Category Archives: Style

Eschew Obfuscation

The topic for this post was suggested to me by a good friend over in Europe, Codrin. I don’t know why I hadn’t leveraged his input for my own continuous improvement in the past. He indicated that there was a synergy of our ideas where I could take advantage of some low hanging fruit and get some quick wins. Since he considered himself a stakeholder and influencer in my blogging process he thought I should outsource some of my ideation process whereby a consensus for topic creation could be leveraged. This could in turn create a new best practice and benchmark for future cross functional team blog topic empowerment.

Goodness, this could be worse than even I suspected.

This is going to be something of an interesting analysis as far as topics goes. Some of you may look at that introduction and say that there is nothing wrong with it. The rest of you will probably have had the needle on your Business Jargon Overdose meter pegged at the “red line”, and quite possibly could have broken the meter all together. Whenever I find myself in a business jargon overdose state I find that the best cure for me is to go listen to music (usually either alternative rock or jazz, depending on my frustration level) until my fists unclench. As this condition seems to be occurring with ever greater regularity I seem to have acquired a significant music library.

For the purposes of the remainder of this discussion I will use the terms Business Jargon and Business Slang (BS) interchangeably. Being a product of the business technology acronym generation I find myself being a little more comfortable and potentially more accurate, in referring to the latest business technology generated buzz words by the acronym “BS” rather than by their jargon related acronym counterpart.

Business, especially the high technology business used to be ruled by the use of the acronym. There were financial based acronyms such as ROI (Return on Investment) or NPV (Net Present Value) and there were technology based acronyms such as CPU and RAM and PROM and the like (I know I have dated myself through the selection of technology acronyms. As I have said many times, I am somewhat “old school” in orientation.) The point here is that these acronyms meant something. They were shortened names for actual formulas and physical devices. They represented real things and as such had a real value.

When we fast forward to the business of today we seem to have replaced our quantitative value acronyms with the much more malleable business jargon, lingo and slang of today. As such it seems that the value of our business communication has also decreased in accordance with the utilization of these BS terms. I’ll pick on a few of my favorites.

Synergy. Really? I understand the concept where the combination of multiple elements creates an end state that is greater than the sum of the individual elements. I got it. I think everyone else gets it too. However, we were all taught early on in our school careers that one plus one does not in fact equal three. To hear people talk today it seems that all we need to do to improve our business, increase our profits, reduce costs or cure baldness is combine some disparate people, jobs and functions and we will miraculously get more out of it than we put in. Not every combination creates synergy. Some things do, others don’t. As an example, I like beer and I like ice cream. I don’t think I will create synergy and get something I like even better if I combine beer and ice cream.

Wait a minute. That one might actually work.

Cross Functional. Come on. This one along with consensus, empower and transformative combine to make any written communication appear both longer and more important. Mostly just longer. It seems it is almost impossible to see only one of these words used in its literal form in any form of communication. That would be the metaphysical equivalent of hearing the sound of one hand clapping. What we now seem to end up with is: “We need to empower a cross functional team to reach consensus on our transformative plans.”

Can’t we just say that we need to get together to figure out what to do next?

Customer Centric / Focused / Voice / Satisfaction: Incredible. The last time I looked just about every business on the planet was in business to sell some sort of goods, products or services to a customer. Now the definition of whom or what a customer is can vary from business to business, but the concept of providing a customer something of value and in return the customer giving you money is the basic precept of business. Everything that the business does needs to be focused at providing the customer something and getting them to give you their money. There is a definition for people in businesses that are not directly involved with either providing the customer their desired “something” or getting the customer to give you money. These people are called “overhead”. They are also the ones most prone to using these types of customer related phrases.

Anyone who uses the phrase “customer centric” is usually not.

Paradigm Shift: I don’t even know what to say here. This one seems to be utilized along with such ideological jewels as Best Practices, Benchmarking and Continuous Improvement. Everyone from Charles Darwin in the Origin of Species (things evolve and change, to paraphrase) to Woody Allen in Annie Hall (things, like sharks keep moving forward or die, again a paraphrase) has said that things change. Things that were once done one way are now done another. This is the essence of the meaning of a “paradigm shift”. Nothing ever stays the same. We might like it to, but it won’t. If we just get used to this fact perhaps we can do away with these repetitively redundant descriptions for change.

Robert Heinlein said: “We live and learn, or we don’t live long.” I guess this applies to businesses as well.

As difficult as it may be to believe I have actually been accused of not being either politically correct or a team player. It could be because I don’t normally seek a transformative transparency in looking to create consensus. I don’t think that we probably need to incentivize employee stakeholders and influencers when we are looking at the value add of any presentation or proposal. It seems that my problem may actually be that I do not know how to fully leverage the cloud, fully take advantage of virtualization or deliver anything as a service.

On the other hand it could be that I don’t believe in utilizing the current iteration of Business Slang that is being passed as intelligent and useful business communication.

I think we need to remove the BS (Business Slang) from the business vernacular, and get back to simple ideas of making things, selling things and delivering things when we communicate with each other. It will help get things done.

In other words, let’s eschew obfuscation.

Humor


When I was a kid I used to like to stay up late and watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus on TV. I think it was on either at 10:30 or 11:00 PM, which was really late for those days, at least for me. It was my first introduction to humor from the UK. Monty Python was all about the absurd, delivered with a straight face. It was timely. It was topical. At times it was even considered racy, for its time. I thought it was hysterical. It engendered in me an appreciation for the seemingly crazy things that people can say and do, with an earnest expression. As I have continued on in business, and in life for that matter, business events and actions continually remind me of the need for a good sense of humor and an appreciation of the absurd.



I suppose that Monty Python imbued in me the ability to see the humor in some of the most arcane or improbable situations. The problem with this capability is that it seems that nature did not equip me with a very large buffer between my brain and my mouth where my comments could be reviewed before being released to the general public. Hence I have allowed many comments to escape that upon reflection might have been better retained for only internal consumption only. When I see something that I think is incongruous with the situation I have a tendency to immediately point it out. I think I am pointing out the humor in the situation. Other people have a tendency to think that I am pointing out how funny, or foolish I think they are. It’s possible that there might be a little bit of that going on as well.



I remember reading that no one actually sees themselves as evil, even when they are committing some of the most evil acts in history. It is interesting to me how few if any people in business see themselves as humorous or dumb, even when you see them saying or doing what appears to be some of the funniest or dumbest things possible in business. That is too bad as there are plenty of seemingly foolish things that go on in business. If there wasn’t where would Scott Adams get all his great and scarily accurate ideas for his Dilbert cartoons?




We have all been guilty of saying or doing something that at the time seemed very logical to us, but in hindsight we question just exactly what we were thinking at the time. I have kept several pictures of myself and my friends from earlier days just to remind myself that sometimes even my judgment can and should be called into question. Where did I ever get the idea in college that long hair and bell-bottom jeans were a good look for me? Some of my so called friends have some even better pictures of me, but I go ahead and pay the extortion price to keep those out of the public eye.




Business can be challenging, intense, stressful, uncomfortable, and rewarding and any number of other high energy adjectives to define it. But above all, it needs to be fun. If you are not enjoying what you are doing, you had better find something else to do. Humor for me is the weapon of choice when I have to deal with issues and situations that are in no ways any fun. And even that sometimes is not enough. Despite my best efforts, I have found no humor or anything that can even remotely be described as fun or enjoyable when I have had to tell someone that their job is going away and that they will have to leave the company to look for a new one. However, that too is part of business.




The key is to not unleash your humor fully in the public forum. Regardless of how obviously absurd or funny a manager’s antics may seem there will always be someone who does not find it as funny as you did. There will always be those around who are taking themselves and their work far too seriously. Business is important. Paying attention and providing value is key. There will always be those who will associate a sense of humor or a less than morose attitude as the traits of someone who is not fully engaged or serious in the business.




Since we now live in the age where political correctness is all the rage, I think we must now refer to these types of people as “intellectually challenged”, instead of any other more direct moniker. And like drones in a bee hive, there will always be certain number of them hanging around the boss.



Humor not only relieves and avoids stress; it slaps stress in the face, brings it to its knees in a wrist lock and makes it whine and beg for mercy like a professional wrestler who has just been smacked with the ever handy folding chair. I am not sure where that came from but you get the idea.



If a little bit of humor is good, then a whole lot more humor would be better, right? Not a chance. Humor is best applied in the office in smaller doses. It is not a big step to go from a person with a sense of humor to a person who is regarded as a smart-ass. I seem to have the uncanny ability to not only carefully approach the razor thin border between humor and smart ass, but with no malice of forethought to effortlessly leap across it with the grace and intent of an Olympic broad jump champion. I have been known to end up so far into the smart ass territory that it would appear to the casual observer that I am trying to sneak up on humor from the other side.



This is one of the places where I learned that too much of a good thing can indeed be bad. Once you have been christened a smart ass it is incredibly difficult to get rid of that tag. Regardless of what insight or intelligence you may bring to a situation, your opinion will be discounted to some extent because you are considered a smart ass. It will happen.




Find an outlet for your humor. A few close friends are good. I started writing about it – far too late in my career but I found it a great outlet. Only provide it in small doses in public. Let people know that you have a sense of humor by only providing glimpses of it. By channeling your humor and insight appropriately people will appreciate that there is more to you than just a business persona. This is also a really good idea if it turns out that you really don’t have a sense of humor to begin with. That way you will fail to be funny only occasionally instead of more frequently.




While you are supposed to be having fun in business, you are not supposed to be a comedian, or providing everyone else’s comedic relief. In school we could all recognize who the class clown was. In business you don’t want to be that person. After all, to use the Monty Python allegory just a little more, you may find yourself having to deal with the minister of funny walks, and he will take his job seriously. And he may not find it funny when you make fun of either his job, or the way he walks.

Business Cards


The following Blog Article is one I posted at http://businesscardtobusiness.com/blog as a “Guest Blogger” on 10/29/2012. I am reposting it here just in case anyone may have missed it.

When it comes to business cards I guess I can best be described as strictly “old school”. It seems with ever increasing regularity I am getting what I would describe as “new age” business cards. I think the only thing missing from some of them are pyramids or crystals, in the attempt to grab my attention and differentiate one business card from another. I understand the idea but I find it more humorous than professional, and hence more forgettable, which I think is the opposite of the business cards intent.
 



When was the last time you actually read a business card? In the US we have a tendency to swap cards at a meeting, casually glance at the card we have received and then tuck it in our pocket so that we can be sure to add it to the rubber band bound deck of business cards we keep in our desk drawer at the office. In some parts of the world a business card is presented with both hands, face up and oriented so that the person receiving the card can immediately read it. If you are presented a business card in such a manner and don’t take the time to read the card with the intensity associated with reading the latest Pulitzer prize winning novel, then don’t expect a fully successful meeting. You may have insulted the person who presented you the card.




This process may delay the actual start of a meeting by as much as ten seconds, but I like it, think it is well worth the time and would like to see it more in the US. It demonstrates respect for the information that the person has provided you to start the meeting and by extension the information that they will provide you during the meeting.




Like I said old school.




Increasingly it seems I am getting business cards that remind me of miniature birthday cards. They now come in all sorts of colors. I think this is done in the hopes that by presenting a colorful business, it will make the presenter more memorable. I don’t remember who gives me a colorful business card. I just remember the color. He gave me a red card, or she gave me a blue one. I don’t think that was the objective, but it is the result. They now also appear to come in oversized or even folded formats. This is especially disruptive to my business card filing system as the rubber bands have a tendency to cut in and dog-ear the edges of these cards.




It is the content of the business card that is important.




The company name and logo should clearly prominent across the top of the card. If I forget your name, chances are I will remember the company and search for the card in that manner. If I can’t easily locate the company name on the card it will probably not see the light of day again.




Utilize a landscape as opposed to a portrait orientation to the business card. I have a tendency to hurt my neck as I try to turn my head sideways when I try to read improperly oriented cards. I guess I could just rotate the card ninety degrees, but that would be a little too weird for me.




Put your name in a little larger and bold font. I want to be able to locate it quickly. Put your title and area of responsibility directly below your name so that they can easily be associated. Remember to keep your title short. It would appear that people want to believe that the longer and more detailed their title, the more important they sound. This is the opposite of what is the case. The really important people seem to have titles that are one to three words long. If your title has to be reread multiple times to decipher what it is that you actually do, the chances are that your business card will be dismissed, not remembered.




The back of the business card presents an interesting situation. Simple, clean and blank is always good. I am finding myself coming around to the idea of the corporate web site or URL on the back is good as well, and even perhaps an email address. If you deal in multilingual markets, having all the business card information in the language of the market on the reverse side of a business card is very good as well.
Superfluous information, catch phrases or other personal customizations detract from the card far more than they help.



I once received a card from a lady with a picture of her head on the back. Nothing else, just her smiling face. I asked her why she did that. She said she wanted people to remember her card. I don’t remember her name, what she did, why we met, or who she worked for, but I do remember her card.
 
I guess it worked, sort of.



In returning to my earlier foreign business card example, businessmen in some parts of the world treat their own and each other’s business cards with respect. They are used as an integral part of conducting business meetings. Here in the US we now seem content to utilize our business cards for not much else other than to drop them in a bowl at the cash register where we eat lunch in the hopes that it may be drawn and we receive a free lunch next week. Maybe the reason for the proliferation of all the new business card colors, sizes and formats is not so much for business purposes, but really for no other reason than to increase the chances of those cards being drawn for the free lunch.

Get Off the Internet


For any of you who have read my past articles you might suspect that I have a slight bias away from the ongoing development of the total dependence on electronic communications as the sole means of communicating and conducting business. I have similar slight biases to bleeding from gunshot wounds and jumping out of airplanes without a parachute. This may seem funny since I am using that very medium to communicate to you. For me the medium is something more of an electronic soapbox from which I get to make my observations and suggestions, most of which are based on my non-electronic experiences. Please bear with me for a moment. I promise I’ll get to the point.


It seems that that many people however have evolved to a full dependence on the internet. This was brought home to me by of all things, the evening news.


The various news programs have been lauding the improvement in the economy and the relative reduction in the unemployment numbers down to approximately 8.4%. They then went on to examine some of the individuals who have been termed “long-term unemployed” or people who have been searching for work for more than 6 months. Without exception they showed images of these individuals dutifully sitting at their computers, pounding away at their emails and talking about how they have sent out “over 200 resumes” without a response.


Wait a minute. Here comes the point I promised I would get to earlier. Let’s do a little Internet Math here.


If job seekers are flooding the internet with 200 resumes each, it is no wonder they are not getting responses. We have seen only half the equation. How many resumes are hiring companies receiving for each job opening? The obvious answer is: Too Many.


If everyone is sending out 200+ resumes that would logically mean that every job opening is receiving at least 200 applicants. This number is probably higher for certain types of positions. How can these hiring companies sort through and interview 200+ people per position? Again the obvious answer is: They Can’t.


Speaking just for myself, when I was trying to fill a position I always tried to interview 4-5 people for each position, after I had the initial cuts based on just the resumes submitted. With 200+ applicants, 4-5 interviews means based purely on probability and statistics (and I will quote Mark Twain regarding statistics later) there is roughly a 2% chance that any one resume will be chosen / be the perceived perfect match for the position. Unless your resume is truly differentiated from all others (Nobel Prize laureate, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, $100 Dollar Bill attached to it – particularly difficult to do electronically, etc…), I would think that these statistics would hold true.


That means that to improve your chances from 2% to 100% that you would get an interview, you would need to apply to and send resumes to 50 times more opportunities. That means that instead of sending out just 200 resumes, you would need to send out 10,000 resumes to statistically assure yourself of getting an interview.


Mark Twain said “There are lies, there are damn lies…and then there are statistics.”


I am pretty sure that applies here. I have tried to illustrate with a little hyperbole that sitting at your computer punching out emails, and in this case applying for positions, is not a very effective form of communication. It is not as good as making a phone call and communicating real time with a real person. It is nowhere near as good as getting up, going somewhere and meeting someone face to face to have a conversation.


Sitting behind the computer may be more efficient, in that the costs expended in communicating are much lower (how much do bit cost?), and the number of people that you can theoretically contact is much higher (how many friends on Facebook, or connections on LinkedIn?), but as the numbers show, it is nowhere near as effective as the old school methods of actually meeting people and talking to people.


In today’s day and age it is indeed the fortunate few who have not had to look for a new position. Some of us have had to do it multiple times. All of my successes in this area have come as a result of making personal contact with someone. I would like to think that I am reasonably well educated and experienced, but I also recognize that there are a lot of other well educated and experienced people out there. While a resume might be able to provide some insights into an individual’s potential job qualifications, the only person that can differentiate me for everyone else, is me.


The only way I or anyone else can provide that differentiation from everyone else is to get off the internet, and get out and make real time contact with people. Otherwise, you are relying on some pretty long odds and statistics.

Time For a Reality Check

I think we have all heard some of the somewhat hackneyed and stale marketing blurbs such as “Give them the steak. Sell them the sizzle.”, and “Perception is reality.”, and the like. This is basically the statement that style has triumphed over substance. Personally, I have not found the consuming of the “sizzle” to be nearly as satisfying as the consuming of the steak. I think that the focus on style and perception is also part of the list of issues we are encountering every day as we try to run a business.

 

It seems that sometimes we are actually more concerned with how we are perceived than with what we actually do and accomplish. In good times, when opportunities are rife, we may be able to succeed with a style focus. In tougher times, when there can not help but be a more attentive focus on the bottom line, it will be the quantifiable value that is provided that will be key.

 

In a difficult market it seems that there is a great deal more attention paid by management to how things are being done than there is to what is actually being done. As difficult as it may be, that behavior needs to stop. It is even more difficult to do when others within the organization are displaying the same bad behavior.

 

When others are concerned with perception and position, publically focus on deliverables and accomplishments. If some are not being as forthcoming with information and support, make sure to copy them and others on all pertinent documents and information.

 

It is not entirely clear if or when the business climate may improve. The needed “Reality Check” in today’s business environment is to focus on the “real” and quantitative aspects of business. We need to concentrate on the doing of what is needed to get the job done and the measuring of progress both within the business and with the customers. I think that once that reality sets in, and takes root, we can continue getting back to the business of providing value and making progress.