Communication folks will want to listen to the New York Times interview with Scott Pelley, about his firing from “60 Minutes.” The fairness of that decision aside, this is an executive communication disaster of Hindenburgian proportions. Pelley’s eloquent description of new “60 Minutes” producer Nick Bilton’s introduction to the staff—first a supremely insulting email, then an all-staff meeting at which Bilton read a statement *from his phone*—this is just brutal. Almost exquisitely so. And speaking of reading speeches off phones, here’s a Writing Boots encore … —DM
***
My old pal Steve Crescenzo was on a Zoom call with a prospect the other day, a young woman. “About ten minutes into the 30-minute call, she appeared to wipe her mouth. But it LOOKED like she was hitting off a joint,” Steve wrote on LinkedIn. “I ALMOST made a joke. Something like: ‘Ha ha. For a second it looked like you were vaping or smoking a pot pen or something! Ha ha ha!’ Thank GOD that for once I kept my mouth shut (a rare occasion). Because about six minutes later, she did it again! She WAS vaping! I’ll be damned! I have read all the articles about how insidiously addicting these vape pens are. And just about EVERYONE of a certain age does it. But how do we feel about doing it on a business call?”
On behalf of exactly everyone over the age of that young woman I can say: We don’t dig it.
Nor, I’ll add while I have you here, do we dig people reading a speech off a cellular telephone. My wife and I found ourselves at Chicago’s great Gene Siskel Film Center one night last month, to see a documentary by Frederick Wiseman. As you might predict, our 55-year-old asses were among the youngest in the room—except for the stripling Siskel Center staffer, who introduced the film with a 10-minute lecture delivered with a series of frequent glances at his phone.
Young man, I know there’s nothing inherently wrong with reading from notes on your phone. And if you’re conservation-minded, a lot that’s right with it. Still, lad: Know that your audience cannot accept this. We have lived many long years in a world where, if you had something important to say to a large group of people, you either memorized it because you were a genius or you wrote it down on a piece of paper, and referred to that. None of us will live long enough to learn to happily receive a lecture that’s read off a phone.
Luckily, you and your generation will outlive us, and for the latter part of your professional careers you will be able to read speeches with a phone in one hand and a vape pen in another. But by then, you’ll have your own bugbears, and your own vague yet strong sense that no one takes anything seriously enough any goddamn more.
Leave a Reply