THE P-O-W-E-R of Communication

Fred Wilson laid his laptop on the table, doffed his coat and slid into a window seat. I sat down beside him. Two of our fellow travellers, brokers Bob and Harry, occupied the seats opposite us on the VIA rail car.

“Nice change from air travel,” Fred said as he flipped open his laptop. “Easier to get some work done. It’s a four-hour trip.”

The four of us had decided to travel by rail together to a spring meeting of the provincial brokers’ association, held in a city to the east, rather than drive over the snow and slush-covered roads. As the manager of our company’s large downtown branch, Fred was due to appear on a broker/company discussion panel. As our company’s senior marketing representative, I was going to the meeting to make contact with many of the brokers I work with. Bob Davies ran a prosperous midtown brokerage that gave us a good volume of commercial and personal business. Harry operated from a suburban office and was also one of our “A” brokers.

As we made ourselves comfortable in the railway car, Fred slipped his glasses on and started to tap away at the keyboard of his computer.

“A rallying cry to all your under-performing brokers?” Bob asked casually.

Fred looked up with a smile. “Actually, no. I’m drafting an action memo to all branch staff, and I want to get it right.”

“Hey, you should be sending a pretty positive message out to your staff, shouldn’t you?” Harry said. “You guys had a banner result last year, didn’t you? Record profits in all divisions? And this year’s looking pretty good too, isn’t it?”

Fred scratched his chin thoughtfully. “That’s all true,” he said. “But it’s also precisely why I want to get a very pointed message across to the staff in my branch. Good times in our business often drag bad things along with them. Things like complacency, soft underwriting, bloated staff numbers and a lack of attention to detail. You and I both know all too well that the good times in our business never last. Sooner or later the market will turn–“

“–And we’ve all been through that before,” I chipped in.

“Fresh capital is attracted by the returns our business is getting,” Bob Davies added. “New companies slash rates to suck in business. Underwriting rules go out the window. Old-line insurers are forced to defend their market share. Profits vanish like snow in summer. And brokers start to get the chop as insurance companies retrench for the tough times.”

My boss opened up his hands in front of him. “Exactly!” Fred agreed. “That’s why I want to deliver a strong statement to my people now. I want to remind them that how we act today will help determine how well we perform tomorrow, and next year.”

I leaned across the table towards our two broker friends. “Fred only writes a couple of action memos a year, so they get our attention. They can be tough and uncompromising, but they’re always direct and to the point.”

As our train slid smoothly out from the station, broker Harry whistled. “Fred, I’d like to know your secret. I have trouble writing a decent business letter.”

My boss leaned back from his laptop and scratched his head. “I’m no expert, but I’ve learned a few tricks of the trade over the years.” Fred held up one hand with his five fingers extended. “When you’ve got a strong message to deliver, I’m a great believer in the five-point principle of P-O-W-E-R.”

As he spelled out each letter, he waggled one finger on his hand. “P stands for PLAN, O stands for ORGANIZE, W stands for WRITE, E stands for EDIT and R stands for REVIEW and REVISE.”

He dropped his hand and tapped it gently on the table. “It’s not original,” he continued. “I was taught this formula many years ago. But it’s a good one for creating effective communications.”

Bob Davies nodded. “Sounds good, my friend. Tell us more.”

Fred glanced briefly at the landscape now flashing past, and continued. “Really, this formula works for virtually anything you write. First, plan what it is you want to say. That means you have to consider who your audience is, and what you want to say to them. In other words, boil it down to the essential message you want to get across to them, whether it’s broadening your markets, tightening up underwriting, developing new brokers — whatever. Just try to keep the focus on one main issue. When you have one main issue, it’s like firing a rifle with one big bullet, rather than having several issues and firing a shotgun with a bunch of small pellets. The big bullet usually gets the job done more effectively.”

Fred drew his hands together. “Next, carefully organize all the information you have. If you’re short of facts or statistics to support the case you want to make, then get them! Any strong argument must be backed up by credible facts and figures. You usually can’t make a convincing case with words alone–“

Harry grunted affirmatively. “I’m with you there,” he said. “I’ve read far too many directives heavy on dramatic words and phrases but woefully short of facts to back ’em up. It tells me they were either too lazy to pinpoint the facts and figures, or else didn’t have ’em and tried to bluster their way past the issue with fancy words–“

“–or used information that was either inaccurate or badly out-of-date,” I added. “That can really be a credibility-killer.”

Fred nodded at us and carried on. “When you organize your material, you must also decide in which order to present it for maximum impact. Your prime reason for organizing material is to prioritize the delivery of it. And here I think the basic rule is to lead with the strongest fact or figure because that’s what most people will remember.”

An attendant arrived with a serving wagon, and we all accepted a cup of coffee.

“We’ve covered the ‘P’ and ‘O’ of our formula,” Fred said. “Now it’s on to the ‘W’ for Write. And here I have a piece of advice: Just get your thoughts down on paper or into the computer in rough form. Don’t agonize over creating perfect sentences and superb phrases at this stage. If you try to create the perfect action memo or directive in one draft, you run the risk of getting what I call ‘blank sheet blackout’. I’m sure you all know what that’s like. You wind up staring at the keyboard or at that blank sheet of paper while your mind whirls over all the possible ways to express your thoughts. My first Golden Rule is: put the thoughts down. Polish ’em later.”

Daylight suddenly vanished as our train thundered into a tunnel. When it emerged, I posed a question: “You mentioned your first Golden Rule. I take it you have some others?”

Fred gave me a quick smile. “You know me, Dave, I have a whole bunch of golden rules. But in this context, I’ll just mention a couple of other ones.”

He flicked up two fingers. “Golden Rule Number 2: keep it short. One page tops. Nobody has the time or the patience to read two and three pages of finger-wagging. So be brisk, but also be brief.” He flicked up a third finger. “Golden Rule Number 3: avoid those awful clichs we hear every day. We always hear things like ‘thinking outside the box,’ ‘accessing our potential,’ ‘prioritizing,’ ’empowerment’ and ‘going forward.’ My eyes glaze over when I read these, and I’m sure the same is true for my staff.”

He took a long sip of his coffee and continued. “We’ve covered the ‘P,’ ‘O’ and ‘W’ of our P-O-W-E-R formula. Now we’re on to E for Edit and R for Review.”

He raised one hand and pointed a finger. “Now is when you start editing what you have already written. This is the time to make any corrections and to polish up your prose. It’s also when you can insert what I call punch words to sharpen up your presentation. For instance, rather than say ‘We need to,’ I’d say ‘We must.’ Rather than say ‘Our plans call for,’ I prefer to say ‘Our plans will achieve’.”

Fred paused for a second, thinking and then plunged on. “Dave here knows that I hate those word-whiskers like ‘there are’ and ‘which’ and ‘would.’ Try to eliminate them if you’re aiming for a punchy presentat ion. Don’t say: ‘There are several departments which are not yet as effective as we would like them to be.’ It’s much stronger to say ‘Several departments are not yet as effective as they should be.’

At this point a musical chime sounded, and Harry reached into his pocket for his Blackberry. He scanned the message, quickly tapped out a text reply and put the unit down. As he did, Fred Wilson smiled at him and turned to the rest of us. “And right there, folks,” he said pointing to the Blackberry, “is something that is helping to torpedo good English.”

Harry recoiled in mock horror. “How so?”

My boss shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I grant you they’re great as instant communicators. But, because people are in a hurry, because air time is money, and because the screen is small, English is crushed and squeezed into short bites and into handy acronyms that substitute for actual words. Like BTW for ‘by the way’ and IMO for ‘in my opinion,’ JK for ‘just kidding,’ IDK for ‘I don’t know,’ BRB for ‘be right back,’ TTYL for ‘ talk to you later’ or even just L8R for ‘later’. It’s a form of lazy shorthand. Trouble is, they creep into every day emails and inter-office memos. As more people start to use them, language skills start to suffer.”

Across the table, Bob Davies raised a hand. “Okay, professor,” he said. “So now I would guess the review stage is the time you make sure all your facts and statements are accurate, eh?”

Fred Wilson gave a quick nod of his head. “Absolutely right. You know, it’s easy to fall in love with a certain part of your written presentation, with some surprising facts or damning statistics. But the Golden Rule here is: review now, or eat crow later.”

Fred chuckled quietly to himself, then added: “The review stage is the time when you check four other components of whatever it is you’ve written: grammar, spelling, proper organization and — perhaps the most essential ingredient — the validity of your argument. You don’t want to project a simplistic point that can be easily shot down.”

Fred sat back in his seat. We watched the countryside flash past our window for a few seconds. Then Bob Davies spoke again.

“Well, my friend, you’ve given us a pretty decent primer on the steps to take in preparing and delivering a good, strong message,” Bob said. “But I’d be willing to bet you’ve still got one more Golden Rule of communication hiding there in your pocket.”

Fred grinned. “I thought you’d never ask! Okay, here it is: Always give your audience a chance to speak their mind. If you’re delivering a written message verbally, the Golden Rule when you’re finished is to say, ‘Now it’s your turn, any questions?’

“The same is true when it’s a printed piece. Somewhere on it you should include an invitation for feedback, a way in which your audience can respond to you. Who knows? You might get back some constructive ideas you can use. At the very least, it can serve to take the temperature of your audience to see if they seem to be responding positively to your ideas.”

“Well, the small audience right here is grateful to you for your words of wisdom,” Bob Davies said with a chuckle, as Fred once again bent over his keyboard. “Now let me catch a small power nap while you get back to work.”