No One Is Paid To Make Bad Choices – Make Strategic Corporate Decisions With Better Results

Ready To Move To The Executive Suite?

No one sets out to make a bad decision. It's not an ambition. Actually, every bad decision began as someone's attempt at a good decision. But many companies and organizations hate decisions because they require responsibility and commitment. And, let’s face it; some executives avoid commitment like 23-year-olds at a single’s bar at 2:00am.

Why do bad decisions happen?

If making bad decisions were difficult so many people wouldn’t be making them. They happen because it’s too easy to let outside factors “cloud” the process. Have you ever met these decision-makers? Or are you one?

DM Type A - If It Worked Before Let's Do It Again

History is not always the best teacher. You can rely on past experience just as long as the situations are identical. If the situations aren't identical then experience can end up becoming overconfidence. You may rely on something in your past that's just not going to be that helpful. All in all it's overrated.

DM Type B - Right Or Wrong I'm Sticking With My Decision

Have you ever heard someone say that? In the vast majority of cases a decision is not a one-way street. If you realize you came to the wrong conclusion - act to fix it. But, and this is a big one, you have to be willing to admit a bad decision and take responsibility for correcting it. There's a persistent misconception that not only does time heal all wounds it also heals bad leadership. A decision that stinks won't smell any better with age and you can be guaranteed that what you consider an honest mistake will look more and more like self-interest with every passing day.

DM Type C – What About "Those" People? Bias

Let's agree on a point here, no one is objective. There is always a bias toward organizations, people, friends, prejudices, and competitors - the list continues. Of these the most seductive are friends and people. Loyalty is a virtue but not in decision-making. Begin by acknowledging these potential "hooks" and use them to help you evaluate some of the options. This isn't to eliminate anyone - you just "zero out" the odds of allowing them to influence your decisions.

DM Type D – What If? Fear Factor

We are hard-wired for fear. Make the real or perceived threat big enough and the fear of “what it?” leaves you paralyzed. You've felt it, the stress level ratchets up, emotions go from a simmer to a boil and you consume all your energy managing anxiety instead of focusing on reasoning and logic. Evaluate based on facts, not rumors, exaggerations or fiction. You defuse “what if?” with reality.

Make decisions like a pro

You are a professional; a leader, someone your organization and team look to for levelheaded, logical, reasonable decisions. So, take a logical, reasonable approach.

#1 Gather the information and data you need. What you don’t know can and will hurt you. Don’t force a decision without data.

#2 Develop a crystal-clear understanding of the situation. Pull out guesswork, assumption and wishful thinking. Also, don't edit the information to "soften" a bad situation or to mask or dilute earlier bad decisions. The goal isn't to assign blame it's to move forward.

#3 What do you want to achieve and what needs to happen to achieve it? Most bad decisions begin right here. What do you want and what do you not want? Contrary to modern management philosophy you can't make an intelligent decision without considering the negatives. But the negatives don't define the decision they just set some boundaries. Focusing on the desired results establishes objectives and a direction.

#4 Prioritize the available options and then act in a timely manner. If bad decisions are born at Step #3 good decisions die at Step #4. At the beginning of the decision-making process there are a number of viable options and usually 1-2 weak ones. The process drags on and on and, one-by-one, the viable options are eliminated because of time, money, etc. Finally it's the deadline and the decision has made itself because only one option remains. Call it the "Last Man Standing" school of decision-making. Some executives like this because there's no personal liability. You can't be accused of making bad choices when there aren't any. Important Point – the last available option is never the best decision.

#5 Make the decision. Nothing happens until the decision is made and acted upon. The process doesn't generate the results - the decisions do. Make the decision.

What do you do if faced with a decision you just can’t make?

Follow Buridan's Ass- This strategy is named after French Philosopher Jean Buridan. The story goes that an ass stood between two attractive bales of hay. The ass couldn't decide which bale to eat because they both looked delicious, and so it starved to death from indecision. The moral is not to let indecision make an ass out of you. Forget the perceived benefits of two “equal” options and make a list of all the drawbacks and negatives instead. Evaluate the negatives and suddenly the options won’t be equal any more.

Flip a Coin- I’m 100% serious. We complicate decision-making when the best, most logical decision is one we don't want to make. So, grab a quarter and decide that Heads = Option #1 and Tails = Option #2. Then toss the coin. How do you feel about the results? If your first reaction is relief that’s the decision you secretly wanted. If you don’t like the decision and really want to flip again, it’s not the decision you really wanted. Now you may be thinking, “That’s too simplistic, it would never work,” I challenge you to try it. I’ve used it and seen it work time and time again.

Decision-Makers make things happen

No one is paid to make bad choices. Decisions are seldom easy, popular or always rewarding but someone has to make them so it might as well be you. Hey, the people at the top got there based on their ability to make decisions – not by avoiding them. So, be a decision-maker and make things happen!

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Please Subscribe! There's a new article every week and we are determined to give you valuable information you can use to be successful and make more money. So, go to the Be The First To Know box and just fill it in.

Andy Johnston is an multi-faceted communication professional with deep experience from strategic planning, to messaging, to marketing, to media, to events, to training, to creative direction … and there are several other ”to’s.” Andy is known for his energy, creativity and his unique ability to discover the key results that must be generated – and then to develop ingenious ways to engage and motivate audiences. Positive business results are the objective. He believes that one of the most important results is an enjoyable experience for everyone involved. Andy is a principal partner at Think! Consulting Group and The Idea Group.

You Can Increase Marketing Revenue Response - Break The Customer Code

Your Mission Begins

You look at your response rates and it’s not happening. There is a secret code that carries a message that's so important that your business survival hangs in the balance. As your strategic marketing consultant I'm sending you on a mission. Your mission is to break the secret code and use it. Stand by with your Lector or your decoder ring - you have 10 seconds. The code is: YCDBSYA

Tick - tick - tick! Did you figure it out? It means “You can’t do business sitting on your ass.” Don't mean to stun the delicate, but that's what it means.

There was a little sign stuck on the wall next to my father’s desk that he looked at it every morning for 45 years - YCDBSYA. It reminded him that his business revenue, profitability and growth didn’t come from his office. They came from the customer’s office. The customer is looking for someone to show up and do all the right things to make it happen.

You Can’t Do Business Sitting on Your Ass

Chances are your organization uses one of three marketing strategies:

• Interact
• React
• Don’t Act

If you Interact, you work proactively with customers and consumers to create a buying-and-selling environment. This is a partnering situation that stimulates change and growth.

If you React, your marketing decisions are ruled by an outside force - markets, changing needs or desires, and finances. You start out behind and stay behind because you are stuck on the “effect” side of cause and effect. Most businesses operate this way and are feeling the consequences now. When they choose to drive customer-focused involvement (interact) instead of simply selling whatever product or service comes next (react), that's when they will exert some power in the marketplace.

When you Don't Act it is the marketing equivalent of medicine’s “watchful waiting.” Many companies never innovate or introduce a new product or service. The idea is to reduce risks and let another company take the chances and spend the development dollars. If there is sufficient demand, the copycat company imitates, gets in quickly and skims off a little piece of the action. The problem with Don’t Act is that it doesn’t really reduce the risk at all. Remember the customer or consumer doesn’t know you are watching and waiting. Your lack of action can be easily misunderstood. Don’t Act can be quickly interpreted as Don’t Know. And even worse, Don’t Care.

Get Out and Interact

Obviously, your company has a far greater chance of survival and prosperity by getting involved, communicating and interacting with the people who control the money you need. But exactly how to do this is not so obvious. Today, there is an insidious tendency to assume that having a web site, sending an email, introducing a marketing campaign, or holding an event or meeting will result directly in sales and revenue. Let me be very clear on this next point. They won’t and never will.

Each of them is only the set-up or preparation to generate sales or revenue. At best, they gain a moment of attention or focus on you and your company’s product or service - and have no doubt, it is only a moment. What you do during that moment (and more importantly, what they do) makes all the difference. It is essential to be creative and strategically “get out of your office” and into theirs.

But Internet Marketing Does This For Me

Dedicated Internet marketers claim that they don't have to make calls or actively sell because they reach a gazillion people every month. Well there is a difference between raw web traffic and interacting with potential customer. Example Alert! There's a business near a major interstate in Atlanta that has a giant inflatable gorilla on the roof. Each week well over 100,000 people see the gorilla. Think of the gorilla as SEO. It attracts attention and makes sure that as many people as possible notice the business. Still, seeing it and noticing it are passive. This guy has to actively pursue and attract customers to persuade them to stop, look, consider and buy.

Conversion is nothing more than aggressively engaging potential customers and earning their business. Just like that gorilla on the roof you still need to understand what they need, interact and persuade them to stop, look, consider and buy.

Go Get the Business You Need

Let your customers create the market - First, invest the time to learn where they are going, the results when they get there and what they need to make it happen. Then, get involved and provide incremental value along the way. Bring together all of your creative resources and have your solution ready when they need it. Find ways to be innovative and interactive in how you deliver.

Reduce the choices - There is a big difference between a focused set of options and the inability to clarify your offering. When there are too many choices there is no clear point of difference. Your customers are looking for ways to simplify the process of deciding what to buy. If you have more than three choices, reevaluate your offering and make it easy for your customers to buy what you’re trying to sell.

Go to the customer - Unless you are Amazon.com don't expect the Internet to do all the work. In sales, an email is better than nothing. A telephone call is better than an email. Face-to-face has the highest success rate and ROI. In marketing, target the message. Make your website interactive and go to the heart of the customer’s need. Make it all about what the customer has to gain. Make a strong, unique promise. Ask them to do something. Follow up, follow up, and follow up. Successful interactive marketing depends on the constant give-and-take of information. It’s cohesive. Exciting. Well-planned. Every interaction builds and strengthens the relationship.

He Who Hesitates Is Last

Let me hang up my marketing consultant hat and make a suggestion. Your consumers and customers won’t wait. Their needs, goals and objectives can’t be put on hold while you hesitate, ponder or schedule the next 10 meetings to consider the same old options. Cut to the chase. Ask, explore, gather the best thinkers and capitalize on their best thinking. Then develop the product and service in cooperation with the people who hold the money. Your sales efforts will be more effective, your marketing will be more productive, and your speed to market will be accelerated.

Of course, none of this can happen until you break the secret code and follow the message. That little sign next to my father’s desk was right.

YCDBSYA

Quick Note: My Dad is 88 and we visited him yesterday (11/22). I told him I used his secret code in an article. He went to his desk, shuffled through the drawers for a moment and brought out the YCDBSYA sign - he still has it. He reminded me once more that the idea behind the code kept his business successful from right after WWII until he retired, at 79. The code works!

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Please Subscribe! There's a new article every week and we are determined to give you valuable information you can use to be successful and make more money. So, go to the Be The First To Know box and just fill it in.

Andy Johnston is an multi-faceted communication professional with deep experience from strategic planning, to messaging, to marketing, to media, to events, to training, to creative direction … and there are several other ”to’s.” Andy is known for his energy, creativity and his unique ability to discover the key results that must be generated – and then to develop ingenious ways to engage and motivate audiences. Positive business results are the objective. He believes that one of the most important results is an enjoyable experience for everyone involved. Andy is a principal partner at Think! Consulting Group and The Idea Group.

The Ultimate Leadership, Sales, Marketing, Management, Revenue, and Sustainability Question - Can You Compete?

Is your business all it's quacked up to be?

Okay class, this is Marketing Husbandry 101. Please hold all questions, like "what the heck is that?" until the end of the session. Let's begin with a simple truth: You can’t succeed through the old “duck” theory of business. Remember ... “If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck ... and quacks like a duck ... it’s a duck?” Well, unless you happen to be a duck this is a terrible business strategy. What's wrong with looking like that other duck over there? Because that's not a cute, cuddly quacker it's a giant, ravenous vulture circling closer and closer. It's, it's the Competition o-o-o-o-o-o. Scary!!!

Size up the competition

Let's do a quick exercise, think of all the possible competitors you might encounter. Now, who are the biggest, baddest competitors? I bet they have tons of people and resources, loads of marketing money and are simply smarter and more professional that you are. And you have no strategy, leadership and your products and services are worthless. Well, my friend you are doomed, DOA. It's time to put all the equipment and office furniture on eBay, sell the house and start shopping for that used 12-wide mobile home on the outskirts of Gotham City. Deep breath, what percentage of that list is just not as experienced, prepared and professional as you are? Pull them out of the mix. Look at who is left - roughly 10-15% of the pack. How do you compete with them? Don't be a duck.

The "Don't Compete" Competition Plan

If the rest of your industry is a flock of ducks ... don't ever be one. You compete by tossing out the traditional strategies and using some untraditional ones.

Strategy #1 - Find out what the competition does best and don't do it. Go back to that list of viable competitors. Every one of them has strengths. So don't go head-to-head in those areas. Look at most major players in any industry. Their basic strategy is to do the same things their rivals do, just try to do them better. Your strategy is don't! Do those things in different ways or do some thing completely different.

Everybody has a bed

When you strip it down to the basics every hotel room has a bed, TV, desk, chair and pictures on the wall. Where's the competition - the bedspreads? In 1998 Holiday Inn Express was sitting in a market filled with look-alike hotels. They used Strategy #1 when they introduced the "Stay Smart" campaign. You've seen it; people are involved in outrageous situations. Thing go haywire and the person looks up and proudly states, "But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.” No matter what happens the guests feel smarter for choosing Holiday Inn Express. There's no emphasis on location, restaurants, rates or any of the other areas where hotels slug it out. They didn't even try to compete, Holiday Inn Express emphasized the experience and set a new standard for comparison. What could the other chains do, claim they could make you feel "even smarter?"

Strategy #2 - Change the rules. We all learned this big marketing rule. Differentiation, researched positioning and showcasing superior benefits will create an unbeatable competitive advantage. I love all those things but they don't make you bullet proof. Let's go back to those ducks. Have you ever seen a bunch of duckling walking? They line up single file and follow the one in front. Did you ever notice businesses walk like ducks? They're afraid of risk so they wait until someone leads and then they follow. New products, opening markets, using new techniques, it's usually the same. The moral is if you can’t win the game change the rules. If there's some area where you can't compete and win, make it unimportant. Don't follow, be prepared; determine the best time and then lead. Be the first duck and not the last. I won't mix metaphors with sled dogs but you get the idea.

Strategy #3 - Stand up and stand out. If every competitor looks alike, uses the same images and same marketing language, where's the competition? Think about the major players in fast food. One hamburger looks pretty much like the next, same with fries. You can load up on marketing, promotions and sell price, but does that really make you different? You compete by taking a giant step to the far side.

Chick-fil-A is famous for chicken in a market filled with beef. They combined all three strategies in 1995 with "Eat Mor Chikin." Here's the idea - the cows of the world have united to encourage the American public to eat less beef and eat more "chikin." Apparently cows are big on teamwork and a little loose on spelling. 14 years later the campaign is still working. Chick-fil-A turned what looked like a perception problem into a benefit.

How to compete

Be "unconventionally conventional" - Don't feel you have to do business in a traditional manner.

Be consistently different - Be unpredictable, do the unexpected. Become known for surprise in providing dazzling benefits that delight customers.

Pick your battles - Don't go head-to-head, create or play in a different market.

Find an equalizer - Eliminate an obstacle or flip it and make it a benefit. Create a strategic alliance or partnership.

Find your unique benefits and use them - If you can't honestly develop a compelling list of valuable, unique benefits for that customer - get another customer. There is just some business where you can't compete in ways that are practical and profitable.

When the ducks come home to roost

What does this have to do with walking like a duck? Hey, it got you to read this far, didn't it? The answer to the ultimate question of "How to Compete?" is to "duck" the competition, change the rules and really stand out. It's a tough barnyard and you have to be able to compete and win if you want to be that goose that laid the golden eggs and not an ugly duckling.

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Please Subscribe! There's a new article every week and we are determined to give you valuable information you can use to be successful and make more money. So, go to the Be The First To Know box and just fill it in.

Andy Johnston is an multi-faceted communication professional with deep experience from strategic planning, to messaging, to marketing, to media, to events, to training, to creative direction … and there are several other ”to’s.” Andy is known for his energy, creativity and his unique ability to discover the key results that must be generated – and then to develop ingenious ways to engage and motivate audiences. Positive business results are the objective. He believes that one of the most important results is an enjoyable experience for everyone involved. Andy is a principal partner at Think! Consulting Group and The Idea Group.

Develop Real Organizational Leadership - Steal From Steve Jobs

Recently Fortune magazine named Apple CEO Steve Jobs the "CEO of the Decade." Now you may or may not be a Steve Jobs fan but there’s no denying his track record of remaking companies and guiding Apple through difficult economic challenges and maintaining success. So, as honorable businesswomen and men let’s do the only responsible thing – steal from him.

The goal is not to recap what he’s accomplished or even how … we are focusing on the “why.” In the movie, Magnum Force Dirty Harry Callahan mutters, “A man's got to know his limitations.” That sentence sums up Steve Jobs.

• Jobs doesn’t over-extend himself or spread himself too thin. He’s centered.

• Jobs lives “under promise and over deliver.” He doesn’t make giant promises to please the stock market or the press.

• Jobs isn’t locked into a single leadership style.

• Jobs is obsessed with thrilling, delighting and dazzling people. He creates passionate customers who want to buy from Apple.

• Jobs understands the value of practical innovation.

What does Steve Jobs do the best? He creates teams employees fight to join, leads through passion and energy and communicates in the simplest terms.

Create Teams

Apple wants to make a profit and does it by creating innovative and distinctive products that consumers want to buy. As the saying goes, the profit is in the people. Jobs organizes teams like a director casts a movie. He selects people by their strongest talents and abilities. Teams aren’t a coincidence or a by-product; they exist to generate specific results. Employees feel being asked to join a team is a privilege. They fight to be a member of the team.

What does this mean to you? Your job is to create teams of engaged people who are laser-focused on customers, committed to generating long-term value and believe in their work. Devote more time in determining the desired results and selecting the best people who will generate them.

Lead Through Passion And Energy

Saying Steve Jobs has an ego is like saying Genghis Kahn was a “people guy.” Still, Jobs realizes that, without a strong passionate team of employees, Apple would suffer major crop failure. So his leadership emphasis is on mobilizing for the next amazing product. His “leadership de jour style” gives him the flexibility to determine what it takes to motivate a specific group of people towards specific results. Then he motivates consistently and relentlessly.

What does this mean to you? Be results-driven and engage your people in the results and not the process. Put people in the roles they are best suited for. Know when to be about money and when to be about ideas. Know when to be creative and when to be transactional. Have confidence in your people, processes and ideas. Realize that motivation isn’t money, a t-shirt or a recognition event. Real motivation comes from an emotional connection to their work and the relationships employees share with each other.

Simple Communication

Steve Job’s presentation style and techniques have been dissected more than a box of frogs on high school lab day. There are articles and books that tell you what to do so you can “speak like Steve.” I don’t care what he does; I care about “why” he does it. Steve Job’s speaking style serves a single goal – it enables him to communicate in the simplest terms. Okay, grab a sack because we are going to snatch his strategy.

Know what you’re talking about – research, prepare, refine, remove every superfluous word and idea, question, probe and then do it all again. Don’t leave anything to chance. It doesn’t matter if it’s strategic planning, marketing, communication or a presentation to the Rotary Club adlibbing is career Russian Roulette.

One Big Idea - focus on a single message, issue, objective or mission. Many organizations are afraid to focus. Have one overarching strategic mission – that’s it, and stick to it. You can add tactics and key success factors to accomplish it.

Acknowledge the competition - there’s no such thing as neutral in business. Don’t you just love those executives who claim that the company’s only competition is its own excellence? The executive may not see the competition but the customer does. It’s okay to not love the competition. The “competition” is a company, an idea, any customer/client resistance or misconception. Competition is the motivating factor … the negative result you need to avoid or overcome.

Focus on essentials - break the desired result down to the essentials. What is the least amount of information people need to do what you want them to do? Don’t use a single number, letter, word or idea more. We tell and say too much because we don’t have confidence in what we are saying and asking people to do.

Always give them a show - make ideas and concepts visual, active and bring them to life. Make them into a demonstration. This is what allows people to personalize the message or desired action. If you can’t demo it – they can’t do it.

The Personal Revelation - the personal connection when it all comes together. No vague language or ambiguity. It’s specific, individual, personal and devoid of empty biz speak and “rah-rah” motivation. The light comes on and they “get it.” If you can’t make the connections and create this experience the chances of generating the results you need are very low.

Sell the meaning - Vision is a terrible term, it’s like love and goodness. It’s fun to say but it’s empty. A better one is, “This is what this means.” Explain the potential and the promise. If the X works as planned, achieves the goals and generates the desired results – what does it mean?

This Is What This Means

Steve Jobs is the “CEO of the Decade.” You don’t have to be Steve, have an aggressive and demanding personality like Steve or wear a black long-sleeve mock turtleneck like Steve. What you can steal from Steve are the things he does that create the results that made him “CEO of the Decade.”

• Create teams employees fight to join

• Lead through passion and energy

• Motivate relentlessly

• Communicate in the simplest terms

And here comes the Personal Revelation, you become the next big thing - your own innovation. And remember what Steve Jobs said about innovation, “Innovation distinguishes between leaders and followers.”

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Please Subscribe! There's a new article every week and we are determined to give you valuable information you can use to be successful and make more money. So, go to the Be The First To Know box and just fill it in.

Andy Johnston is an multi-faceted communication professional with deep experience from strategic planning, to messaging, to marketing, to media, to events, to training, to creative direction … and there are several other ”to’s.” Andy is known for his energy, creativity and his unique ability to discover the key results that must be generated – and then to develop ingenious ways to engage and motivate audiences. Positive business results are the objective. He believes that one of the most important results is an enjoyable experience for everyone involved. Andy is a principal partner at Think! Consulting Group and The Idea Group.

The Shower of Babble!

When the juice ain’t worth the squeeze

It’s my fault and I admit it. The telephone buzzed and a business friend asked a favor. She was writing a presentation and needed the latest corporate terms to stimulate performance. With less than five seconds thought I pulled two out of my … well, I made up two.

Over-Aspirational** – Set over-aspirational goals for each department.

Over-Aspirationalize** – Over-aspirationalize KPO’s for 2010.

She was happy and I was smug … and then it hit me. I had just contributed to the deluge of corporate babble that is drowning critical communication. I know it’s hard to accept but someone “made up” all those terms and expressions that make navigating business communications like walking through a cow pasture with your eyes closed. I had just added two more and they were pure babble. The biggest problem with business babble is the effort it takes to attempt to understand the message it isn’t worth it. The juice ain’t worth the squeeze.

** Feel free to use these expressions in your business communications. Please send us 25¢ for each usage. I know it’s hypocritical but we’re talking a load of money.

The Shower of Babble

Every wonder why we constantly strive to focus and simplify our marketing to generate desired results from specific audiences … and use an entirely different set of rules for communication to employees, partners, shareholders and franchisees? We easily accept “dumbing down” messaging in marketing and then make other communication filled with business jargon, obscure acronyms and the complex style of a doctoral thesis. How dumb can it get? Just check out What the H@@% are you talking about?

We use a shower of “business babble” and over-intellectualizing so we sound like we have the knowledge and ability to "Think outside the box," "Get to the next level" and "Push the envelope." Frankly it’s nothing more than an attempt to convince people that we know what we’re talking about.

Own the message and the outcome

You see it almost every day. The materials and presentations are filled with jargon, inside terms and super-intellectual attitude. The justification is, “We need to educate our top management/customers/clients. They just don’t understand my – product – service –marketing plan – proposal – training – HR concept – benefits.” The secret message is, “I want to educate you in how I think so you’ll agree with me.”

I’m sure the emotions come from frustration but making the people you depend upon for success feel dumb and uninformed is not a winning strategy. When you design your communication (sender) based on the audience’s (receiver’s) context and perspective you take ownership of the message and the outcome.

The lost art of plain talk

The goal of communication is understanding plus action - What are the desired results? What does the person need to see, hear, understand, appreciate and value to do what you want them to do? If you are a regular reader of this blog this should sound familiar. Then, use plain talk to communicate it.

Make your ideas impressive and your language simple - Speak in ways so people can easily understand and value what you are saying. Use simple declarative sentences

If you have to explain a term or acronym, don’t use it – unless there is an acceptable substitute. One out of ten people don’t understand the term, which means that 10% of your audience/readers/leaders have stopped listening and are trying to figure out what you mean. Communication has stopped and you’ve left them behind.

Don’t assume understanding - Imagine a recent drug launch and the marketing manager explaining how the company plans to use social media to spread the marketing message. He uses “viral videos” and “going viral” often. The audience is physicians … oops! Jargon doesn’t necessarily have the same meaning from company to company or even department to department. Make it simple, clear and unambiguous. When it doubt, ask.

Be clear, not cool - Don’t use synthetic, made up expressions and acronyms. It doesn’t matter if you saw them online or in the Harvard Business Review. Be clear. How much extra time and energy would it take to say “key performance objectives,” “cost of living adjustment,” “business to business” or “earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization”?

Follow our Four Steps of Clarity

1. What are you really trying to say?

2. How does your message relate to the problem/goal/opportunity/situation?

3. What needs to happen and how will you know when it works and when it’s right?

4. What does the company and/or the audience gain by doing it or lose by not doing it?

How big a deal is this anyway?

I’m sure that there is a ton of research highlighting the cost of babble and present it in detailed, clinical, academic ways. But there’s a better barometer of the impact. The Shower of Babble has gone mainstream. There’s an Apple iPhone application called Biz Babble. The marketing says it all. “Biz Babble puts the power of stupid business phrases in the palm of your hand.” So whenever you have the desire to instantly flush your credibility, confuse your listeners and motivate rampant organizational and economic resistance – all it takes is the press of a button.

In conclusion

I hope that this article has instilled random recognition and contributed to over-aspirationalizing a multi-disciplinary, cross-functional approach to minimizing pushback and leveraging intellectual disconnects so you can proactively and seamlessly engage 24/7 initiatives through best-of-breed actionable, client-facing items. At the end of the day.

Huh?

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Andy Johnston is an multi-faceted communication professional with deep experience from strategic planning, to messaging, to marketing, to media, to events, to training, to creative direction … and there are several other ”to’s.” Andy is known for his energy, creativity and his unique ability to discover the key results that must be generated – and then to develop ingenious ways to engage and motivate audiences. Positive business results are the objective. He believes that one of the most important results is an enjoyable experience for everyone involved. Andy is a principal partner at Think! Consulting Group and The Idea Group.