Jimako’s Blog

I don’t remember quite how long ago I first read this book, but today I just had to go and pull it off the shelf in my office at work, where it normally lives. Very near to the front, it tells of one study where the authors took two pieces of corporate writing, one in typical corporate-speak, and one straight-talking and clear. The identities of the companies was not evident or otherwise discernable from the content.

They took these two pieces and showed them to a number of people in the local (to them, Atlanta) Starbucks, and asked them to select from a list of 30 words the ones that they would associate with the companies involved. There were 15 "positive" and 15 "negative" words in the list. Interestingly, the Starbucks crowd didn’t like the bull, so the four words most strongly associated with the writer of the corporate-speak were obnoxious, rude, stubborn and unreliable. And none of the 15 "good" words were associated with this company’s literature.

The other piece fared much better — it was associated with the words: likable, energetic, friendly, inspiring and enthusiastic. None of the "negative" words were assoaciated with it.

Let me quote from the book:

The short story is that people find straight talkers likable, and that’s a big deal. In his book ”The Power of Persuasion”, Robert Levine, a professor of psychology, says:

If you could master just one element of personal communication that is more powerful than anything … it is the quality of being likable. I call it the magic bullet, because if your audience likes you, they’ll forgive just about everything else you might do wrong. If they don’t like you, you can hit every rule right on target and it doesn’t matter.

The authors also note that two if the words that were included in the list were "intelligent" and "educated". There was no statistical difference between the straight-talk sample and the bull sample. This means that an attempt to appear smart by (as they put it) using fifty-cent words to make 5-cent points, is pointless — there is simply no payoff for the verbosity.

Quoting again:

The bottom line: Bullshit eats away at your personal capital, while straight talk pays dividends. Invest wisely.

Amen to that!

Today I have endured more double-speak and, well, absolute nonsense than anyone should ever need to be exposed to, because of some fear of being absolutely clear in some communications. A futile attempt at stealth management.

I’ll feel better soon.

Really I will.