Looking For Your Writing Voice

Writing is a crapshoot these days. Never has the opportunity to express oneself publicly been greater. The blogosphere, Twitter, self-publishing – they’re readily available outlets.

Yet, the chances of getting heard are slim, getting read even slimmer. A guesstimated 200 million bloggers are competing for public attention. Lightning-rod marketer Guy Kawasaki may be “following” your comments on Twitter, but that's what 49,728 others are thinking too. A reputation-boosting response from him is unlikely. And self-publishing rarely catches the eye of critics and promoters.

Yet we keep writing. Writing is compulsive for many of us. We’re trying to find a voice -- our voice -- a voice that makes sense of the soul-searching scratchings in our journals, a voice that resonates with our blog audience.

How do you find that voice – that way of expressing what is distinctly, perhaps uniquely you … that has your name on it? I’m going to give you three ways to find your voice and five exercises to train it. But, first …

Let me say something that may sound a bit dumb about knowing when your voice emerges. Ready? You will know your true voice when, after writing, you involuntarily say “Hmmh!” That’s right, “Hmmh.” Not “okay, done” or “good enough,” but “Hmmh.”

That grunt will be a blend of surprise, joy, and release. You will see before you in your work someone you know. That someone looks confident, likable, authentic, clear-headed, open-minded, uncluttered, and, most important, appealing to readers.

The voice:

• emerges from some inside vault not from all the advice you received and writing courses you took – though they were contributors.
• arises unpredictably, at odd times, usually when you least expect it: for example, after hours of writing dribble followed by a half-hour of crafting something magical.
• comes often when you write less, not more.
• arrives when you hear yourself mumbling and humming; and
• comes out when you stop trying to force it out.

Okay, how do you get to “Hmmh,” to that special voice?

3 Paths to Hmmh

1 Clear your mind’s throat
Finding and expressing your voice is not a matter of writing mechanics but of … well, clearing the mental flem that clogs your thinking: unsettling memories, self-doubt, fear of being exposed in writing and watching others laugh at your nakedness.

Certainly writing is therapeutic, but it’s purpose is not therapy, especially if you share it with others, say, on a blog. Frankly, the audience lacks the credentials, time, and interest to heal you.

Before publishing what’s in your head, you first have to stand up to the false voices jostling for attention in your head. Don’t let one of them take over your writing. For instance, don’t allow anger to persuade you that he’s your voice. The best writers may give anger at least a hearing and then write satire; for most, however, anger’s false voice is whining.

Avoid letting narcissism speak up and forcing you to write, “I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had a minute to blog. I apologize for causing you concern.” Narcissism says, understand me, look at me because I don’t know how to talk about you, the reader, never mind listen to you.

And about nakedness. You will never get beyond your fear of being shamed publicly if you dress up your writing in someone else’s clothes. Stop copying the boring constructions, styles and clichés of safe writers. It’s all dull writing. (Sorry, my anger voice just shouted) You don’t have to blend in. Trust yourself, trust your voice. Admit that you are not what people think you are; you’re actually better!

2 Get in shape
Editing – tedious editing – is not optional for at least two reasons. Hard-nosed self-editing removes what we refuse to admit is waste in our writing and, second, it gets our first-draft voice arguing with our true writing voice.

Writing creates a lot of by-products: some are recyclable, others are trash. You need a folder for those writing fragments you might use in a later piece. But you also need a dumpster.

Be careful, however, that you don’t throw away something valuable like the very pregnant friend of mine did when she tossed bags of trash into a dumpster in an isolated area and also tossed in the car keys. She carefully climbed onto a box, maneuvered her way up, over, and down deep into the dumpster and miraculously found the keys. However, she then realized she had nothing solid to stand on to get out. She was rescued by two locals who heard the dumpster’s voice crying faintly for help. Imagine what she could write with that voice.

If we don’t do the hard work of editing – and I’m talking three drafts – a shrill voice emerges and tries to persuade us that the burst of inspiration that splashed eloquent prose across your screen merits publication. Wait! Don’t trust that voice. What you produced may have been the result of an emotional spike, a weariness to just get the project done, or a vision that said, “look at me, I’m a writer.”

If you hear a voice telling you to go back to editing because you’re almost there, but not quite, stay with it, and listen because that’s your writing voice.

3 Give it a rest
I have two thoughts on how long to wait until you find your writing voice and when to let it speak.

First, if you believed me when I said that your voice is not found in an inspired gush of prose and also believed me when I said you have to talk tough to yourself in the editing process, you must now believe me when I say that you have to write at least an hour or more almost every day for the next several months before you will hear the voice.

Perhaps your voice will take a month to surface, but maybe a year. Be patient. Along the way you will produce some good writing. What’s more important is that you will have generated writing that will talk with you if you keep rereading it. You will hear your voice in the distance getting increasingly louder as you remove the padding that's muffling it.

When you hear that involuntary "Hmmh” that comes from your true voice, should you declare your work done or do you back off and let it settle for awhile. I vote for waiting 12 hours. I talked about holding back in an earlier post called “Regret Writing." I’ll repeat what I said there:

My 12-hour rule says, after you write passionately about something, hit the Save and then Shut Down buttons on your computer not the Send button. After a good night’s rest, read what you wrote – grimace and groan -- and you will know how the recipient would have understood it had you sent it. Then, either Edit and Send, or Delete. Even when you have found your writing voice, it can be raspy and still not easy to understand. Give it a rest.

5 Voice-training exercises

1. If emotions are clamoring for attention as you think about writing, type quickly, even mechanically for 15 minutes. Most of them will get bored and leave. The one or two that hang on want you to say something about them in your writing. Offer a sentence or two, then close the door behind them. You will hear them knocking at times. Don’t let them back in.
   


2. Reading lots of good fiction is the best way to understand the concept of voice. I think John Irving’s voice is exceptionally and consistently clear.
   


3. If you are convinced that your voice spoke very late one night in a rush of poetic wordiness, wake up your spouse or roommate and ask him or her to read what you wrote. If it doesn’t make sense to a half-awake person who has little interest then it probably won’t work with a half-asleep person the next day who has little interest.
   


4. Editing is like dieting: the more fat you can cut out and the more strenuous the exercise, the better you will ultimately look.
   


5. Try trimming this blog post by 300 words without losing my voice.
   

Richard Skaare 01.19.09

Beware: What You Create Could Own You

Writing, designing, producing -- anything creative – can easily turn from imaginative to seductive. Our mission was clear and exciting when we started the article or graphic. Yet, at some point, after hours of brain-wrenching thinking and redrafting, we lost our way and what we were creating began to own us.

I know this dilemma well, as illustrated by this story.

The first speech I wrote in the first month of my first corporate job years ago had the industrial-strength title of “The Economics and Politics of Human Rights.” The title was mine. In fact, most of the thinking and all of the crafting – organizing, writing, and tuning – was mine. Or so I thought as I finished the first draft.

My hazing as the new guy was to write a speech for an executive vice president who had been invited to present at a prestigious business school. Other executives were quite comfortable talking at Rotary Club luncheons in plant communities about the company’s exploits. My client wanted to take on ethical issues. Eager to prove myself, I readily took the challenge.

I met briefly with the EVP who sketched his thoughts on the topic. I didn’t ask many questions because I was eager to frame up my own ideas, show him the finished piece, and then convince him to buy in. I wrote a draft quickly, hammered it endlessly, and gave it to the bosses on the three rungs above me. Two days later, they replied.

The cover memo was glowing. I glowed. They even used the “unique” word. Then I turned the page to review specific comments on the text. The margins were cluttered with critiques, some harsh; whole paragraphs were crossed out; summary criticisms were added at the end. Whoa! Panic attack.

By the third review of the massacre, I was getting somewhat objective. Perspective was returning. I realized that the more emotionally-laden comments were less about writing quality and more about the critics’ own enthusiasm for the topic. They were acting out the speech in their minds: envisioning it being delivered by the executive, watching the audience’s reaction, and anticipating questions. From that came their changes.

I could disagree with their specific alterations, but I could not disagree with their passion to make this unusual speech even more penetrating. I realized that the phrasing, the texture, and the substance were still mine, but the final speech was a composite of the three seasoned communicators and the novice.

After judiciously incorporating changes, I sent it to the EVP and subsequently met to discuss it. This time I listened. He liked the speech a lot. Much more important, however, he got talking comfortably and deeply about the impact on developing countries when their resources ran out and the metals company exited.

Hearing his heart-felt reflections, I knew I had to rework the speech at least once more. He had added a dimension I had overlooked as I rushed ahead to create what I knew could be an outstanding portfolio piece for me. He had humanized the topic. And he had reminded me without ever saying it that the speech was his not mine.

Remember the ring in JRR Tolkien’s trilogy? Everyone who possessed it was possessed by it. Similarly with our creative work, we are exhilarated by its power and sometimes overpowered by it. We flinch at suggested changes, restrict access to the work; position ourselves as authorities on it. Our pride blinds us to the ultimate purpose. In short, we mistake the means for the end, which is communication.

How does this happen?

3 Thoughts

1 We view communication as proprietary, not open-source.
The open-source concept, long fostered by software developers, is simple and uncomfortably counter-intuitive: give away your work to increase its worth. You come up with an ingenious original, but rather than protecting it as your property, you share it with others so they can add to and benefit from it. Your reward is that you started the value-adding chain.

That’s our job as creative types. We originate, collaborate, appropriate, and then let go. In other words, I created a speech, my more experienced bosses perfected it with me, the executive adapted it to his style, and the audience walked away with a different perspective that they can share with others. I am proud that I started the process flowing. If I demanded we do it my way, if my superiors demanded the corporate way, if the presenter had demanded that he knew better, communication would have been lost.

The best writers, designers, and other creative types I have known:

• spend time walking around an idea or assignment;
• agonize over approaches;
• suddenly get inspired by an angle;
• mash it up with other angles;
• develop a love-hate relationship;
• toss out the initial version;
• and then yank it out of the recycle bin the next day and make it work.

They like the finished piece -- sometimes too much. They run it by others and try to keep quiet when feedback is unpleasant. But eventually they come to their senses, knowing that the value of what they incubated flowed partially from others and mostly from their own imagination. They also know that, ultimately, the value of their work will be determined by the people who receive and use it. If those people “get it,” it’s really good.

2 We view communication as standalone forms and job descriptions.
We know that the function – the purpose – of our communication work is to transfer what is in our heads – or our management or client’s heads – into the audience’s heads in ways that will shift their attitudes and alter their behavior. Yet we seem to be more addicted to the forms than to the function: the blog we write, the website we design, the event we organize.

Why wouldn’t we? Form gives us an immediate confirmation of accomplishment. It says we are doing our jobs producing publications as the publications manager or websites as the webmaster. Executing is what we get paid to do, isn’t it?

But is the publication or website communication? Actually, no, not in itself. It’s a piece of the puzzle. We probably agree on that point. But who is putting the pieces together? Isn’t that the job of anyone who calls himself or herself a communicator? Are we not integrators rather than separatists?

The point I think is obvious. Nothing we create should be a stand-alone. Our creations are nodes on a communication network. Together, we build that network.

3 We view communication as a support service not a business function.
I wrote about this issue in a previous blog post (Want to Communicate? Don’t Call the Communication Department). Summing up what I said:

Management views communication as strategic and part of their responsibility, primarily for two reasons:

• Their personal communication skills, they believe, helped get them to where they are. They understand communication better than anyone, they think.
• They confuse communication with information, which they consider something they originate, regulate, and approve.

Management views communicators as tactical.
In part, that’s because they have met few professional communicators who are anything but implementers. However, they typically think that more tactics will correct the organization’s weak communication.

Affirmation, appreciation, and respect for communicators can get skimpy in many organizations. We all moan at times about management’s failure to understand our work.

But switch places with an executive. Could she not complain that we lack an understanding of the business? If we want our work to have a greater impact on the big picture, we have to put on tri-focals to see that big picture, the medium-range plans of the organization, and the daily interactivity of various functions.

Finally, as if all of what I have said is not enough to overload your mind, here are ideas to help you reconsider ownership of what you create.

5 Ideas

1. Read Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral & the Bazaar.
2. Convert your next article, say on a profile of an ambitious employee, into three points that a salesperson could readily incorporate into a sales pitch he is making to a top prospect.
3. When sending or presenting a creative work to your employer or client, have everyone in your group sign it.
4. Identify the best communicator in the organization outside the communication department, and have him teach you communication from the outside in.
5. Remove your title and those of your staff from business cards or call yourselves “Communicator.”

Richard Skaare 01.06.09

How to Win the CEO’s Ear and Trust

Should Jane Klaviter switch careers from prompter at the Metropolitan Opera to executive coach, I would strongly recommend her to my clients.

Klaviter sits in a cramped, three-sided box at the edge of the stage and hand-signals or calls out instructions to singers, even divas, who forget lines or miss the pitch. Pointing her finger up says, “sing higher;” down mean “go lower.” Holding her hand up means “stop,” usually because the singer has jumped ahead of the orchestra.

I could have used that last technique when a CEO I worked for was sitting thigh-to-thigh with too many presenters on a low-rise stage at an outdoor dedication ceremony. I saw him about to move his chair backwards for more room, at which point a raised hand might have prevented him from tumbling off the platform, which he did. I quickly passed my resume to the president of the ad agency next to me.

The Met performers trust Klaviter because she has answers, is not intimidated by the powerful, and can prevent public embarrassment. And that’s the same three factors that get CEOs to listen and trust us.

3 ways to get the CEO to listen and trust

Be smart, but not smarter than
You are the best at what you do, right? Did I hear an “amen” or were you choking? If you don’t consider yourself highly proficient – with lots of room for improvement, of course – there’s no need to read further. The CEO may like you personally but not trust you professionally if you are insecure about your know-how.

You will always be trying to prove yourself with him or her. So, figure out what’s causing your uneasiness – it’s probably not a lack of information – by getting help from a mentor, coach, or therapist. I did when I was younger.

Assuming that you’re head-smart confident, equally important is to be street-wise competent. In short, you have to be long on emotional intelligence. And that means, to borrow from Dan Goleman:

• understanding what the CEO is feeling because you know what you are feeling;
• keeping the executive calm in stressful situations because you are in control of the facts;
• broadening the scope of the CEO’s understanding because you are always aware of what is happening throughout the organization.
• sharpening the CEO’s decision-making ability because you know how to communicate with him so he “gets it.”

All of that is to say that you need to function as a leader who support his/her leader.

There is a caveat, however. You can let your insightful advice flow freely in private with an executive but not always in public. Upstaging an executive in public can makes him/her feel less important, less in charge, and less kindly toward you.

For example, I had a difficult one-on-one discussion with a regional president during which I told him diplomatically that his bullish promotional campaign contradicted the corporate communication initiative I had launched to wake everyone up to the dour financial outlook for the company. I would not have done that in a group meeting.

However, once I participated in a meeting with a CEO, my boss, and outsiders during which I made several comments, judiciously timed I thought, that brought clarity to issues. Afterwards, my boss called me into his office and said that, “sometimes, you can be too intelligent.” It sounded like a compliment. It wasn’t.

Avoid upward delegation
A CEO who is outspoken, command-and-control, or exceptionally smart can be intimidating. That can cripple risk-taking and decision making.

Stand tall. Don’t be bullied into sacrificing your expertise and authority by checking out all your ideas and decisions with the CEO. He delegates to you, not you to him/her.

Don't worry about job security. Think more about integrity and your long-term career than job security. Besides, the CEO may shout but is unlikely to fire you for standing up to him. All he can do is say no and hurt your feelings. Big deal. Over time, he will respect your fortitude.

You have a professional (and ethical?) responsibility to present solutions -- not merely suggestions -- to the senior executive. But do so efficiently. One page with the problem/solution defined in the first paragraph beats a tome. A one-on-one discussion with the CEO beats PowerPoints during a staff meeting where some players waste time posturing.

In my experience with him, Al Rockwell, former CEO of Rockwell International, had an amazing ability to bring out efficient solutions among his advisors. In a meeting I attended with other advisors – lawyers, financial experts, etc. – he briefly described the problem he faced. Then, without an agenda, instructions, or pecking order, each advisor succinctly framed the issue and offered solutions from his area of expertise. At the end of the session, Rockwell extracted the best of the comments and declared the single solution he wanted to pursue. Meeting over.

Prevent embarrassment
A senior executive gets embarrassed when he/she does not know something, does not know someone, or does not know the truth. You can help prevent that awkwardness, first, by disciplining yourself to pay attention to details, even minute details (see Details, Details).

To illustrate, a designer who was related to the CEO of the company where I headed communication recommended a gray speckled paper for the annual report. I was sure the CEO would like it a lot. However, I thwarted that possibility – and potential embarrassment -- by pointing out to the designer that those specks might turn up as decimal points in the wrong places in the financial section. Having the New York Stock Exchange stop trading in your stock because of confusion is not an embarrassment a CEO takes well.

Make sure your CEO knows who will be at a particular event and receives a written one-liner about the key attendees that he/she can read en route. The people he greets with that knowledge will be very impressed, and the CEO will be very pleased with you.

The executive needs to know the truth about a situation. If you play the blame game along with others, you do your boss an injustice, not to mention those whose livelihoods will be affected. Untangle the situation, identify contributors, even malefactors, but, again, advise on a solution that prevents over-reaction and executive embarrassment.

5 specific suggestions

1. The CEO is your best challenge, not your best friend -- even if he invites you to a party at his home.
2. When your CEO embellishes or distorts the facts in a presentation and glances at you for a head-nod, avoid eye contact.
3. Spend more time with the people the CEO wants to influence than with the CEO.
4. Overloading the CEO with reading materials shows that you don’t understand his/her time constraints.
5. Don’t take your CEO-linked power seriously. As Bob Dylan sings, be kind to the people you see on the way up because you will see them again on the way down.

Resources:
Information about Jane Klaviter comes from “She Prompts Opera Stars,” Secrets of New York City, by Marjorie Palmer, pp 19-21, ©2002 by Silver Lining Books.

Credit: Photos by Ed Rombout; photo design by Camagine. I highly recommend both professionals.

The 140-Character Resume

You’re standing silently in a field with three friends on a crisp, clear night taking in the panorama of stars. Then someone says, “Isn’t this beautiful?” and babbles on about nights like this back at summer camp. The indescribable just got trivialized. Experience over, you might as well go home.

Sometimes words – even well-intended words -- spoil. Jumbled thoughts too often don’t get disentangled before they reach our mouths and typing fingers. So we over-talk and over-write.

In a recent post on getting back to basics, I suggested the crazy notion of writing your resume in 140 characters (characters, not words). That’s the maximum Tweet allowed on Twitter. What? Forget that for now. What’s important is that forced brevity sharpens the mind and quickens the soul.

Frankly, for just about any topic, 140 characters is long enough to capture what’s important and short enough to prevent loose vowels. Restricting yourself to 140 characters should strip away most pretentiousness, stop that voice from telling you to “explain yourself, young lady.” and convince you that, maybe, just maybe you are as sharp as you want people to think.

I’m about to put you through three brief exercises, if you have the courage. The formula is not magical. When you’re done, you may revert to talking too much at times, writing too long, obsessing too much – all to spike up your self-confidence. Yet, I hope my free advice will give you a memorable taste of raw honesty and self-trust.

3X5 Thinking

3 Exercises

1. Your life in 140 characters
   I can see you’re already thinking about clicking off this page. This one is tough. I’m not talking here about gravestone stuff. Think less of your death and more about your future. What is it about your life that makes you optimistic about next month … about the next ten years?
   
   Okay, okay, I’ll go first and show you the way. Here’s my life in 140 characters:
   
   

   Navigated the rapids so far, laughed way more than cried, trying to love as much as being loved. Head down, chin up, whimsically moving on.

   Of course, you can go shorter -- “Met God, no turning back.” – if one event sums up your life-core. Brevity is only one point; truth about yourself is much more important.
   
   
2. Your resume in 140 characters
   This one’s less overwhelming but more intimidating because it forces you to look at yourself the way you want others to look at you, namely prospective employers.
   
   You could easily write down “Results-driven salesperson with an impressive track record of milestone achievements yadda, yadda.” Show that one to your buddies during half-time and watch them yawn. That’s not you, it’s every salesperson. Try again. Maybe mine will get you thinking:
   
   

   Communication experience: been there, done that. Write like I talk, talk like I write. Smart, getting smarter. Eager to give more than take.

   Sure, it sounds somewhat cocky – I prefer confident – but it’s a start. “Been there, done that” says I qualify for senior positions. “Write like I talk …” suggests I’m a natural communicator. And I make the point that I am smart but open-minded and passionate about being a valuable contributor. Seems to me that’s what employers want, and what I would want from people I might hire.
   
   
3. Your business plan in 140 characters
   Business strategists – they’re called Chief Strategy Officers -- will consider this approach frivolous. How can you capture the complexity and criticality (strategic word) of a business plan in 140 characters?
   
   You can’t. But how many strategic plans are implemented successfully? Why is this? No one reads the document, at least not more than once. It’s complex – too many data points -- and doesn’t seem to be that critical to workers who are sweating this week’s production quotas. What’s missing in the plan is commonsensical, unadulterated, gut-leading, shameless simplicity.
   
   Take my simple business, for example. Here is the 140-character strategic plan for SkaareWorks, a consulting business in communication and change:
   
   

   Get attention, get understood, get clients, get valuable, get results, get appreciated, get paid, and get asked back.
   

   Can this be done for your clients, your department, your organization? Give it a Twhirl (sorry, Twitter talk).

5 140-characters or less guidelines

1. Wait. Don’t write now. You might just copy me. Let ideas percolate overnight, then write tomorrow in your pajamas before coffee.


2. Flow, don’t glow. Write fast, not feel-good. Don’t be overly precise in your choice of words at first, or frilly.


3. Avoid swearing after the second draft. Off-color words are colorless. Get the emotion off your mind but out of sight.
   
4. Write once, edit thrice. Then let it go. Did you hear me? Let it go.
   
5. When done, combine all three exercises into one 140-character tagline for your business or person.

If you want, Tweet me @skaareworks and show me your best entry. I have time to read only 140 characters

Richard Skaare 12.22.08

Social Networking with Yourself

I ran into myself online last week.

I was connected to LinkedIn, the networking site, scanning their list of my uploaded contacts for blue names. Blue means a match between my crowd and LinkedIn’s crowd. Those are the people I want to cultivate.

There I was under “S”: blue Richard Skaare, prospect. But how did I get on my list? Was this really who I thought it was? I decided to check me out to see if I was worth contacting.

Looking at Skaare’s LinkedIn profile, the photo was a grabber. Tightly cropped, the guy obviously wasn’t afraid to get in your face. Nice smile though. You could trust that smile. What, maybe mid- to late ‘50s, maybe older? A bit gray, bald, some wrinkles. He’s been around.

It says that he’s the President of SkaareWorks – a one person shop, I suspect; “CEO” would have sounded cocky. Previous jobs showed a lot of VP titles – and, man, did he have lots of jobs. He did PR, marketing, organizational development, a whole bunch of stuff. A real corporate stiff! Wait … he’s been a consultant for years too. Guy must be more like 78.

Skaare went to Gordon College (never heard of it) and did a couple of Masters, one at Boston University, the other at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Maybe he’s a priest. Nah, I popped over to the Gordon-Conwell site. Protestant, multi-denominational, Evangelical. He was a McCain supporter for sure. But he looks like a Sixties alumnus. Maybe he’s a closet liberal.

I linked to his website and blog. This guy thinks weird, like he cares about stuff, like he knows how to solve problems. I even learned something from one of his blog posts. And he Tweets. Can you believe a guy his age on Twitter!

So, I say to myself, why not send Skaare an invitation to join my LinkedIn network? I did. Here’s the note:

Richard:
This is a bit strange and awkward but I came across me – I mean, you – on LinkedIn. We have the same name and, to be honest, similar backgrounds. I thought we could help each other out by networking. Besides, I work alone out of a home office and I need someone to chat with from time to time. What do you say? Want to link?

Your friend
Your avatar
Richard

Almost a week has passed and still no reply. That’s okay: Angelina Jolie and Steve Jobs haven’t responded yet either. Though I would like to hear from myself and learn more about me. But I’ll be patient.

How about you? Have you taken a look at yourself from the outside in?

Richard Skaare 12.20.08

Hiring Grown-up Interns

Unconventional times call for … well, unconventional hiring. Huh?

And how’s this for unconventional: hire an intern who isn’t a student. Better yet, hire two or three. I’m talking about big people, people with mileage. They’re available, they’re affordable, and they’re capable of rejuvenating your modus operandi and getting you ready for the eventual economic recovery -- if you’re clever enough to snag them now.



3X5 Thinking

3 reasons to hire grown-up interns

1. You need re-engineering not reverse-engineering. Benchmarking is reverse-engineering, as is recruiting competitors’ employees. While both short-cut development time, you end up with cloned ideas and bump-off programs that short-circuit imagination and impact.
   
   Reverse-engineering also suggests you lack confidence in your staff’s creativity. Why not decrease benchmarking and increase the competency of originality. Re-engineer your department with clever, experienced interns who will convince you that, indeed, brilliant ideas can be invented here.
   
   
2. You need to organize a farm team. Given tough times, your staff is probably suffering from generalized anxiety disorder. They are likely cautious and defensive, and are hunkering, waiting, and looking busy. Though the best may reinvent themselves, some may never fully recover.
   
   When times get good – and they will eventually – you will need additions and replacements. If you want to run fast and smart later as a league-leading team, you better have backups now in top condition who know the playbook and have chemistry with the other players.
   
   
3. You need to work the law of averages. No matter how many interviews you put candidates through or how many references you checked, one or two of the people you hired awhile back have not met expectations. Firing is too complicated, especially now. But you can minimize the chances of repeating that mistake by setting up a training system of sorts.
   
   If you have student interns, their contributions are limited, quality levels are acceptable, everyone will eventually want jobs, and all hires will be entry-level.
   
   If you have seasoned interns, you get high-value contributors, quality levels will be generally high, the best may have to be convinced to stay, and if they do, you will have a solid core or productive and profit-generating professionals.

5 interns to choose from

Career-changer This is someone in his 30’s who may have been driven down a career road by a well-intended parent or guidance counselor but who no longer can fake fulfillment. He has the core traits to perform well – self-initiating, creative, collaborative – as well as writing and presentation skills, and a great attitude. Example: A young journalist friend saw the future of reporting, opted to complete a Masters in public relations, and then was hired as an intern for four months by a leading regional advertising/public affairs firm.

Gap-filler You’ve wanted to venture into social media/networking but have been tepid because you lack the know-how and a go-to resource. Now you have an opportunity. Offer an internship to someone who was the web developer for two years for a, now, financially stricken organization and who spends most of his late hours interacting on Twitter, sharing on Digg, and blogging. This person will put you years ahead in just one, eight-week internship.

Between-jobber A well-heeled professional in your business network has a three-month severance from her former employer and has interviews set up with prospects. She has the luxury of time, wants to learn something new to prepare her for her next job, and as she says, “help you out.” Hire her for two months, half-time at intern wages, and extract every lesson she has learned. Who knows, she might love the experience so much she stays on.

Veteran He enjoyed high school – the non-academic parts, that is – pulled bad grades but scored high on his SATs. He’s back from Iraq, earned an Associates’ degree, and demonstrates a knack for, say, selling. What he lacks are resume points and credibility. Your unit needs his perspective, skill, and military efficiency.

Teacher Your daughter’s English teacher wants to understand business writing but prefers hands-on experience rather than a course. Hire her for next summer. Teach her by having her write letters, RFPs, brochure copy, and other materials, but use her to teach your staff the basics of grammar and spelling.

Resources
Using internships for recruiting IT staff
Rating internships
An intern who took charge

Learning to Hustle ... and Swing: Back to Basics

It’s not likely that I will Twist again like I did last summer. I was showing off my archived dancing skills at a wedding reception in July. Some folks were impressed; others thought … hmm, alcohol. I thought pain because afterwards I could hardly limp to my car. My right knee wasn’t working real well.

Now, five months later, I’m back to the basics. I’m standing with my wife on the dance floor at Arthur Murray’s for our first lesson, still feeling twinges of dull pain in that leg (the orthopedic doctor told me to buck up). The ballroom has more mirrors than a Poconos hotel room, the other couples don’t look like they’re fellow AARP members, and I’m wondering if the lovely young instructor would be a dating possibility for my oldest son.

Tonight’s lesson is Rumba and Swing, next week Hustle and Foxtrot.

It’s not easy returning to basics. Pride makes up lots of excuses: no need, no time, no gain for the pain. But whenever I was dogged about doing some particular thing right or better, I went back to basics, such as:

• when I took swimming lessons at age 40 after swimming since I was five.
• when I joined a Beginners Golf class after playing the game off-and-on for twenty years.
• when, now at age … well, a good age, this American Bandstander is back taking dance lessons.

But for me, returning to basics was the toughest when I had to do it in my profession. I led corporate communication departments because I was presumed to be the best and I later advised clients who trusted that I knew virtually everything about communication. Despite the image, I never lost sight of hindsight. So, I went back to basics at times to shore up my skills and confidence, and learned or relearned:

• how to write more with nouns and verbs, less with adverbs and adjectives;
• how to listen intently even though I had counseled many people;
• how to give up on slick marketing ideas when the market had no interest;
• how to nurture a creative idea rather than grabbing an answer off the shelf; and
• how to start always with the audience’s needs rather than unloading information on them.

3x5 Thinking
If you wonder whether or not it’s time for you to return to some basics, here are:

3 tell-tale signs:

1. You’re coasting, and you sense it. The CEO or client trusts you; management likes you; your staff is still smiling. You’re managing the workload. You’ve got the organizational script down. Your career is on course – or was that the career you have had but may not have if the economy continues to plummet?
2. You’re jabbering, and you hate it. How many times can you tell habitually sceptical people that “your organization is well positioned for the future because you have the bandwidth to push the envelope with mission-critical, next-generation deliverables?” If you talk and write like that, I say “eat your own dog food on a daily basis going forward,” or drop back and learn to write like people talk – like you once did.
3. You’re suffering, and you’re not admitting it. You look and sound successful, your paycheck confirms it. But, face it, your work bores you and the environment is suffocating. You’re up a pants size, you can’t remember what you’ve accomplished on any given day, and even if you have a friend who would understand, you wouldn’t know how to explain what’s happening to you. Don’t wait to go flat-line before you stop and start again.

If you missed them as you raced ahead in your career or need to relearn them, here are:

5 shoulda-coulda-outta basics

1. Relearn how to think. Switch from uber-linear to free association. Learn simple mind-mapping. Understand patterns of thinking, not just logic. Also, read novels for two months rather than business books. Rediscover the powerful advantage of stories over white papers.
   
   

   Dance lesson: Foxtrot in a straight line and you will eventually crash.

2. Relearn how to write. Learn brevity by writing your resume in 140 characters (not words, characters). Here’s mine:
   
   Communication experience: been there, done that. Write like I talk, talk like I write. Smart, getting smarter. Eager to give more than take.
   
   Once you do that, you will know at your core who you are and why you’re good. Then, write up your full resume with those truths as your themes. Also, post your resume bite on Twitter, which mandates 140 characters or less, and watch the effect of personal viral marketing.
   
   One more writing suggestion: always carry 3x5 cards. Write one impression, one story idea, or one nugget of wisdom per card. You’ll be amazed at how having cards in your pocket improves your vision and hearing.
   
   

   Dance lesson: If you want to Swing, rock in place, side to side, then left foot behind right foot, and rock, rock. Short and simple, huh? And cool, very cool.

3. Relearn how to listen. Spend time listening closely to the folks who leave work promptly at 5:00 p.m. – the ones you sometimes consider laggards. Hear how they help out each other without being asked, how they gossip because they don’t qualify for information benefits, how they get excited about going home to coach soccer, read romance novels, watch “Heroes” – simple stuff, fun stuff, life stuff. Hear the beat of their work-play lives.
   
   

   Dance lesson: If you can’t hear the beat of the music, the rest of your body gets confused.

4. Relearn how to present. For your next report presentation to management, don’t use PowerPoints, organize everything around the only two messages the group is likely to remember, use at least one personal story, warm up before you speak not as you speak, say what you know and simply, and be more interesting than your audience’s Blackberries.
   
   

   Dance lesson: With slow, formal dances, you look good from the armpits up even if your feet are catching up.

5. Relearn how to relate. Explain what you did at work yesterday to a four-year old, then your neighbor, then your clergy leader, and finally to your partner. Do that weekly until every one of them maintains eye contact. Now you’re relating.
   
   

   Dance lesson: If you’re the leader and think your partner can easily follow, remember she or he is trying to follow you backwards.

__________

Resources
When Adjectives are Necessary
How to Listen
How to be Creative (from the Dilbert blog)
How to Mindmap (Tony Buzan)
Writing with Confidence
Panorama of presentation styles here

Slogging through the Early Blogging Weeks

Whenever I paced nervously around our kitchen as a youngster, my watching mother would say, “You don’t know what to do with yourself.” I didn’t understand what she meant back then. I do now because I’ve been pacing nervously around the social network for a month or two not quite knowing what to do with myself. Fortunately, John Updike stepped in to help.

After bouts of intense work over the past year building a learning portal – a.k.a. a social network -- for a Saudi company, I finally had some downtime. I decided to become my own learning portal, loading up and distilling gobs of information about social-everything, and then blogging energetically and insightfully. Subsequently, I read incessantly, bookmarked randomly, blindly built a blog, peddled my best comments on discussion groups, and went to be bed most nights stressed and exhausted.

Whatever enthusiasm I had for potential blog topics was repeatedly dulled by discovering that other bloggers had beaten me to them. I realized that originality might be a myth. Successful blogs use mostly blue-colored fonts; their posts are primarily clicks to other blogs.

Blogging, I sensed, was like re-gifting: whatever one receives, just repackage and give it to others. Write for attention, write with searchable key words, blog for bloggers. So, this social media business was more akin to telemarketing than conversation?

Competing in this craze made me a bit panicky. I simply couldn’t keep up with what I saw others doing.

• Speed-feeding stories on Twitter, like an ATM dispensing cash, from content aggregators such as AllTop.
• Scattering comments across the blogosphere to generate links that would drive up traffic and SEO scores (search engine optimization). One blogger pays $25 for typing 250 quick comments on various blogs -- “Nice post. I was reading a similar article here” -- to lure visitors to his site and spike his stats.
• Bouncing from site to site, rapidly adjusting to diverse formats: video on You-Tube, banter on Facebook, archiving on Delicious.

I started to show early signs of information anxiety and social fatigue. Maybe I just wasn’t hungry enough to jump into the feeding frenzy. I felt like I was, again, anxiously waiting to board a plane at the Shanghai Airport, flesh-pressed at the gate with more passengers than unreserved seats, running to the plane when the doors opened, and finding no place to sit.

Solace finally came oddly in a short interview with novelist John Updike on a wonderfully ordinary blog called Daily Routines. Updike shared his work habits:

Since I've gone to some trouble not to teach, and not to have any other employment, I have no reason not to go to my desk after breakfast and work there until lunch. So I work three or four hours in the morning, and it's not all covering blank paper with beautiful phrases.

You begin by answering a letter or two. There's a lot of junk in your life. There's a letter. And most people have junk in their lives but I try to give about three hours to the project at hand and to move it along. There's a danger if you don't move it along steadily that you're going to forget what it's about, so you must keep in touch with it I figure. So once embarked, yes, I do try to stick to a schedule.

I've been maintaining this schedule off and on -- well, really since I moved up to Ipswich in '57. It's a long time to be doing one thing. I don't know how to retire. I don't know how to get off the horse, though. I still like to do it. I still love books coming out. I love the smell of glue and the shiny look of the jacket and the type, and to see your own scribbles turned into more or less impeccable type.

It's still a great thrill for me, so I will probably persevere a little longer, but I do think maybe the time has come for me to be a little less compulsive, and maybe the book-a-year technique which has been basically the way I've operated.

Here is what I learned (or relearned) from Mr. Updike about what to do with myself in this networked world of frenetic hustle and hyper-promotion.

3x5 Thinking

3 reminders to myself (you can listen if you want)

1. I have no option but to blog. I am genetically and compulsively a writer, a persuader, and connector. “I have no reason not to go to my desk.”
2. I do not have to cover “blank paper with beautiful phrases” but I must deliver a product that I love only a little less than my readers.
3. I need to ease up but not give up. Like Updike, I will “persevere a little longer, but … be a little less compulsive.”

5 commitments to myself (and for you, if you want)

1. Stick to a schedule; produce something every day, publishable or for my soul only.
2. Write first for readers, second for search engines. Don’t sacrifice good word-smithing for key-wording.
3. Avoid being a substance abuser: write factually, credibly, and confidently from my head and heart.
4. Borrow comments from others, but steal the best ideas from my own mind.
5. Do what I do best over and over -- and then do it day in and day out.

That Frightening Speech

A speech is a fear-monger. It delights in making both presenters and communicators quake. It causes them to hide behind safe boilerplate text and embellished PowerPoints.

As a speechwriter, I know this monster. So let me yank him out from underneath the bed and show him for what he truly is: a motivator.

Why do we fear speeches (and I don’t think fear is too strong a word)?

Executives fear possible embarrassment from

• faux pas,
• attending reporters, and
• audience misinterpretation.

Writers fear

• that what they prepare will not be what the executive wants to say,
• that what the executive wants to say may not be what the audience wants to hear, and
• that the executive may mangle their finely crafted prose.

Here is what The Speech monster really looks like.

The Speech wants to communicate primarily to the ear, unlike a printed piece created mostly for the eye. Words that look good on paper may not sit well in the ear. Print writing requires clarity, of course, but should the reader get distracted or not understand, she can always glance back at the previous text to recapture some overlooked words or a missed point.

The listening audience doesn’t have that luxury. You wouldn’t want to raise your hand and ask the Fortune 500 CEO at the Economic Club luncheon to repeat what he just said because you weren’t listening or that he wasn’t clear.

Speakers and speechwriters: If you lack a knack for catching an audience’s ear, speakers can hire a speaking coach; writers may want to stick to print.

To help the reader map messages, print writers rely on visual structure -- paragraphs, bullet points, etc. -- and linear logic: an introductory concept followed by supporting points that build an argument, hopefully, to an indisputable conclusion.

By contrast, The Speech draws mind-maps that leads listeners out from a central message to a sub-point, then back to the center, out to another sub-point, and back again. (Anett Grant is the guru of this technique.)

Speaker and speechwriters: Think patterns, not strings.

There is a cadence to this pattern movement. When reinforced by alliteration, repetitious words and phrases (the bane of print writers), and stories, a rhythm results. That rhythm invigorates the speaker and the audience. The speaker starts moving his hands; the audience stops reading emails on their phones.

The fact that speechwriting can be more poetry than prose makes the writer’s job much more difficult and scary. (Poetry is for personal journals, right?) Moreover, it is poetry created for retention. Winning an audience’s attention quickly, then holding them for a long stretch is not easy; getting that audience to remember and later share what was said with colleagues is formidable.

Speakers and speechwriters: Think rhythm first, then words.

What you should remember as a speaker is that the audience:

• will remember you, not your PowerPoints.
• will remember, maybe, two points.
• will remember the stories you told.

Speaking of retention, do you remember my saying earlier that the fearful speech monster is really a motivator? As an executive, when was the last time a situation was foreboding? Yesterday? And as a communicator, when was the last time you said “impossible” to an intimidating assignment and then did it. A speech pales by comparison. Fear – the fear of speeches -- sparks imagination.

Besides, if you fear that this tumultuous economy may jeopardize your job, an impressive speech will sure look good on your resume. Now, that’s motivation.

Regret Writing

I wrote an angry email to my oldest son late last night that broke my 12-hour rule. I was mostly right (I think) in what I said, but totally wrong in how I said it.

My 12-hour rule says, after you write passionately about something, hit the Save and then Shut Down buttons on your computer not the Send button. After a good night’s rest, read what you wrote – grimace and groan -- and you will know how the recipient would have understood it had you sent it. Then, either Edit and Send, or Delete.

For the untested wordsmith, writing that stirs your own passion feels so powerful, poetic, and personal. At 1:00 a.m., it’s amazing how good your writing skills seem to be and how good your soul feels! That’s great. Now, put what you wrote into your personal journal, and when you read it several years from now you will appreciate the raw honesty of your words and perhaps understand the tumult in your life at that time that caused it.

What you don’t want to do is to write like that for a group you are trying to persuade on some issue or to a person, say your boss, whose misinterpretation – or correct interpretation – could produce deleterious results.

Why are such wonderful sounding words so wrong? Because your late-night tome probably has:

• Too many words. You overwrite because the governor switch for carefully crafted, creative writing doesn’t work after 10:00 p.m.
• Too many adjectives and adverbs. It would would have been better if, instead of typing, you had read some Toni Morrison or Elmore Leonard to purge yourself of embellished writing.
• Too much of you. You’re alone, tired, perhaps a bit sad and/or angry; it’s dark, the cheeriness of morning is many hours away; and the only person there is you; so, it’s all about you.
• Too few facts. Your claims are unsupported by anything but "piss and vinegar."
• Too thin on precision. You’re too worked up to pull down your thesaurus for the exact words.

Sorry for being harsh, but hardly anyone besides yourself cares much about your unbridled, enthusiastic writing. Selfish as it sounds, they want to know what you have to say that benefits them.

Possible solutions:

• Wake up your spouse or roommate and ask him or her to read what you wrote. If it doesn’t make sense to a half-awake person who has little interest then it probably won’t work with a half-asleep person the next day who has little interest.
• Consider Mail Goggles, which Ars Technica's Jacqui Cheng calls a "breathalyzer test for your Gmail." Goggles, which is active only late night and weekends (when you need it), runs you through a mental sobriety test to make sure you’re thinking clearly before you send off that feisty email.
• Wait 12 hours.

So, son, sorry for my edginess. I’ll edit what I wrote and tell you in more literate and convincing language why I’m still right and you’re wrong. LOL: lots of laughs, lots of love.

The Powerful Simplicity of a Single Word

Obfuscation. Don’t you love that word? Even if you can’t define it, you have a sense of its meaning simply by sounding it out. It sounds like obstruction, with some fussing in the middle. Obfuscation means “something obscure.”

The word Google also talks to your ears and eyes. It sounds like something gooey and uncertain, and like eyes wandering independently of each other, as in googly-eyed over a girl or guy. And the double “o”s could be zeros. Reportedly, Google got its name from the mathematical term for the number one followed by 100 zeros. And, of course, ones and zeros are the basic language of computers. For gazillions of us, Google means answers.

A word can be fun, but too many words can be unfortunate. Sometimes we as wordsmiths (another fun word) and change-agents over-write, over-talk (I plead guilty), and over-PowerPoint, thinking that people won’t “get it’ unless we explain “it” in detail. More words, we wrongly assume, gives our point -- and ourselves -- more importance. We can’t even say “daily” or “regularly” anymore. Instead, we puff up and say “on a daily basis,” or “on a regular basis.”

Think about the amazing power of one word used by a man with a Harvard lexicon to build an amazingly successful Presidential campaign. Change. That word inspired, mobilized, focused, and integrated an extensive social network that now, post-election, wants to own and participate in that change.

A single word can energize a company or client’s strategic, marketing, and employee messages. I did this:

• for a tradeshow/museum exhibits client. I used strong employee images in an advertising program that revolved around the word “attitude,” as in the”whatever-it-takes ATTITUDE.” To refresh the campaign a year later, we switched to the word “more” and linked it to the “attitude” campaign. See MORE case study here.


• for elearning client KnowledgePlanet. To tag the client’s business, leverage its name, and highlight the competitive edge of smart employees, I created a flagship marketing booklet and other materials around the word “know.” See a case study here.


• and for a client company facing tough economic challenges. I recommended introducing “MORE/less” as a rallying point for managers and other employees to creatively do more (for example, sell) with less (for example, cost).

Of course, we have to be on the watch for problematic words. A lawyer once asked me to review a news release regarding the integration of an acquired business into one of the parent company’s divisions. The short, officious release provided few facts and said the business was being “dissolved.” The lawyer’s word was accurate: the legal structure was being dissolved. However, employees and others were likely to interpret “dissolve” quite differently – as in shutting down the business and eliminating their jobs. See the case study here.

So, here are some suggestions about words:

1. Use one word where many words will only obfuscate.
2. Avoid the word boilerplate whenever you can.
3. Insert one word at the beginning of your communication to create a common ground with readers.
4. Press your management or client to come up with one word that describes or focuses a particular issue.
5. Work hard at applying the word imagination.