Insensitive-Inconsiderate-Down Right Thoughtless

Rarely does poor communication cause outrage. But last week I received the ANNOUNCEMENT below via email.

XYZ COMPANY
CORPORATE OFFICE

DEATH NOTICE

DATE

We are sorry to announce the death of Sam Jones, Age 22, son of Fred Jones, Vice President, Finance. He is survived by his parents, Fred and Sally, and three sisters, Mary, Jane and Cindy.

Visitation will be held on DATE from TIMES with a memorial service to follow at 7:00 p.m. at:

LOCATION
ADDRESS

Interment will be private.

The family has requested that in lieu of flowers donations be made to:
NAME
ADDRESS

The Jones Family thanks everyone for their kind thoughts and prayers.

Signed,
Mr. CEO

The names are changed to protect the innocent…and the guilty. If you ever needed an example of poor, no, worse than poor, offensive corporate communication, this is it. There are so many communication don’ts; it is difficult to know where to begin. Most of you are probably already aghast and I need write no more. However, for the few who are not seeing the obvious, I continue. Additionally, anyone who works for a company that would communicate such a sensitive matter in this manner should print this blog and tender it to your CEO.

Most importantly we do not ‘announce’ a person’s death. We inform or tell or let you know or notify or make you aware. Just a brief peek at your online Thesaurus will present a myriad of words to work with. This posting has no offer of condolences to the family, friends or coworkers except one ‘sorry’ which is used as an adjective to modify the verb ‘are’ which modifies the verb ‘announce’. So apparently what they are sorry about is the ‘announcement’? It is just plain cold. No personal thought or effort went into this ‘announcement’.

How did this happen? One, it is the way it has always been done. The corporate headquarters says cavalierly, it has been “company policy for 40 years!” which means that no one on the team is thinking about how to communicate a ‘death notice’? Two, no one is thinking about it because it does not affect the company EBITDA. Three, there will be little or no honest feedback from the several hundred employees who will view the death notice on their email or the break room bulletin board because in a day or two it won’t matter. Four, most people will view it as cold, or neutral at best. Because they are not trained in subtleties of communication, it won’t feel right, but they will not be able to explain why.

From the company’s perspective, this is a missed opportunity to show that it has a caring side to it. In this particular case, the tragic death of the 22-year-old son of a long-time executive employee, known personally to the CEO (signee of the ANNOUNCEMENT) leaves the communication rife with possibilities. But, let’s for learning sake, say it is a line worker who no one but a handful of coworkers knew personally. It is still bewildering that this would be how a company would want its character to show up. Let’s write a possible replacement for this less than gracious posting. And maybe before ‘Fred’ comes back to work next week someone will have the decency to re-post or at least tear down the one on the lunchroom wall.

NOTICE OF ZMF EMPLOYEE FAMILY DEATH

This week, ZMF team member, Vice President of Finance, Fred Jones lost his 22-year-old son, Sam Jones, to a fatal accident. We at ZMF send our thoughts and/or prayers to Fred, his wife Sally and Sam’s sisters Mary, Jane and Cindy.

Fred will be out for the next few days tending to his family. Messages can be left for Fred on his email, F@zmf.com or on his company voice mail, extension 123.

Visitation for Sam will be held…. Etc.

This took me about five minutes or less. It could be better and it could be tailored to the specific personality of the company. “Forty years” of refinement should turn out a perfect piece. In today’s economy and political climate where the average person is looking at corporate America with a jaundiced eye to begin with, one would believe that CEOs would care more about visible compassion. It may be a challenge to appear genuinely empathetic in communication surrounding a layoff or plant closing but this…come on suits!

Body Language in the Press

Normally, when a ZMFer is quoted in the news, its published in the section reserved for "In the News". Today, we are breaking that rule for an article I was quoted in called "Body Language Decoded"- right on target for a blog about communication. Published on Forbes.com, the article does a great job of explaining how important nonverbal behaviors are in conveying your message to your audience. I love the specific examples and practical suggestions for improvement.

The Five “Es” of PowerPoint

For years now some people have been trying to tell other people how to use and how not to use PowerPoint (a particularly funny one, here). There are books, articles, videos, presentations, blogs and now there are even experts on Twitter (if your tweeting, follow me at @tzagnoli or our firm at @ZMF_LLC).

What is it that prevents us from heeding the advice that has been heaped upon us for over a decade now? My hypothesis is that we are confused, lazy, stubborn and cannot give up on three erroneous beliefs that we hold as truths.

1) “my content is different and it is impossible to make it interesting”
2) “my content is complex and it is impossible to simplify it”
3) “stop lights are red, money is green, yellow means warning, blue is for trust, purple is royal………”

No matter who you are or what you are presenting, your PowerPoint should uphold the five “Es”:

• Entertain
• Energize
• Emphasize
• Explain
• Evoke

1. Entertain. Every presentation needs a laugh or some eye candy to move it along. Audiences crave entertainment. With the internet it is easy to find video, photographs, cartoons and quotes that will give your audience a good chuckle. When members of an audience respond audibly, they become more involved in what you are saying. An involved audience makes your job easier. While finding entertaining material is a simple matter of searching, it does take time. Lots of it. Starting the night before your presentation limits your resources. Even if your content won’t be finished until hours (or minutes) before you take the stage, put your creative cap on long before. Make a library for yourself of visuals that might work in the future. You will surprise yourself how entertained you are as you build your treasure chest of wit. Here is one of my favorites.
   
   
2. Energize. Energy is the key component of dynamism and dynamism is central to credibility. Credibility is the foundation for everything you present. If people aren’t buying what you are selling, sit down. The phrase “short bursts of energy” explains it best. Your goal is to create a slide show that delivers short bursts of energy. One word on a slide will do this. So will a song, a sound, a photo or a lively animation.
   



3. Emphasize. Bigger is not necessarily the answer. Red is not the solution. Repetition works some of the time. Redundancy isn’t it. It is important to give emphasis where emphasis is due. The technique for PowerPoint is similar to that of good speaking skills when you are distinguishing the filler, from the point, from the really important point. Your voice and your body are your tools. When you want to cue the audience that you are saying something of particular importance, you might move to a different place on the stage. Or your voice changes rate of speech, rhythm, volume, etc. You can give the same types of indication with slides. Change the background, font style, or positioning of content on the page. Use a series of transitions to go quickly or more slowly through a set of related images. The main objective when wanting to show emphasis is to change it up. Help your audience know the weight of the moment.
   


4. Explain. Now here comes the challenge. And the most frequently cited excuse for not breaking poor communication habits. Use your visual images to explain and teach what you are talking about. It can be done! No matter your content. And if you don’t believe me, or even if you do, take a field trip to the nearest science museum. Watch the videos or slide shows that have been made for children to explain how life began, or spaceships fly or electricity moves. Explaining something by showing it takes more work than just tossing out the words. A few easy fixes to get you started:
   
   - Use visual metaphors. Instead of showing a balance sheet, or even a pie chart, show a picture of the Trump Tower next to the Wrigley Building to explain the comparison of your sales to the competitors. Or take a digital photo of an orange and a tangerine to show shrinking market share. Or if your CEO has a sense of humor, a grape and a raisin.
   
   - Instead of just highlighting an important line of numbers, enlarge it and overlay on the original type. You will not lose the context and the audience will not have to sort through all the chatter on the page.
   
   - Take the axes off your bar or line graphs.
   
   - Instead of using the headings from a complicated financial table, label the enlarged numbers you want to be explained.
   
   
5. Evoke. The last “E” works double duty. First, the goal is to evoke a response from your audience. They should be reacting intellectually and emotionally to what is being shown. The visual is trying to provoke the audience into thinking about what you are saying. Second, you want to evoke a memory as to what you are supposed to be addressing at that moment. Slides should not be lists of bullets or pages of text that serve as your cheat sheet. But if you know what you are going to say, a clever visual reminder is a great way to work without notes.

Share your thoughts on the Five Es. Do you have a success story using one of the Es?

Graphic examples from:
- USA Today Snapshots
- Award-winning and most frequently downloaded SlideShare presentations (Thirst and Shift Happens)
- Presentation Zen

Be Careful What You Hear

Another guest post from another talented ZMF colleague - enjoy! Talk soon, TZ

Effective communication relies not only on good listening, pronunciation of words, and reading nonverbal signals; it also requires awareness of assumptions that exist among us. Factoring in subconscious stereotypes and effective communication can get a little tricky. What made me think of this was a recent encounter I had while walking my dog.

So, I was walking my dog, and another guy was walking his, and as many city dwellers would not be surprised to learn, the two dogs sniffed each other and I engaged in small chit chat with the other dog's owner. Then a third guy was walking past us, without a dog, and seemed to have an important message to relay.

He approached both of us, sounding not frantic but concerned about danger lurking. He said what sounded like, "Watch out across the street over there (he pointed) because there's black guys." The guy I was talking to and I were dumfounded. I know racism still exists in society but I could not believe this guy (by the way we were all white, except for the other dog owner's dog), in downtown Chicago, would find it alarming there were black men walking the streets, let alone feel the urge to warn others about this. I sought clarification. Again he said, "Be careful if you walk in that direction there's some black guys. Stay away." This couldn't be. Just as I was about to ask him where he was from to try and get a sense of why he was petrified of black guys, and enable me to warm up to my lecture on the stupidity and ugliness of his comments, he said it again but this time his nonverbals suggested he was saying something else. As he pointed to the ground, and made a gesture showing what could happen on an unsteady surface, he said, "The black ice is really bad." Plus, he said it in singular form which made me realize he was talking about black ice. Ah, black ice! The ice without air bubbles that makes it transparent and hence taking the color of the material it lies on top of – often wet asphalt.

After realizing he was being helpful and not ignorantly hurtful, I thanked him and did not walk over in the direction he said contained black ice.

Thinking about it all I was struck by the misperception both of us dog owners had about what the third man was trying to warn us about. Was there a larger collective unconscious at work creating stereotypical (negative societal stereotypes about urban black men being dangerous) images out of what was a warning of danger? Or, did the third man just have poor pronunciation, which led to such a bad misunderstanding? Or both? Would his message have been interpreted differently if he were black? Or a woman? How does the "who" involved in communication interact with "what" is being said, heard and interpreted? The other guy with the dog also heard “black guys.” So, was it simply the way he said it that led us to think he was talking about black guys? Is there some unhidden stereotype of black guys that is evoked when a stranger comes up on the street and has a message of foreboding danger?

Listening is important and being aware of biases is too. I conclude that many times during daily interactions that consist of listening it is imperative to “check in” with those you are communicating with. Thinking through what you are hearing, and weighing it against nonverbal language, facts, etc., is key to not making rash judgments. I initially thought this guy was ignorant at best and racist at worst, so what if I hadn’t waited and decided to immediately confront his "racism?” That would have been a useless exercise and made me appear as if I was blindly looking for racism where it didn’t exist. So with that I say not only listen carefully but make sure there is some oversight to your listening by thinking about unchecked assumptions. Oh, and watch out for the black ice!

Alan Tuerkheimer, M.A., J.D. utilizes his background in psychology and law as a litigation consultant for ZMF. His experience conducting jury research has given him an in-depth understanding of people’s attitudes, biases and decision-making processes. He is highly sought-after due to his ability to deliver solutions that bridge the communication gap between trial team and jury. Alan earned his J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School and completed his graduate and undergraduate work in Psychology from Connecticut College and University of Wisconsin, respectively.

Nonverbal Intelligence

There is liking what you do and then there is having the nonverbal intelligence to show it.Michelle Obama's popularity is on the rise. How is that happening? One trait is her ability to demonstrate that she is enjoying the different life roles she has committed to. Her big smile, open posture, easy movement, eye contact, and touch all send messages to the world that say, I like being First Lady, being a mom is cool, life is good as Barack's wife. My guess is that she presets herself very much the same way as a lawyer, hostess and carpool organizer. To appear unburdened by life is an attractive trait. It is an especially useful nonverbal strategy if much of your contact with people is them observing you. Consider your day. How many people at work do you interact with verbally compared to those who you just walk by or those who see you sitting at your desk. What conclusion do others draw from your nonverbal behavior?

Have You Got a Case of the Blahs?

Please don't blah blah blah. Instead, finish your sentence or thought. It will be more effective and I will personally appreciate it. Is there a grammatically correct way to use blah blah blah? On email or texting probably. When speaking, rarely. Nonetheless, using it as a crutch because of a lazy brain or small vocabulary makes a speaker sound flip and just plain boring. When is flip appropriate? And why strive for boring? By depending on the blah to fill in for real language, you weaken your point. If it is a verbal habit of yours, keep it in check. People will find you more interesting.

Eyes Wide Shut

Welcome my partner and fellow communication guru Beth Foley as our guest blogger this week. Watch Beth's recent interview with a Chicago news station on image perception and Blagojevich's run at reality television by clicking here.

We all need to be aware of our image. Especially if we know people are watching us. This makes former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s behavior especially odd. In a few short months, a jury will be judging his character, his judgment and his motives. I suspect Mr. Blagojevich thinks that people really like him and when they hear the truth they will see how unfairly he has been treated. Probably because he seems to really like himself an awful lot and he has had good luck persuading people in the past.

You may recall from previous blogs, we are only about 50% right in knowing our own image. So, I recommend that Mr. Blagojevich’s “handlers” conduct a survey of Chicago residents to find out, from potential jurors, just exactly what his image really is because he obviously isn’t listening to feedback. I think a twice-elected governor would pay attention to “polling” results, right? He needs to stop trusting his own instincts about what he feels he’s communicating and get some facts. Then, he can start working round the clock to salvage his image or he can continue on the same path at his own peril. It’s kind of like a pilot who is veering off course in the dark: trust the instrument panel, not your gut.

I would just like the former governor to get a dose of reality, and I don’t mean reality TV.