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Do you like to impress people? Do you want to be seen as intelligent; a person who is going somewhere?

Then here’s a secret few people think about.

Successful people are usually great communicators and the hallmark of great communications is clarity of thought. What people don’t think about is that clarity applies to all communications—including insults.

Practice clarity in all your communications and if it’s necessary to insult someone, and at times it is—or at least it feels that way—your insults should be offered with the same clarity and a whole lot of class.

The need for clarity is obvious—you want the person you’re insulting, and anyone else who is cognizant of it, to not only know your opinion, but to be impressed with your elegance.

Any idiot can say, “She’s dumb” or “he’s a *%$# jerk,” but those insults have no real meaning.

In fact, the minute you resort to expletives to describe a person or action you prove yourself to be a person of small intellect and smaller vocabulary.

Clarity is the key—using the fewest words, while allowing no question as to meaning or intent, as is shown by these three historic figures.

Clarence Darrow: “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”

Abraham Lincoln: “He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I know.”

Oscar Wilde: “He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends.”

Additionally, when you’re insulted, especially by someone with clarity and class, you want to respond in kind as was done here.

George Bernard Shaw sent a note to Winston Churchill saying, “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend… if you have one.”

To which Churchill responded, “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.”

No question as to what either thought of the other.

Mark Twain was a master of perfectly barbed clarity, “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”

And before you think that the art or the clear and classy insult is a thing of the past, take a look at three modern examples,

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” –Billy Wilder

“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.” –Robert Redford

And I absolutely love this one,

“He had delusions of adequacy.” –Walter Kerr

Practice with a friend, it’s fun and you will acquire a skill that sets you apart.

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Yesterday marked my 1000th post here at MAPping Company Success—a milestone in the blogging world.

That milestone reminded me of an email I received asking me how I stayed motivated when I rarely receive comments.

It’s a valid question and one I ask myself occasionally, but I keep writing because I know from feedback I have gotten that there are people out there who find it useful.

They may not have time or desire to add/agree/argue with what I write, but if it occasionally helps solve a problem or overcome a challenge then the blog is doing what it’s meant to do.

I’m not good at playing the blogging game (I’ll comment on yours and you’ll comment on mine) primarily because I’m not really writing for others in my industry, although I know that some read me, just as I read them. And I’m not great at using the trendy words that Google loves, although I’m working on that.

My work and writing has always been geared to line managers at all levels who set and interpret culture and work daily to hire, motivate, and retain their people.

A good deal of what I write revolves around MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), because all the great information available to you through blogs, books and seminars is unusable if it isn’t synergistic with your MAP.

In celebration of this milestone I’d like to reiterate an offer I made today to a new subscriber and that I’ve made before—feel free to suggest a specific subject you would like me to write about or a question you would like discussed.

You can leave a comment, email me or if you like to talk, call me at 866.265.7267.

I look forward to hearing from you!

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Yesterday I gave you an example of policy that was costing a company thousands of dollars at a time they can least afford it. That policy was seriously flawed and poorly communicated.

I frequently talk about the role of communications and why clarity is so important in management.

Think of it this way, operational communications provide people information on how to do their jobs, while management communications tell them what their jobs are and why they do them, giving form and purpose.

Problems often arise when managers are careless, sloppy or use jargon in an effort to sound sophisticated, knowledgeable and “with it.” This leads to poor or inaccurate communications and misunderstanding, because people hear those words through the filter of their own experiences and apply their own definitions.

When communicating with your team you can eliminate this by remembering why, how and the overall goal.

The WHY: to provide your people with all the information needed to understand how to perform their work as correctly, completely, simply, and efficiently as possible.

The HOW: by providing clear, concise, and complete communications at all times.

The GOAL: to make your company more successful, your employees happier and more productive and you a more effective manager with better reviews.

Companies need to establish the same three points—why, how and the overall goal—to their policy development.

The WHY: to provide your people with all the information needed to understand the principals and mechanics required for the company to run as correctly, completely, simply, and efficiently as possible.

The HOW: by providing clear, concise, and complete communications that provide both the policy and guidelines on its implementation at all times.

The GOAL: to make your company more successful, your employees happier and more productive and your investors/stakeholders more confident in your future.

You can change confusing to clarifying with just a little effort. Is it worth it?

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The global environmental climate may be warming, but the global business climate is frigid, with even colder weather ahead for business in the next few years.

Without a doubt, most companies will face declines in sales, escalating bad debts, elimination or reduction of credit lines, forced reductions in labor, and significant internal adjustments in work assignments. How will your corporate culture withstand the upcoming business ice age?

Corporate Culture Snapshot

Corporate culture statements focus on “people values,” in contrast to corporate mission/vision/business statements, which focus on business objectives. A quick survey of corporate culture statements shows that many companies identify their employees as their most important asset. They also list their most important values as virtues as integrity, teamwork, accountability, and innovation.

For the sake of this post, let’s accept that the company actually means these good words.

How do you, as a business leader, honor these values in the current frigid business climate? More importantly, can your corporate culture actually help your organization to weather this storm?

The Situation

You are the leader/manager of a team of 25-50 people—a department or even an entire company. At the emergency leadership planning session last weekend, your sales team presented a revenue forecast 20-35% below last year. Your finance team predicted that bad debts will triple this year and credit will be unavailable, which means you need to find an additional 10% cash in your operations.

Worse yet, your employee payroll costs will grow by 3%, driven by increases in unemployment insurance and other state/federal payroll costs. Employee costs are 65% of your total expenses, so no matter how creative you are you know that the solution must eventually include reductions in employee expenses.

The Challenge

In stressful situations most people and organizations tend to circle the wagons, collapsing inside a small group of senior execs who run the business. Cultural values such as integrity, teamwork, and innovation are great for the boom times, but in difficult times our instinct is just the opposite. Our cultural statement that “people are our most important asset” rings hollow when we know that we must reduce employee costs by one third. How can we expect teamwork when reductions will inevitably pit team leaders against each other for inadequate resources? Who will volunteer to leave the team? Fear can constrict communications and limit feedback.

The Process

Ironically, your corporate culture statement may point the way to an effective process. If people are, in fact, your most important asset, communicate with them right now.

They are already talking with each other, already guessing about the challenges facing the organization and guessing at the possible solutions, which can start rumors that are usually far worse than the reality.

Bring them into the process at every level by opening the communication channels. Describe the challenge in as much detail as possible and in as many different forums as possible—send group emails, set up group meetings, and meet personally with the key people on your team.

Share the uncertainties also. Of the three common corporate virtues—integrity, teamwork, and innovation—the responsibility for integrity falls most heavily right now on you. Tell the truth to your team. Don’t wait and don’t hide in the uncertainties.

Structure the challenge then ask your team for recommendations. Your corporate culture emphasizes teamwork and innovation. Now is the time to count on those virtues as your team develops solutions.

The Solution

The solutions will be unique for each team and for each situation.

While each solution contains a set of action steps, the larger and most valuable elements of the solution are team ownership and acceptance. Grass-roots solutions developed by the teams almost always gain greater ownership and acceptance than top-down solutions imposed from above. However, grass-roots solutions are almost always messier.

How will your organization tolerate and accept a number of grass-roots solutions, each unique and each with distinct peculiarities? That is one of your challenges as a leader.

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This is a continuation of the March 17th post.

The cost really starts mounting up based on what leaves. Yes, of course, the person in that position matters, s/he was a unique individual with a unique set of skills—that can’t be duplicated, but it can be replaced. But the loss of a certain position at a certain time can wreak corporate havoc costing millions. For example:

• The engineer whose missing piece of the project delays delivery and launch of the product.
• The product marketing manager tasked with a new product launch.
• The admin no one noticed or worried about, who, in actuality, was both the department glue and grease.

Notice there are no senior managers listed. Think about it, if the VP of engineering leaves it may garner comment in the media and create headaches for the CEO, but it won’t delay the product.

But is turnover really as bad as I’m making it out? And if it is, can there really be enough ROI to offset it? I can almost hear the skepticism (and worse) echoing through cyberspace.

Frederick Reichheld, founder of Bain & Company’s Loyalty Practice and author of Loyalty Rules!, and other loyalty books, shows in carefully researched studies that a 5% improvement in employee retention translates to a 25%-100% gain in earnings.

So there’s your proof!

The solution overview I promised can be summed up in two letters, CC—culture and communication—and one guiding principle: People who join your company for money, will leave for more money.

I’ll elaborate on CC next week, but the principle needs no explanation, it speaks for itself.
Have a great weekend!

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