OF SAGACITY -- AND LEADERSHIP WORDS

Bookstores overflow with ‘how to be a leader’ tomes, often with conflicting advice.

Never a month passes when the likes of Harvard Business Review or Fortune magazine doesn’t opine on the best ways to manage a merger or what to do during the first 90 days as an executive.

And then the consultancies go forward to conquer … (how could we forget?).

Yet there’s one recently published, probably overlooked modest collection of memos, penned by one of the original Mad Men, that we heartily promote browsing.  And remembering.

It’s Keith Reinhard’s Any Wednesday, one pagers written almost weekly to his colleagues at DDB Worldwide (now part of Omnicom Group) for some 23 years, covering not just advertising topics, but also musings around careers, communications, and the truth. 

Like this:  “Our management priorities should be … people, product, profit … in that order.”

Or acquiring new skills:  “… because the marketplace of the future will be one where advertising alone is not the answer to every client’s problem.”

And delivered with humor:  “The greatest human drive is not food, water or shelter.  It’s the obsession to edit another person’s copy.”

It’s not often (okay, almost never) that we recommend a read.  But it’s one that will net you a true ROI, in Reinhard’s words:  Relevance.  Originality.  And Impact.

OF BUZZWORDS, JARGON, SLANG ...

These days, there’s lots of press about the use (or mis-use) of words.  Journalists and writers complain.  Business people urge all to be conversational and precise.  Teachers, of course, have a field day.

Every day, slang takes over our talk and thinking.  Just think of a few:  Deep dive, end user, leverage, low-hanging fruit, synergy.  “It’s the deck that touches base with our aspirations, and further expands our bandwidth.”

Yeah, we could go on and on.

But we’ll spare you.   Psychologists galore have examined corporate and techno speak, concluding that it’s a:

• ·       Shorthand to communicate more quick and efficiently
• ·       Way of indicating you’re a member of a certain club or
• ·       Need to sound important.

Even better, some good Ph.D. doctors at NYU analyzed the use of abstract language, revealing that its use leads listeners to believe the speaker is lying – more often than if concrete words were spoken.

Bottom line, jargon is muddy and meaningless.  It creates a language barrier in cultures that, quite frankly, don’t need any more.

Complaining, though, won’t get us anywhere. 

Our solution?  Let’s get well-known public figures and CEOs to start talking and writing with clarity; after all, many of us act as their ghostwriters.  Start a campaign with role models everyone respects – perhaps a Jimmy Carter or Tim Cook or (you fill in the blank).  Headline it with quotes from Richard Branson (among others):   “It is far better to use a simple term and commonplace words that everyone will understand, rather than showing off and annoying your audience.”

Hey, we can dream, can’t we?

THE VOICE, PART TWO

Not every leader and corporation can afford voice coaches like Adam Levin and Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams.

On the other hand, they have us – communicators and marketers and branding gurus.

We’re serious.  Because guiding our executives through the process of defining words and actions of value for themselves and for the business – a/k/a the voice – is a commitment based on experience, intuition, and no small amount of tears and sweat.

It goes beyond the tried and true message platform, to the heart of what’s believed and what’s been accomplished.  The voice integrates values, vision, and purpose.  And the process never stops.

Where to start?  With an examination of self (and of company).  Begin by asking some standards:

• What gets you up in the morning?
• What do you and the business stand for?
• What motivates others to do their best – for you and for the company?
• Who are you/the company when both are at your best?
• What attitudes and beliefs move you forward … or hold you back?
• How would you define success now, and in the future?

Balance those responses and the initial voice with the leader’s style and personality, a combination of presence, attentiveness, bedside manner, decisiveness, and, oddly, the traits of humility and confidence.  Most of all, the final voice must be a comfortable one, one that connects well with the leader/company.

There’s no audition.  No contest.  And probably no recording contract.  But it’s one of the most rewarding contributions we make.

THE VOICE, PART ONE

It’s far different than the NBC-TV contest of coaches and wannabe singers.

Yet it’s similar in its appeal to the heart.

Helping craft “the voice” is one of the most fundamental and most critical jobs we as communicators, designers, and marketers can undertake for our leaders, our corporations, and, yes, ourselves.  It’s also one of the most challenging.

For leaders, the voice must reflect how they support and help, coach and deliver feedback, articulate the vision, and give context and meaning to events inside and outside the business.  It mirrors their style, their personality – and is consistent, clear, and certain.   Of course, given the state of the world, it will also flex to demands and to situations that might be beyond anyone’s control.

A big task? 

For sure. 

Combine it with the goal of defining the corporate voice – and then sometimes, things go awry.  Voices of leaders and companies are often intertwined.  Among the most familiar:  Steve Jobs and Apple, Jack Welch and General Electric, Ray Kroc and McDonald’s. 

It’s when there’s a disconnect, a note of inauthenticity that the voice wobbles. Sometimes, it takes a while for a new leader to pave the way for a re-set of the voice, time to figure out how the two gestalts merge.  And often, employees are the first to identify the variations; usually, front liners will speak up (especially if they’re encouraged to do so).

Starting right is, in our eyes, the best fix.  Stay tuned …