WORD SIMPLE

Recognize our headline? 

We (ahem!) borrowed it from a well-known tech company’s marketing campaign.

After all, the same sort of principles apply when talking simplification, whether in work or in words.  At least, we think so.  Route out the extraneous and the unnecessary (according to customers and users) and streamline, right?

Not.  So.  Fast.

Ownership of words within corporations tends to be (pick one) 1) mandated by the brand, 2) dominated by corporate functions like marketing and HR, 3) supervised by leaders, and/or 4) required by message stewards.  When interminably long documents and three-paragraph sentences dominate, it’s clear that someone isn’t paying attention to the eight-second rule.

Which is now the length of our attention span.

There are all sorts of reasons why business text is so hard to understand.  Like these:

“Defensive compliance” (consider annual reports and 10Ks)

“Bureaucratic tradition” (think government forms, even do-it-yourself instructions)

“Mindblindness” (the term psychologists use when folks are numb to their own knowledge).

What we know for sure is that someone (perhaps the author, maybe not) isn’t checking with his/her prospective readers, calibrating reactions, answering questions, and ensuring that at least a handful of audience members understand the points.  And when the average 10K in 2013 accounted for 42,000 words, someone, somewhere just didn’t want to be understood.

Mark Twain had us at this:  “I would have written that shorter, but I didn’t have the time.”  [Or was it Blaise Pascal?]

THE EXPLOITATION OF EMOTIONS

What do scotch, soda, and whipped topping have in common – other than belonging to the general class of food/drink stuffs?

Answer:  Psychologists and advertisers who’ve discovered that joy (or its lack) is big news these days.

Johnnie Walker claims that joy helps people achieve more.  Reddi-wip, that we don’t have enough of it daily.  And Pepsi, that it’s a great inducement to song and happiness.

All these brands and others capitalize on the state of our hearts and minds, hoping we’ll walk with joy and Johnnie, add whoosh toppings to our meals, and drink more contentedly.

Jaded?  Sure.  But there’s a good point hidden by the hype.  Which is figuring out how, exactly, to infuse this state of being into our everyday doings.  In other words, into our favorite four-letter word:  Work. 

These days, in our meaderings around the Fortunate 500s and others, we deal with executives, managers, and associates – and watch.  A lot.  There’s much earnestness.  Deliberate conversations.  Determination to meet deadlines.  Intelligent and often soul-searching questions. 

Yet, within all this busyness, there’s not much levity or laughter.  Rarely do we see folks smiling when they exit a meeting or town hall.  Leaders might throw in a joke or personal aside or two before moving into the main subject.  And in cafeterias and break rooms, people occasionally grin when engaged in a personal round-table dialogue.  But not much else.

Perhaps our consumer marketers are right:  Is it time to embrace the ordinary stuff, to celebrate small wins, and to nurture at-work relationships with joy?

LIKE MY LOGO, LIKE ME

Suddenly, logo-speak has gotten a lot more popular.

It’s no wonder:  With major enterprises like Airbnb and Google and Starbucks changing their primary look and feels, the talk centers on the whys and the styles.

Journalists, naturally, love to bash the new.  And pinpoint trends.  Google is criticized for its kindergarten-like fatter strokes.  Airbnb, for its erudite change (the design is called Belo, or a symbol of belonging).  And Starbucks, for its attempt to extend the brand beyond coffee.

The so-called logo trends, though, caught our eyes (and brains).  Many label the updates friendly and less formal.  More humanistic.  Calming.  Youthful and approachable.  Because, or so goes the reasoning, companies just wanna be liked.

Does anyone understand all that comes from the use of sans serif type, round letters, and bright colors? 

As uncommon consumers, we admit, the brand name gets our attention first.  We do the associating and the memories based on experiences with the humans who represent the company:  The friendly (or not so) drive-thru individual delivering our coffee.  A retailer who went out of the way to special-order for us.  The Web site that doesn’t chew up and spit out our credit cards – and actually gets us information via chat.

Sure, a logo is a symbol of the business’ public face, its identity.  But how much more frequently do we connect that nameplate design with a real being, an employee, an ambassador – than we do with Product Sans or names on soda cans or round and squat fonts?

WHY EMPATHY RULES

Atticus Finch is sticking in our minds these days.

And not due to Harper Lee’s just published Go Set a Watchman.

It’s this quote:  “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view ... Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

That sage piece of advice, as true today as 55+ years ago, needs to penetrate the hearts of business leaders and their employees. 

Oh sure, for some, the ‘empathy’ quotient works.  It’s how the CEO of Intuit designs his products, all the EQ stuff Daniel Goleman talks about.  For many companies that exist on growing relationships, it’s the second Golden Rule, the way their people connect and relate to others.  It’s the honest, dedicated interest in others, beyond selfies, out of cubicles and open work space.

There’s even a strong data-driven tie between empathy and positive performance, demonstrated in the 2000s by the Center for Creative Leadership’s research.

Yet.  Why do so many sidestep the emotion play when launching a Customer Experience initiative?  How often do company communications actively, even proactively talk about listening – and express bona fide emotions?  Where do learning and development professionals, those responsible for creating required (and not-so) courses, stand on encouraging workers to cultivate compassion, to take genuine perspectives, to make themselves vulnerable in the right ways (after listening hard)?

Or from Scout’s point of view:  "Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in."