One of my fellow sailors, a physical therapist, asked me about my work. I mentioned that I’m kind of an "expert" in employee communication and executive communication. I have a hard enough time keeping a straight face when I say such a thing; she found it impossible; we both burst out laughing.
What does a communication "expert" know, exactly? It’s a question I’ve addressed before, but inadequately, I think. Here are a few concepts that a communicator knows, if not exclusively, then at least more thoroughly than the client; I hope you’ll add to them:
1. The world is not about your product or policy or program. The world is about people. This one comes from my ad man dad, who gave speeches on the subject to his creative team, and who believes his main contribution as a communicator was his willingness to figure out what the client’s product meant or could mean to the harried, worried, insecure, greedy, hopeful, ambitious, yearning, lovelorn "man inside the man." (Hey, it was the 1960s.)
That’s the main service we provide, to CEOs for whom we write speeches, subject matter experts whose work we’re charged to explain to employees—every client internally and externally. We’re the ones who know that people don’t care about what you’re selling, no matter how shiny it is. They care about themselves.
2. Communication doesn’t work real good. At least, it doesn’t work directly or immediately. Clients are often uptight about saying something for fear it’ll lead to something else. They’re nuts! Communicators know that one single communication almost never leads to anything. Communication is a vast combination of words and behavior and about seven million other mysterious ingredients. You don’t write a newsletter article or make a speech and see "behavior change" (the hokiest term in our business). It’s a nervous thing communication consultant to say, but it must be said: Communication is a marathon, boss.
3. Everybody already knows everything anyway. "We don’t want employees to know." Fill in the blank, they already know. They may not know the number of the layoffs, they may not know the timing, but they know something bad is in the air, just as sure as a husband knows when a wife has stopped loving him. Whether or not he feels like acknowledging it, he knows. We all know when we’re wanted, how we’re wanted, how much we’re wanted by every friend, colleague, company, political party and institution in the world. I call this my "everybody already knows everything" theory of communication. But it’s not a theory. It’s a truth. Communicators who set out to win people over to an idea or convince them of a cause had better have a sincere client behind them, because people will smell it if they don’t. (In fact, they already have.)
4. A certain amount of bullshit is good. In America especially, people like people who hustle, and we like hustlers, and we don’t really draw that much of a distinction between the two. I think people want you, within reason, to prove that you want the business by making some bold claims that they know you’re going to have to—there it is again—hustle to back up.
5. The Ron Santo Rule: People like people who ask for what they want. Every year when the Hall of Fame ballot comes up, Chicago reporters go to Ron Santo, a radio announcer and a longtime Cub third baseman, and ask him how he’s feeling. Santo, who has lost both legs due to diabetes, more or less cries out in agony: He wants so badly to be voted into the Hall, he believes he deserves to be in, and he’s trying not to get his hopes up for the 25th straight year of crushing disappointment (Santo retired in 1975). Then he doesn’t get in, and the reporters drag their cameras back, and Santo wails again. Maybe next year. Of course, the heart on the sleeve doesn’t get Santo into the Hall of Fame, but I believe it has won him the adoration of millions of baseball fans and almost everyone in Chicago. Which keeps Santo employed on the radio despite his rather thin talent as a color announcer. Similarly, we need to tell our clients that somewhere in all their strategic communication planning and message drivers they need to make sure they tell their audiences what they want from them. (And how badly they want it.)
6. People want to know more about what they already know. The late Larry Ragan, who taught me some stuff about communication that my dad didn’t, said this all the time: Irish people watch shows about Ireland, Democrats read columns by liberals, communicators read blogs about communications. To reach people, you’ve got to convince them they already know a little bit about what you’re saying; you’ve got to make a strange subject seem familiar. Once you’ve done that and hooked them—only then can you lead them into new places.
Again: Am I the only person in a given meeting who knows these things? No. According to my own third rule of comunication, everybody knows everything. (Although some people are in serious denial!)
What I bring to the table is a deep understanding of all of the above, and a subtle ability to know when each applies the most. And that, my friends, is why I’m a communication expert.
Stop laughing.
What makes you a communication expert?
A natural understanding of how communication is breaking down. For example, I was sitting in a benefits meeting at our facility in Weed, Calif. this morning and the benefits representative kept using acronyms and shortened versions of phrases that are not common to a timber worker. As a communicator, I believe my job is to kindly point out when communication is breaking down.
I am a communication expert because I read this great blog.
Eileen, that’s a good one. Yes, let’s add it to the list.
Ron, you embarrass me.
Holy shit. Did you see Mad Men last night. There’s a scene in the season two opener when two of the Ad Execs say EXACTLY what your dad said…
“people don’t care about what you’re selling, no matter how shiny it is. They care about themselves”.
It caught me last night, an interesting tid-bit to chew on, but you wrote it two days before the show aired. I’m intrigued.
OK, so you’ve listed 6 important elements that make you a communication expert. I want to know under which element does telling someone to ‘Shut the fuck up, Roxanne!’ (insert your name of choice) fall under?
I used that in a meeting once… 😉
Bruce, my man, every day’s a school day on WritingBoots.
I’ll keep you ahead of all the curves.
I finally decided to quit a job that’s been driving me nuts–well, let me take that back. I liked my job–I despised my supervisor. I thought that before I went, I should go to someone that I trust at least a little and let her know some of the reasons I’m leaving, in the pointless hope that maybe someone, somewhere could make changes for those left behind.
In the course of the conversation, I discovered that what I had thought to be an internal but generic (as in, produced by a team at the direction of a consultant) example of truly awful corporate-speak was in fact written by the woman I was talking to. I had used this paragraph in a suggestion-box type thing to illustrate why an in-house writing class, like the one Bill Sweetland told us that the American Heart Association, I think it was, had been implemented with such good results and would be a good idea for our company, and even offered to pull it together and teach it.
When she revealed to me that she had written the paragraph in question, she told me that by suggesting that we need to write better, and using her paragraph as an example, I had no doubt frightened other employees away from offering their own suggestions to the corporate suggestion-box program because they’d be afraid that I would make fun of their writing. Also that I’d derided management and shown a complete lack of respect for them. And she told me that my stab at interpreting the jargon was completely wrong, but that it wasn’t intended for me to understand anyway–it was for senior management. AND that even Shakespeare isn’t understood by some people–does that make his writing jargon?
I am serious. Corporate speak is like Shakespeare.
I am going to a job where I won’t be doing any direct communications work at all. I’ll be a project assistant, and this new company will train me in project management, and I can’t tell you how relieved I feel. Trying to assist people who are already at the level of Shakespeare is a fruitless endeavor anyway.
So there’s my tale of the value of a communicator in corporate America.
By the way, I’m very glad you’re back, safe, and had a memorable adventure. I look forward to your story.
Ladies and gentlemen, Hope has left the communication profession (and the profession has given up Hope).
But thank goodness there’s still Hope.
I feel loved here. And valued. Thank you both.