Business Without the Bullsh*t: 49 Secrets and Shortcuts You Need to Know (22 page)
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Authors: Geoffrey James
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How to Communicate
Communication isn’t just important in business; it is the very core of business itself. While individual contributors may work alone, their work has no meaning unless other people know about it.
Managing is communication, selling is communication, marketing is communication. You’d think, given its importance, that businesspeople would be good at communicating. However, that’s not usually the case.
The business world is chockablock with bloated documents, cryptic e-mails, pointless conversations, and boring meetings. Fortunately it doesn’t have to be this way, as the following secrets explain:
“Five Rules for Business Communication” contains the essential keys to making yourself understood, regardless of whether you’re communicating in person, over the phone, or online.
“How to Have a Real Conversation” describes how to fully understand what another person is trying to say and then move the conversation forward toward whatever decision you want the other person to make.
“How to Write a Compelling E-mail” provides the process for composing a crisp, easily read message that both helps the recipient understand the decision you want made and drives the recipient to make that decision.
“How to Give a Memorable Presentation” explains how to guide an audience through a set of emotions using the power of your voice and your ideas, as well as essential rules to make your presentation more effective.
“How to Work a Room” gives you the tools you need to build business contacts at conferences, meetings, and social events, without seeming pushy and while staying within the bounds of social convention.
“How to Negotiate an Agreement” contains the essence of getting what you want in return for what you’re offering. This method applies to every negotiation from simple salary discussions to million-dollar sales.
“How to Handle Alarming E-mails” describes the three e-mails that nobody ever wants to receive and how you can respond to them in a way that both protects your interests and moves your agenda forward.
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Five Rules for Business Communication
Most business communication is dreadful: fluff-filled internal e-mails, dead-boring presentations, conversations that start and end nowhere, sales messages that leave customers scratching their heads.
In every organization the real leader is whoever can communicate the most clearly and make complicated things seem simple and simple things seem obvious.
Five rules apply to
all
business communication. Learn them, memorize them, practice them, and make them part of your everyday mental toolbox.
Communication is information with a purpose. Therefore, it’s possible to communicate well only if you are clear about the purpose of the communication.
Therefore, before you initiate any communication at work, ask yourself the following three questions (and answer them):
1. What decision am I seeking?
2. Whom do I want to make this decision?
3. Is this the right time to ask that person?
The clearer your answers to these questions, the clearer your communication will be.
It was famously said in the twentieth century that “the medium is the message.” Now that we’re all inundated with media, that’s no longer true. Today you want the medium to be “transparent” so the decision-maker focuses on the decision.
Always use the medium (or media) that demands the least mental and emotional effort from the decision-maker.
For example, never ask for a face-to-face meeting if the decision you want made can be effectively handled through a quick exchange of texts or e-mails. Similarly, never use e-mail when the decision requires the personal touch of a face-to-face interaction.
For example, if you’re using e-mail to avoid feeling uncomfortable (such as when delivering bad news), you’re choosing a medium based on your needs rather than those of the decision-maker.
The business world is complicated enough without your using five-dollar words when five-cent ones will do the job better. Below is a real-life example, a press release selected at random (with my rewrite):
“Acme provides GPS intelligence for small and medium-sized businesses to track/manage/automate their mobile fleets. Based on data and metrics Acme provides, SMBs gain visibility and actionable intelligence to adjust their service vehicles accordingly for both improved customer satisfaction and bottom line.”
“Acme tracks the location of your service trucks so you know where they are and can get them where they need to go. This saves you money because you can now service more customers with the same-size fleet.”
The original forces the decision-maker to struggle to figure out what’s being sold. What does “GPS intelligence” mean? Or “track/manage/automate”? The problem is not that the original is completely indecipherable, but that it needs to be deciphered at all.
By contrast, the rewrite simply says what’s being sold and why it’s important to the decision-maker. I should emphasize that the original press release is better than average, though; I’ve read plenty that were far more convoluted.
The trick to simplifying your communication is:
write the way you talk
. In my experience almost
everybody
is better at talking clearly than at writing clearly. If you’ve got to write something, do this:
1. Use the “record” function on your phone, tablet, or PC.
2. Imagine yourself talking to a colleague.
3. Say whatever it is you want to say (keeping your purpose in mind).
4. Play back and transcribe what you just recorded.
5. Edit out any biz-blab or jargon that accidentally slipped in.
Once you’ve done this a few times, you may find that you can “hit record” in your head and hear yourself talking. Eventually it becomes automatic.
Many businessfolk believe that their communications will seem more businesslike and profound if they pepper them with business clichés, buzzwords, and biz-blab. Such people are
idiots
mistaken.
For example, high-tech marketing documents frequently describe products as “cutting-edge,” “industry-leading,” “third-generation,” “fourth-generation,” “leading-edge,” “state-of-the-art,” “2.0,” and “next-generation.”
None of these terms mean anything. Not really. Far from making the stuff seem more exciting, biz-blab marks the person who uses it as (at best) an unoriginal thinker and (at worst) a fool.
Bulking up your communication with business clichés also slows decision-making down. Below is an example from a real-life business document, along with my rewrite:
“In order to focus externally, we must focus both externally and internally (customer’s customer and internal alignment necessary to respond), with internal collaboration with common focus/goals by stakeholders accountable for ultimate business results oriented, optimized and coordinated outputs, aligned around the sales cycle and with a proactive approach to higher order competency investments and being unwilling to throw deliverables over the fence to sales teams and trust results will be achieved.”
“We should measure changes in sales revenue to make certain the sales training actually worked.”
I could list a bunch of business buzzwords, but there are so many of them (and more are created every year) that it would be pointless. Instead I suggest you do a Web search for “list of business buzzwords.” You’ll find plenty to avoid.
This rule applies only if you’re an expert attempting to communicate with a non-expert. When experts communicate with other experts, jargon is useful because it allows bursts of communication without an explanation of stuff both parties already know.
However, jargon prevents non-experts from understanding what you’re talking about, which makes it difficult or impossible for them to make the decision you want. If you want non-experts on board, replace jargon with commonly understood terms.
“Dielectric interference that’s trivial at 24 nm will likely overload at 12 nm.”
“Computer chips that contain electrical components that are smaller than 1/8000th the width of a human hair—about half the size of today’s components—may not be reliable. Why? Because the electricity in those components might make them interfere with each other, as when your cell phone crackles on a call when you’re standing next to a microwave.”
Note that using commonly understood words usually takes longer than expressing the same thought using technical jargon. It also takes a lot more thought and effort, because you must “get outside”
your expertise and imagine how a non-expert might approach and understand the subject matter. However, it’s worth the extra effort if you truly want non-experts to understand you.
CLEAR BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
ALWAYS
know your reason for communicating.
PICK
a medium that’s appropriate for the other person.
SIMPLIFY
your message for easy mental consumption.
EDIT
out the buzzwords and corporate-speak.
AVOID
jargon unless dealing with fellow experts.