Many people scoff at language “purists” and insist that vernacular must prevail. Yet every business today is a communications business first and foremost, and the best of them craft very clear messages and establish tangible positions. There is no more powerful tool (or weapon) than words used with intent, purpose, and agility. Individuals and companies can rise above the “lowest common denominator” approach and dominate their markets. When I began speaking for money, I thought my common-sense approach would get me tossed out. What it got me was return engagements and high income.
We’re beginning to see rudimentary approaches to “retracting” those e-mails we’ve sent before we’ve been visited by common sense. I assume such software will be a hot seller. We’ve regretted leaving voice mail that we can’t rescind. A lot of old physical comedy involved people trying to retrieve regretted letters from the postal delivery system (which was always astonishingly efficient in those programs).
Very early I observed that “trial and error,” as a problem-solving approach, wasn’t terribly inefficient if the consequences of the error were slight. You can correct a crossword puzzle, retwist a Rubik’s Cube, try turning various circuit breakers on and off. In fact, this was often pretty fast. It didn’t work so well when the consequences were severe (choosing a travel route) or dire (health decisions). Very few doctors have said, “The regimen here is trial and error: if this doesn’t work, then try that, and if that doesn’t work, try them together, then get back to me.”
It also became apparent that you could easily test with a machine or process, as long as consequences were slight for poor decisions, but it was generally madness to use trial and error on people because the consequences were always dire!
It’s one thing to test different makeup on your skin, try on a variety of clothing, or suggest some work regimens. But when you’re not certain (and even if you are) it’s generally unwise to say:
• You’ve lost weight.
• You’ve gained weight.
• You’ve changed your hair color.
• You’ve changed your hairstyle.
• You’ve changed your look.
• You seem calmer.
• You seem more energetic.
You get the idea.
In courtrooms, lawyers will deliberately say something that is improper, and the other side will object, and the judge will say the inevitable, “The jury will disregard.…” Except the jury can’t disregard, any more than you can unring a bell. The statement has been heard, the bell has tolled (for thee), the message is delivered.
Hence: the ability to communicate instantaneously—through e-mail, cell calls, texts, Instagram, Skype, and so forth—actually demands that we slow down. In those “days of yore” we wrote a letter, put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it, and placed it on a table to go out in the mail at a later time. We had the luxury of changing our mind and tearing up the letter, or writing one with somewhat less acidity and toxicity.
That’s why I think e-mail software should have an option that allows you to choose that all e-mail is kept for an hour (or time frame of your choice) automatically before it is released. (This is possible on some software programs now.) We are communicating on thin ice these days, walking on the ice with a flamethrower, turned on, and pointed downward. No good can come of this.
So my first admonition about “The Word” is that you slow it down despite having the ability to make it faster than ever.
We also talk too fast and use too much jargon. Words begin to lose their meanings. A strong “Thank you!” can be an expression of gratitude or sarcasm, or it can be an acknowledgment that you are supporting the other person. We tend to listen too fast as well. A school official in California was fired for racism after using the word “niggardly,” until someone pointed out it meant “stingy” and he was (grudgingly) reinstated. There is a Rhode Island fast food joint in the casino at Twin River that’s called Jeat, as in “Did you eat?” That was also how we spoke in New Jersey and New York (fuggedaboudit).
I coach people to take two beats (one thousand one, one thousand two) when they believe someone else has stopped speaking, before they respond. After all, the speaker may just be taking a breath. I tell them not to “speak over” people, because volume doesn’t carry a debate, though it may shut one down. (Deirdre Imus, wife of award-winning and controversial radio talk show host Don Imus, is the worst offender I’ve ever heard, simply yelling over others, and on some very controversial issues, such as her belief in the past that vaccination was a cause of autism, now scientifically disproved.)
When you’re writing or texting, take an analogous two beats. You do this by rereading what you’ve written, twice. You may catch only typos and syntactical errors, but you may also catch the backlash of the over-the-top language you used.
Once a month or so, someone makes a routine request of me but with venom and hate. They might want to unsubscribe from a newsletter (which they opted to join) but ignore the instructions and fail to unsubscribe themselves. They blame this on me. Once I read the profanity, I take two beats—and leave them on the list.
Rapid communication works best with a succinct approach. People you are trying to reach are besieged with communications to the point that it’s tough applying triage and finding the most important. I’ve found that people inevitably read what is brief. (Some publications, such as Bottom Line, specialize in a succession of very brief pieces.) I recommend that newsletters have four short articles (e.g., 250 words each), rather than one or two long ones.
In your e-mail signature file, one message is more likely to be read and remembered than five. In your promotions, one event is more likely to draw a response than a list of six. In your speaking, one idea is more likely to gain traction than four.
Many authorities cite “seven” as the most numbers in a sequence most people can remember most of the time. How many times have you been left a message with someone’s phone number (typically ten digits in the U.S.) without a means to write it down, and you tried to remember it as you returned the call? I’ve done this and reached strangers in a variety of states and time zones. Your success rate is probably far less than that of a pelican diving for fish off the beach in rough weather.
Communicate with care, not haste, and with brevity, not verbosity. Give yourself the time to consider what you want to say after any emotional reaction has passed. The best response is seldom the fastest, it’s usually the one that achieves your goal. I’ve stated repeatedly that speed is important, but don’t be reckless.
You can try driving to your destination as fast as your car can go, but you’ll be stopped by the police or you’ll crash and perhaps not get there at all. Communications aren’t very different, except there are no police. Be careful out there.
Many years ago I was reading Margaret Wheatley’s book Leadership and the New Science. I thought it an average book, sometimes almost impenetrable. (I’ve since met Ms. Wheatley and hired her as a guest speaker. She is highly cynical, to say the least, and her writing reflects a gloomy view.)
At one point, she made this observation in the book (paraphrasing): Consciousness is a function of processing information. Therefore, a dog is more conscious than, say, a clam, because a dog can process far more information.
I put the book down and had a revelation, an epiphanic moment. It’s clear that some people process information at a far higher and faster pace than others; hence, they have a higher level of consciousness. This explained for me a chronic issue, where some people are rapid learners and some terribly slow, some are totally aware of their surroundings and some oblivious to them.
I thought of being in the presence of someone who was able to assimilate disparate parts of a complex event—a football game or a chess match—and one who seemed unaware of the unfortunate consequences of her actions—the person who pauses to look around at the bottom of an escalator, or pauses to discuss the completed performance in the middle of the exits. I began to create patterns and comparisons to better illustrate my thinking and instantiate it, removing the abstract and conjectural through the application of examples (such as those I just used).
My “oxygen mask” metaphor is based on the phrase we hear every time we fly: put your own oxygen mask on first before attempting to help others. The reason is that we can’t help our family or other travelers if we, ourselves, can’t breathe. That same principle applies to “healthy selfishness”—we can’t help others unless we are comfortable. In other words, I can’t provide pro bono help if I need to work every minute to feed my family. I’m far happier paying my kids’ college tuition when I know that I’m not sacrificing a family vacation or a new car or going into serious debt to do so. I would do those things for my kids, but I’d prefer not to have to.
And, admit it, we consciously or subconsciously resent those who deprive us of things important to us. That’s why the visiting relatives who usurp our time or impose on our privacy grow tedious very rapidly. That’s why some of the most generous people I know are also among the most successful people I know.
There are basically two ways to write a nonfiction book such as this one. The first is “scientific,” which is what Malcolm Gladwell and Nassim Taleb and Dan Pink tend to do. They perform research, compare and contrast numbers and statistics, and present their findings, supported by facts such as the age that hockey players begin school in Canada or the numbers of hours an all-star athlete practices.
The second method is anecdotal. That is how Marshall Goldsmith and Seth Godin and I write. We support our points with examples to which the reader can readily relate. The oxygen mask phenomenon is one, and the person coming to a dead stop at the bottom of an escalator is another.
Both methods work, but the second is far faster. I remember Dan Pink, when he spoke at one of my events, telling me he needs months off by himself to organize and write his books. I can write a book entirely in two months. Dan is a better writer than I, but we both do well and many of my books are on the shelves for more than a decade (Million Dollar Consulting for twenty-five years and five editions, at this writing).
In business meetings and in attempts to influence others, my contention is that we need fewer statistics and more persuasion. I was introduced to one hundred financial executives as their keynote speaker, and every one of them had a digital device of some kind occupying some attention. I said, “You have those things forever, you have me for the next fifty-nine minutes, make a decision if you’d like to stay or leave before I begin.” They all smiled and put the devices away, or at least did a great job keeping them out of my sight!
There is an urban myth that the aerodynamics of a bumblebee should prohibit flight but no one has told the bees. That’s incorrect, but the point being made is fascinating (and an example of the anecdote being better than the science). People win, prevail, and triumph not because they are the scientifically best, but because they can bring the appropriate talent to the accurate place at precisely the right time.
We identify with Thomas Edison talking about failure, and perspiration above innovation. Woody Allen observed that “eighty percent of success is just showing up.”*
I have a great doctor, and I found him when a former doctor was driving me crazy with worry about minor symptoms he thought represented major illness, ordering a dozen tests. He wanted to keep using the science until he proved his theory, despite my discomfort and the cost.
My new doctor stunned me by saying immediately, “I doubt there’s anything wrong, you don’t look sick.” And, indeed, he was right, simply using common sense.
What are you doing to persuade through examples (stories) and metaphor to make your point? What will people most readily relate to?
When I address an audience whose members are unfamiliar with me, I use that story describing how I was fired with poor severance and no savings, which prompted my current career. I ask if anyone in the group has ever been fired. This is a method of instant karma.
“It’s a great club we’re in, isn’t it?” I ask, and then begin my remarks. That example provides an instant connection and camaraderie, far better than showing a slide with statistics about success factors and numbers of jobs held, believe me!
Please remember these definitions:
Frame: A border enclosing something to be viewed.
Reframe: To change the border in your favor so that the viewer is seeing the issue in your context and perspective.
Masterpieces have beautiful frames, yet the viewer is nonetheless directed to the painting within the frame, not the frame itself. If you were to change the frame so that the portrait within it was seen differently, the Mona Lisa’s eyes wouldn’t be following you across the room and her smile wouldn’t be nearly as beguiling.
The phrases “look at it this way” or “see it from my point of view” are actually requests that the other person use your frame, not hers. But your frame isn’t easily applied, unless you make it manifest. (This is why the baseball strike zone—defined in the rules as a frame around the batter’s midsection—is the subject of such controversy and argument. Each umpire has his own frame to which pitcher, catcher, and batter must adjust if they are to succeed. The pitcher can’t say to the ump, “Hey, see that pitch from my view!”)
As the editor-in-chief of my high school paper, I was invited to a competition in Philadelphia with hundreds of aspiring journalists. Our challenge was to write an editorial against drug use. My English teacher and newspaper advisor had driven four of us for three hours from northern Jersey, it was dreadfully hot, and I had a splitting headache.
Editorials, of course, are opinion pieces that usually represent the position of the newspaper on an issue, and are supposed to be written in the first person plural (using “we” and “our”). I couldn’t wait to escape the room, so I wrote using the singular pronouns “I” and “my,” and not as a newspaper representative but as a garbage collector who saw what was happening on the streets and who somehow had access to the newspaper for his piece.
I finished in twenty minutes of the allotted hour, and found a place in the fresh air and shade. A month later I was awarded first honorable mention—fourth place—out of the three hundred participants, and my advisor told me I had shown a lot of moxie breaking the rules.
But I hadn’t broken the rules (or I would have been disqualified), I had simply changed the frame. And it was so refreshing, and so manifest, that the judges bought it. If I hadn’t felt so lousy I probably would have won, but then again I probably wouldn’t have been driven to the frame change.
This can work for you every day. Examples:
• A prospective buyer says to me: “We have never hired an external consultant in this operation, and have no plans to do so.” I respond, “You have no idea how many of my best clients today began our first conversation with the exact same words.” This changes the entire perspective from me as an outsider to him as an insider! I’ve completely reversed the momentum of the conversation.
• A prospect says, “We’re on the West Coast, and you’re on the East Coast.” I respond, “That’s exactly why you need me!” He has to listen to my next sentence rather than continue to try to show me why the distance is a deal buster. (We can use Skype, I’m on the West Coast monthly anyway, most of the work involves customers who are located around the country, and so forth.)
• A coaching client asked me what her next book should be about, because she needed help coming up with a premise. “That’s the wrong question,” I told her. “The real question is what you want your business to look like a year or so from now and what kind of book can drive people to that kind of business.” Then we had a discussion that resulted in a book premise in twenty minutes.
To successfully reframe, you need to be clear on:
1. What is in your best interests to accomplish
2. What is acceptable to the other parties yet still in your best interests
3. How you can use language to reframe and translate the issue in a favorable and acceptable manner*
4. How to make manifest the new frame
In its ugliest forms, reframing becomes “spin,” the primary weapon of political schlockmeisters. In its highest forms, it is statesmanship, diplomacy, and tact. But never lose focus that it’s always to be used to promote your best interests.
The unappreciated problem you may well have is that you’re already often operating in someone else’s frame, and consequently you are meeting that person’s objectives but not your own. This is sometimes done by accident or in the natural course of events (the truly enthusiastic with high volume make this happen), but it is sometimes done as I’m suggesting here—with careful thought and superb language skills.
Have you ever heard of “managing up” or “managing the boss”? This seems impossible until you consider it a version of reframing. You can do this with your spouse, partner, kids, and friends.
One day, on a lengthy conference call with clients, I wanted to get off the phone so I said, “I’ve been with you for forty-five minutes, the call is only ninety minutes, and you deserve to have some time to yourselves without my monopolizing it, so I’ll check out now.”
“Did you hear that?!” yelled one of my oldest coaching clients, “He just reframed his leaving as if it’s in our best interests!”
Try to be less obvious than I was!
I was the worst kind of Boy Scout. I couldn’t swim well enough to be allowed to take out a canoe. I couldn’t cook even if I had hauled my own barbecue to camp. I didn’t know how to clean anything, though I had mastered the “how to get it dirty” part without much help.
One day in the mess hall at summer camp, I sat down with my tray and promptly spilled my milk all over my lunch of macaroni and cheese. Our scout leader briefly looked up, showed no emotion, and resumed his own lunch and reading.
It dawned on me that I was responsible for my own mess.
Later in the week I was drafted for cleanup duty after lunch, a loathsome job that denied me time to spend on activities I was not good at but that at least allowed me to relax. I didn’t mind the others saying, “Weiss can’t carve at all,” as long as I gained the victory of not amputating a finger.
I found Vinnie, one of the senior Explorer Scouts whom I knew from my neighborhood a million miles from this forest of ineptitude. I told him that I was going to rendezvous with a girl from the camp across the lake (the ultimate and unargued reason to break any scouting rule) but I would miss my date if I were stuck here on KP duty. Vinnie promptly ordered me out (“I need this kid for the trail clearing at the lake”), winked, and wished me well on my tryst.
No more ruined lunch for me, I was going to run my own life (if it didn’t require swimming, cooking, or carving).
Subsequently, I learned how to apply this system of not casting my fate to the wind but rather blowing back. I found that giving the right answers in class makes the teacher look better, because, clearly, people are learning. At Rutgers, my carpool partner was in only one class with me during four years—his major had something to do with econometric analytics of financial subsets, so small wonder—but he commented about that class, “I have never seen anyone be a teacher’s pet in college until now. It’s amazing how she dotes on you.”
The professor was a tough-as-nails former army major who hated poor discipline, with which she was surrounded at college. I was her beacon.
In the world of consulting I found that one should never, ever allow the buyer to determine the consulting intervention. We all encounter the mouthwatering potential client where the buyer says, “We need…”
a two-day strategic retreat
a leadership development program
a month of coaching
focus groups and surveys
a customer-focused culture
movement from good to great
The problem, of course, is that the buyer has arrived at an intervention and is simply seeking a contractor to fulfill the requirements.
We need to own the transaction by using The Word. And The Word is: Why? A one-word interrogative will carry the day. Because “Why?” brings us to the real outcome and moves us away from the arbitrary input. Example:
“We need a leadership development workshop.”
“Why?”
“Because not everyone is making decisions consistent with our strategy at senior levels.”
“Do you know why some are and some are not?”
“No.”
“Well, why don’t we find that out first, before jumping to a solution?”
Clients (and others) arrive at solutions first (before knowing cause or objectives) because of a great management and leadership myth, namely, that senior and important people are paid to take action. That is ridiculous.
Leaders are paid to get results.
Consequently, we have to establish what the results should be—the improved future state, the increased performance, the desired outcomes—before taking any action at all. Some of the best leaders I’ve ever seen manage only by exception. Some of the worst consistently try to demonstrate their importance through irrelevant actions. The baseball manager who takes out his strong, winning pitcher in the late innings because he believes that inserting a relief pitcher will demonstrate his management acumen—which is totally unneeded—often loses the game by imposing himself when imposition is a detriment.
A great many leaders are sucked into the vortex of moving from “good to great” without ever defining what “great” is for them, or even investigating to see if they’re already there! That’s the danger of a catchy phrase in place of smart management.
We have to own our transactions by not accepting the decisions (and often outright whims) of others merely because of their title, position, or budgets. The siren’s call of “business at any cost” must be resisted.
We don’t lose control of our lives and fate, we cede it, surrender it, and leave it behind on the road. The simple act of owning your own transactions, taking accountability, and creating the ground rules will enable you to rule your world.