Clear & Concise Writing in Business A Perspective from the Global Stage

IdaRose Sylvester

Managing Director, Silicon Valley Link

25 April 2011

BUS 215

Stanford University

Ps, Go Bears

And We Still Have No Idea What We’re Doing

? 100,000 Years of Human Language

• Why I care about communication

• Why communication fails

• How Americans communicate

• High level pointers for improving any business communication

• Case studies of real world bad (and good!) communications

Agenda

• My business is based upon communication

• Much of my communication, due to distance, time zones, and “modern life” is done in writing

• Most of my first impressions are made in writing

• Most of my relationships are built over time through writing

• Much of my work is cross cultural, and also cross gender, cross age, cross function

Why I Care about Business Communication

Why Communication Goes Wrong

The Art of Hearing

• We hear based on our own demographic biases, education and belief systems

• We hear based on our biases about people, at a cultural and individual level

• We hear what we want to hear

• (We also often don’t know what we are trying to say, a whole different issue)

We Hear People through a Lens

The Distortion that is Cross Cultural Communications

Imagined

• We assume issues when they don’t exist

• We subconsciously overcompensate

Real

• We may miss the meaning of words, or words have a whole different meaning

• We miss cultural context, especially around negative messaging, hierarchical response

• Function of our education system

– Biased towards structure and sophistication of words, but not towards connecting with and understanding people

– Linguistic gymnastics: Valor is to cowardice as courageous is to pusillanimous

How Americans Communicate

• We use far more words than necessary

• Americans, especially Californians, are adverse to giving negative messages, so we avoid or pad

• Overly eager to communicate in writing when face to face would be better

How Americans Communicate

• It is easy to forget that communicating is not just sending, it is receiving

• If you become a better listener, you will become a better communicator

• If you assume the best about people when they are communicating, you’re far more likely to have a better outcome

To Ponder

Tips for Communicating Better

• Eschew obfuscation • Know what you want to achieve with the other

person, and check the communication against that objective

• Think about your filters, and those of your recipient

• Remember, you are always talking to another person

• Prove your intelligence through your clear, sincere thoughts, not the length of your correspondence

General Tips to Improve ANY Written Communication

• Don’t over communicate

• Establish real rapport, build a relationship

• Make your objectives clear

• Provide next steps

Concise, Clear, Persuasive, Actionable

Structural Tips for All Written Communication

Doing it Wrong

Showcasing Your Product

Hi Everyone,

I spoke with the manager, Edward, of the Palace Hotel, and sadly, they DID NOT cancel our hotel reservations. He very clearly stated that Serena had come to him, and told him to cancel all the rooms they had held for us for quite some time. As most of you know, I had asked most of you to help with covering your hotel rooms and food. Only Paul replied that he was not sure if he would be able to do that, which is totally understandable. With that support, the conference was in enough financial shape, to continue on. Hard to imagine, at that point, we were only a couple of thousand dollars from covering our expenses for the conference. Rather than ask some of the speakers who I had agreed to cover/reimburse their aifare for, when the conference first began, to step aside, I made the decision to step aside. I tried to contact IdaRose via one of her two europhone's, to ask her to co-chair the conference, as I know she is very astute and an excellent speaker, plus she has a deep appreciation for US - Europe relations. I had thought it would be quicker to reach her by europhone than email since she was in transit. As it turns out, the europhone acts like it is taking a message, but really it is not. The Palace hotel said that they would have worked with us, and accepted a money wire or credit cards from the guests who had agreed to cover their hotel cost. They were very open to work with us. I had already wired money the day before, to Paolo, which they never received, and has one more money wire to send them, to cover most of the reast of the speakers, minus the close to 2000.00 that we were short. A friend had offered to assist with that amount, so we were all set. Then, all hell broke loose yesterday morning, and we are all still trying to sort through this complex matter.

Yesterday I spoke with Tom in Umbria, and through Tom we met the managers of the venue there, who as it turns out, are from San Francisco. They agreed to allow us to use their space for free.

Perhaps this is the place where I will hold any future events, as they are very reasonably priced, and very kind. Tom and Lisa and I had a lengthy conversation, and they said that they love to have people come to visit their area, and that they would be williing to meetup with people at the new venue for an unconference informal style gathering, as the main point was to meet, and that this was a loss for everyone in that regard, too. Lisa mentioned about the beautiful nature spots there, they would try to show people.

Contrary to the untrue and malicious statement made by Stefano, we are not trying to hide anything from Eventbrite, or anyone, thereby I disabled all the ticket sales immediately yesterday. We also did not post a new venue, as did not want people showing up, until we know exactly what we are doing. That is why I posted the email address, and asked people interested, to call me. I'm surprized that one or two ticket holders in Italy, that Stefano knows, would already be talking about legal action, when no one has been told that they won't be receiving a refund. I hope Italy is not becoming like the US in that regard. That would be sad.

Making Amends

From having our conversation with Tom, we have been trying to organize a smaller gathering, and I have contacted all the attendee's who bought tickets, by email, and some by phone. Each person I have interacted with so far, has been very cordial and understanding, and I have agreed to work with them on reimbursements over the next 30 days.

They thanked me, and agreed to it, some even going so far to say that they had been dreaming about attending this conference every night for the past week, and are very sad that it is further away now, but that next year they would like to join in.

Paolo, I have not heard a word from you about the $1400.00 I wired to you for the Palace Hotel and your 3 nights of hotel room. I realize that you stayed in Viareggio for two nights. The rest of that money belongs to the ticket holders, and it needs to be returned to me, via PayPal, so that they can start to be reimbursed. It's the right thing to do, and it should be done as soon as is possible.

Paul, Catherine and I work with our web dev as a team, and we have instructed him to remove both your post, and all other data related to you. As for the blog post that went up on 26th, he posted that before knowing about this situation we are all facing.

My son is asking me to take him to the skate park, so I will continue when returning home.

Wishing you all well,

Best,

XXX

ps, Quality and clear communication is key, and that is what we are all striving for, and thank you all, for that. It shows character when people take the time to communicate with each other, instead of trying to slander, demean, and undermine one another. It takes a global village, and groups like this can do a lot to improve the world.

Making Amends

From: Tom To: IdaRose Sylvester Subject: Regrets Hi IdaRose, I just walked in and saw that you called. I don't have good news for you as we are going to go in a different direction for bizdev. This has not been an easy decision and I am sorry to make this call, as it's not my favorite thing to do. Know that we discussed this to a great extent internally and while our personal feelings for you remain high, we have decided to take a another approach. Perhaps a future business opportunity will bring us back together down the road. Thanks for your understanding, Tom

Delivering Bad News

To: Armando, IdaRose Cc: Paolo, Lorenzo Subject: Re: meglio chiamarlo coupon o deal?

meglio chiamarlo coupon o deal? Nunzio

Asking for Feedback

• Powerpoint has become the number one business communications tool. People use Powerpoint in all aspects of business, from sharing a simple sales pitch to communicating complex data sets to suggesting corporate turnaround strategies. In fact, some people are using Powerpoint to replace Word documents, imagining the pithy format will make communication, and formatting of said communication, easier, when in reality, Powerpoint is a very poor tool for conveying complex information. The best slides are not your speaker notes nor your speech put into a template, but rather the highest level prompts and simple graphs that illustrate your points, that add, not repeat what you have to say, and certainly should never distract your audience from what you are saying. It is my personal belief that Powerpoint should be banned, but nobody cares what I have to say because you are too busy trying to read this ridiculous slide. Hope the guy in the back isn’t getting a migraine, sorry!

Communicating in Powerpoint

Dear John

We met at the tradeshow last week. I represent xx company, and we talked about our product line. I think you will find our products to be a good fit for your company.

Please find attached our company brochure. If you have any interest in moving forward, please contact me.

Yours, Jane Smith

Building a New Relationship

Doing it Right

From: Purpletie Customer Service info@purpletie.com Subject: RE: Help with order from xxx in Sunnyvale Thank you for the email and I am terribly sorry to hear about your job. Of course we can deliver the order to your home; whatever we can do to make things easier. Your order is completed and I will have our residential driver deliver the order to your residence tonight. We deliver in Mountain View between 8-10pm. I will have my driver knock on your door when he is there. We do have a residential pick up and delivery service, so if we can be of future assistance with handling your dry cleaning, please let us know and we will switch your account over to residential. Again, I am very sorry about your job. All of us at PurpleTie wish you the best of luck! Best Regards, Jonathan Kaech Vice President Customer Operations YOUR GREENER CLEANER!

Making a Customer for Life

• In the next few minutes, write a short new message, fixing

– A. the proposal rejection

or

– B. follow up to meeting a potential customer at a tradeshow

Exercise

Remember

IdaRose Sylvester idarose@siliconvalleylink.com