugh at those late night Abdominizer and Ginsu Knife infomercials - BUY NOW!!! - but between chronic optimism and syrupy slogans there are plenty of less obvious routes to the Hard Sell.</p>
<p>Check your email inbox. You´ll probably see headers similar to these:</p>
<p>"Global Success Initiative Rollout Update"</p>
<p>"Legendary Places to Work Report"</p>
<p>"Word Class IT Project conference call planned"</p>
<p>Why are we calling our own project the "Success Initiative"? Or calling ourselves "legendary" or "world class"? It may seem like a stretch (sorry) from the Abdominizer to our own work, but in our zeal to load up on superlatives we erode the value of the words and turn people off.</p>
<p>Ditto for pretentious titles. One of the best things you can do with a long, off-putting title is to write it on a Post-It, stick in a drawer and forget about it. Stop selling. I might even listen.</p>
<p><b>Wake Me When It´s Over</b></p>
<p>The last of the four is more subtle: the Tedium Trap. It´s more subtle because when we think of entertainment we think Jay Leno, Steven Spielberg, Danielle Steele or Broadway - but we don´t put ourselves in the same sphere. The fallacy, however, is that as readers and listeners we´re always judging things by their entertainment value. Mediocre writers and presenters take it for granted that we have to sit there and pay attention, and it shows. They bore us to distraction.</p>
<p>In the era of inexpensive video and graphics, it no longer takes much of a budget to do something better than words on a slide. Instead of killing us with pie charts about customer satisfaction, go interview a disgruntled customer and film it. Bumpy and grainy video is fine - in fact, it´s better. Tell a story that you care about. Change the format or location of a meeting from a dim, cold hotel room with fake diamond chandeliers to someplace that doesn´t scream: "Warning: Same old schtick coming up."</p>
<p>We´re not all dynamic presenters. (Management guru Tom Peters must burn 900 calories racing around the stage when he presents.) But the bar has been set very low when it comes to entertainment.</p>
<p><b>Postscript</b></p>
<p>There´s a whole movement set on filling my bookshelf with preachy books about apostrophes, gerunds and the evils of business jargon. I´m running out of room, to the point where my original Hardy Boys books may have to go back into storage. But while it´s great sport to monitor everyone´s grammar and syntax, it misses the point.</p>
<p>Brilliant, fascinating people join the workforce and fall into these traps, emerging as dull, interchangeable people. This doesn´t have to happen, and great leaders <i>don´t</i> fall for this. Their voice is their brand, and we fall all over ourselves hoping to hear them.</p>
<p>For my part, I know that I´ll never be the guy who burns up the stage. But I am aspiring to be someone that people enjoy hearing, and that aspiration - and not my growing library of pop grammar books - has helped me claw my way out of the four traps.</p>
<hr>
<p><i>Former eighth-grade spelling champion Jon Warshawsky is a manager with Deloitte Services LP, and a co-author of</i> Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter´s Guide <i>(The Free Press, 2005). Visit <a href="http://www.fightthebull.com/">www.fightthebull.com</a>. Email Jon at <a href="mailto:jwarshawsky@deloitte.com">jwarshawsky@deloitte.com</a>.</i></p>
