Lip Service by Ruth Sherman

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Manners Matter More Than Ever

With the world as competitive as it is, and the economy uncertain at best, it should come as no surprise that we should use any and all available advantages. Having impeccable manners and understanding the rules of etiquette are critical determinants of success and key to winning people over. I do not know a single highly successful person who does not have these skills down to a science. Unfortunately, the boundaries of propriety have been eroding steadily and accelerating over the past two or three decades. The following examples may ring a bell:

• An executive who regularly returns from lunch with food spattered on his tie
• A passenger on a commuter train who is speaking very loudly on his cell phone
• An executive who walks in 20 minutes late for a meeting and sits down without a word of acknowledgment or apology
• The host of a social event who spends a disproportionate amount of time speaking to a couple of guests, virtually ignoring the other people she invited
• Audience members who talk or let their cell phones and pagers ring during a show
• Drivers who come speeding up the right shoulder to gain a couple of seconds on those who remain in lane to wait their turn and exit safely
• The telemarketer who speaks nonstop, ignores entreaties or objections, and who won’t take no for an answer
• The pedestrian who steps a few yards in front of you to be in a more advantageous position to flag down a taxi

These examples are just a very few of the hundreds, if not thousands, of incidents of rude and obnoxious behavior that occur daily and that negatively affect our quality of life not to mention the negative impact on our perceptions of the offenders.

Good manners are skills in which the lessons are best begun early in childhood. But access to these skills is free and available to anyone with the desire to upgrade and an Internet connection. Following are the my top 5 good manners that every successful person must have:

• Table manners: As alluded to above, make sure your napkin is on your lap (or over your tie), know which utensils to use, don’t talk with your mouth full and all the other lessons your mother taught you.
• Saying “please” and “thank you:” These words are like magic.
• Apologizing: When appropriate – and this may be more often than you would like to acknowledge – apologizing is an absolutely critical skill and a major differentiator in today’s unapologetic world. (Read my post on apology)
• Cell phone etiquette: No one cares what you’re doing tonight, so keep your voice down if you’re on your cell in a public place.
• Keeping promises: Nothing speaks better to the state of a person’s integrity than this. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. If, for some reason, you cannot, let the promisee know.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High-Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT

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Gladwell on Talent Selection

I just got back from the American Society for Training & Development’s International Conference and Exhibition in San Diego where I was a speaker. This was a great conference – one of the best I’ve ever been to and I’ve been to a lot of them both as an attendee and as a speaker – 8,000 professional development pros from all over the world. I learned a tremendous amount and met some wonderful new and interesting people and sold and signed a lot of my books.

Malcolm Gladwell was one of the keynoters. Gladwell, the author of mega-bestsellers The Tipping Point and Blink will be releasing his new book, Outliers, in November. One aspect of Outliers is Gladwell’s take on how we evaluate and develop talent. As this was a speech to ASTD, he naturally focused on this aspect and told us about some of the eye-opening stuff he had found as he was researching and writing this book.

Gladwell feels that we as a society and particularly our business community have swung in favor of favoring and developing talent that he terms “precocious.” These are the people who do eye-popping, paradigm-busting things very early in their careers, in their 20s or even younger. By virtue of bursting onto the scene early, these people are noticed by higher ups and quickly move up the ladders of success. They receive more attention, more support for their ideas and much, much more encouragement in the hope that they will continue turning out groundbreaking work.

The other type of talent Gladwell says exists is talent that takes time to develop. These people don’t necessarily do amazing things early. Instead, they are cautious, they work steadily and slowly, carefully, painstakingly honing their skills until finally they achieve mastery. (“Mastery” is one way Gladwell describes this second type of talent.) Because their talent requires more effort and time to uncover, these talented people are not favored in today’s fast-moving business culture, and instead of being developed, nurtured and promoted, they are routinely ignored.

Gladwell then goes on to make the case that we ignore the mastery type of talent at our peril and uses Picasso and Cezanne as examples of precocity and mastery, respectively. As a cautionary tale, he shows that Picasso’s paintings done when he was in his 20s sell for about 4 times the price that paintings done in his later years sell for. But here’s where mastery trumps precocity: Cezanne’s paintings done when he was in his 50s and 60s sell for 15 times the price of those done when he was in his 20s.

Other examples he outlines are instructive. In using intelligence tests to choose quarterbacks, the NFL has regularly missed out on identifying the best and in fact, some of the greatest quarterbacks scored low on these tests. The University of Michigan Law School looked at lawyers who had been admitted under its affirmative action program and found that 10 years out, those attorneys were much more involved in serving their communities than the law students who had been admitted because of top LSAT scores and grades. We think we know how to identify talent, but we really don’t. Or we go about it in all the wrong ways.

The model in hiring and professional development that selects for precocity as opposed to mastery does not serve business well, or its workers. It misses a lot of people who have great value to add and whose painstaking efforts, like Cezanne’s, to perfect and master their work produce results that return much more value in the long run. Something to think about.

And Gladwell was a great speaker, too.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High-Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT

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"Sweetie" And Sibling Terms: Never OK In Business

The dust-up over Barack Obama’s calling a reporter “sweetie” seems to have died down. So it’s a good moment to discuss what it means when diminutive forms of address are used in business and professional contexts.

I admit when I first saw the report, I was disturbed. When I was getting my masters in communication, a significant portion of our studies was devoted to gender issues and differences in communication. The long-held habit of addressing women not by name, but by a diminutive substitute and belief that such speech was harmless was being researched and written about by excellent and highly-respected writers (Tannen, Gilligan, Borisoff, Johnson, etc.). The fundamental premise of this writing was that this type of address is, in fact, harmful, a way to diminish women and their achievements, to keep them in their place and paid less than men doing the same jobs. Even today, no serious and informed person believes women have achieved parity with men in the workplace and such speech is a contributing factor in women’s ability to be taken seriously in professional life. (Doubters take note: Women earn about 77 cents to every dollar men earn. So far, in 2008, only 24 women make the list of CEOs of the Fortune 1000.)

I saw this quote from an article in Salon showing the discussion has been going on for a long time:

The idea that a professional woman might be taken aback by being called an infantilizing or feminizing diminutive is not a news flash. There is a scene from "Tootsie," a movie made more than 25 years ago, in which Dustin Hoffman's cross-dressing character, a man, assesses the differences in how men and women are spoken to in professional situations. As Hoffman, dressed as his female alter ego Dorothy Michaels, tells a chauvinist boss, "I have a name. It's Dorothy. It's not Tootsie or Toots or Sweetie or Honey or Doll ... Alan's always Alan, Tom's always Tom, and John's always John. I have a name too."

There isn’t enough space or time to go into it in much more detail here, and I invite and encourage readers to do their own reading and research. Basically, however, when it comes to business, the rule of thumb is this: if you are a man, do not call women by any type of diminutive name that you wouldn’t use on another man. So words like babe, doll, hon, darlin, and, yes, sweetie, are out.

The reasons for it are simple; using these words in a professional context have nothing to do with endearment and everything to do with entitlement and who holds the reins of power. And using terminology like this is especially fraught if the man is the boss. In such cases, extra care must be taken because repeated use can lead to charges of harassment or hostile work environment. That it’s just a “habit” and “I didn’t mean anything by it” are irrelevant.

Women bosses should be careful, too, when addressing men. Hon, darlin, babe, son and, again, sweetie, can also be wielded inappropriately. But, the fact is that my admonition is intended mostly for the male ears of the gender divide.

Unless the speaker and the “sweetie” in question are romantically linked, there is no place in the workplace for such forms of address. Besides, it’s so yesterday.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High-Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT

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Don’t Get Caught Long -- Use SALES

I was working with a team of technology professionals yesterday and turned them onto my tool, SALES. I designed SALES to help clients quickly organize their thoughts so if they found themselves having to report on something quickly, they could do it easily.

SALES stands for

State your main message (objective)

Add key points

List benefits

Examples, stories, metaphors, etc.

Summarize and specify next steps

For fun, here’s what SALES might look like if you were leading a meeting at your company on the topic of offering lunch to employees as a new perk:

S: I think we should provide lunch to the employees.

A: People are going out to lunch and it’s taking well over an hour. Also, because they have to drive, it increases the energy usage of our employees and we’re trying to encourage conservation.

L: There are a lot of benefits: It will keep people at their desks more, they’ll be more productive, it’ll increase morale and help us to hire the best and brightest as well as aid retention, we’ll be able to provide healthy foods and it’ll limit employees’ energy consumption.

E: Google does it and look at them.

S: If you agree, I’ll look into caterers and get some prices and you can mull it over. We can meet again next week to see whether we should proceed.

If you really need something in a hurry, just use S-L-S – no vowels. SALES is especially useful for that dreaded moment when you’re stuck in the elevator with your boss and s/he wants a quick update or status report. It’s also great for email and voice mail.

Works like a charm every time.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High-Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT

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Jenna Bush Makes Parents Look Good

I was watching Larry King last week and happened to catch the segment with guests Laura and Jenna Bush. They were there promoting their new children’s book, Read All About It. I haven’t really followed the Bush children. Except for the news stories over the years when they were doing their teenage acting out, there really hasn’t been much coverage. It’s restricted and that is as it should be.

So I was surprised at how disarmingly charming Jenna Bush was. She wasn’t smooth or slick. She didn’t even seem media-trained (and that’s something I know a lot about) though she certainly does have a good mentor in her mother in that regard. A giveaway was that during the interview, her eyes frequently darted to the goings on about the studio, while her head remained pointed toward Larry King. Yet, when it was her turn to speak she seemed comfortable. She was clearly passionate about her topic – the book is about a boy who hates to read – and her career. Following in her mother’s footsteps, Bush is a teacher. She was (mostly) poised and even initially used the honorific, “Sir,” when addressing Larry King.

That led me to thinking: what does this communicate, not only about this young woman, but also about her parents? To raise a child in this day and age is a huge challenge. To do it with the constant media scrutiny and klieg light glare that are continuously trained on the White House, seems nearly impossible. Yet, all the children that I have observed growing up in such challenging circumstances have turned out well. Lest anyone feel sorry for her, however, Ms. Bush was sure to note how extraordinarily advantaged she is.

Despite how I may feel about the job the President is doing, he has done well in this one, very important area. Of course, it seems safe to assume Mrs. Bush has done most of the heavy lifting. Still, there is a father in the house and it does say something quite positive about him. It's something he can use right about now.

Jenna Bush reflects well on her parents. While it would be crass to label the raising of a successful child as just another tool in the toolkit, you take these kinds of “compliments” where you can get them.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High-Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT

01:41 pm | 0 recommendations | 2 comments

Welcome Back, Comma.

I have noticed that the lowly comma is making a return to written communication. I have missed it terribly over the past several years and so it is good to see it back.

I had always wondered why it got lost. In asking friends and colleagues about it, people would almost brag about not using them, saying they cluttered things up or were old-fashioned. I would disagree vociferously, taking the position that commas make reading easier.

The decline of the comma is due in large part to the absence of teaching of grammar and punctuation during the past 20 years (at least). My kids do not know the parts of speech – what an adverb or prepositional phrase is, not to mention a subordinate clause. And they have attended very good schools. I can clearly remember that by 5th grade, we 10-year-olds could diagram a sentence. (What is that, you ask? See here for an explanation.) Diagramming was a great way to learn to make sense of the complexities and logic of written language.

Another reason is the lowering of standards of written communication due to the reliance on email, IM, and text.

Anyway, in honor of its return and as a way to encourage the Fast Company community to keep the comma coming, following are some of my favorite rules for comma usage:

1. To separate components in a series: “John wanted salad, chicken, and macaroni for dinner.” Note that I even included a comma before “and.” It has become optional but is actually useful if I were to say instead of “macaroni,” “macaroni and cheese.”
2. In sentences beginning with because or although: “Because it was raining, Brad brought an umbrella.” “Although it was raining, Brad decided not to bring an umbrella.”
3. Sentences starting with prepositional or adverb phrases: “When she tried to open the door (adverb phrase), she couldn’t.” “Before you leave (prepositional phrase), turn off the lights.”
4. To avoid confusion: “Outside, the light was brighter than he expected.”

There is one more reason to be hopeful about the comeback of the comma: The SAT now tests grammar to some extent. They call it the “writing test,” but it’s really copy-editing with lots of questions about grammar, punctuation, and placement. And we all know that when the tests test, the schools teach.

By the way, I’m no grammar expert; I just like it when writing is easy to read and digest. Or maybe I’m just an old-fashioned girl.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High-Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT

05:13 pm | 0 recommendations | 2 comments

Back From Dubai

I returned recently from a business trip to Dubai where I worked on a communications project with a private equity company. This is a fascinating country – city-state, really – with many contradictions. Since it is so widely featured in the news, I thought I’d give you my take on it.

First and foremost, the people are wonderful. Dubai has promoted itself as a tourist mecca (pun intended) as well as international business center. Therefore, service is the name of the game. With the exception of some long queues for taxis in certain places (far worse, I’m afraid, than the lines at Grand Central Station in New York), service was excellent.

On the business end, the people were highly educated, worldly, courtly and polite as well as open to new ideas. No expense was spared to make the project a success. This is the type of environment consultants like me dream of and unfortunately rarely encounter. It’s the way I remember things being in the U.S. in the early to mid-90s. There is an advantage to not skimping on the details. Work can be delivered in a relaxed, professional way and everyone can focus on the outcome rather than nitpicking the cost of this or that. Of course, with oil well over $100 a barrel, Dubaians may be feeling just a little more relaxed about spending than we in the West.

The country itself is undergoing an unbelievable transformation from desert to metropolis and travel destination and as such, there is building and construction everywhere. I was amazed at the number of cranes. At night, they are lit up along with their buildings as if to take their rightful place in the Dubai skyline. There are downsides to all the construction: I could not go for a walk outside my hotel because there are no sidewalks as of yet amidst the construction. There is also dust in the air. One thing I missed was greenery. Not forgetting that this is a desert, there were no parks or trees. I assume this will be remedied once construction is complete. Of course, the big resorts had plenty of palms and other landscaping.

Dubai is home to some of the most interesting and beautiful architecture including the Burj Dubai, intended to be the tallest building in the world and nearly twice as high as the Empire State Building. But the piece de resistance is the Burj al Arab, the hotel on the Arabian Gulf that is always featured in press stories about Dubai. Built to look like a giant mainsail blowing in the warm Gulf wind, this is truly a breathtaking vision. On my last afternoon, I decided to visit this masterpiece, only to be turned away at the gate. Turns out they do not want sightseers and you must have a restaurant reservation to be allowed in. Oh well, next time.

No trip to Dubai would be complete without some shopping and it is a shopper’s paradise. The Mall of the Emirates hosts Ski Dubai – yup, that’s right – a ski slope including chair lift and all the accoutrements so desert denizens can suit up. I didn’t go inside, having just returned from Maine and outside skiing. I must say, though, that if you’ve seen one mall, you’ve seen them all and there is something vaguely depressing about seeing so many familiar stores in a land so foreign.

Then again, a trip to the souqs was just the antidote. There are three in Dubai that are must-sees – the gold souq, textile souq and spice souq. These bustling markets are where the local goods and handicrafts are sold. With the price of gold at around $1,000 an ounce, gold is expensive no matter what. But there were still some bargains and bargaining is de rigueur and it was fun.

Finally, the food was fabulous. Middle Eastern food is a favorite of mine and I ate a lot of small mezzeh, small plates of foods like hummous, tabouleh, yoghurt, all drizzled with olive oil and garnished with olives or pomegranate seeds. In the local supermarkets, there are endless crates of dried fruits and nuts. To me, this is snacking heaven.

At that market, I enjoyed an exchange I had with one of the sales people, the man measuring and bagging the fruits and pistachios. In limited English, he asked me where I was from and I told him I was American. “I like Americans,” he said enthusiastically. I then asked him where he was from and he said Iran. “Do you like Iranians?” “Of course,” I replied. “I like you and I love Iranian dates and pistachios.”

And at that moment, I felt hopeful about the world.

Ruth Sherman Ruth Sherman Associates LLC High-Stakes Communication Greenwich CT

09:22 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Style IS Substance: The Magic Of Obama

Most people who know me know I'm fascinated by political communication and in fact, it has become an area of expertise for me. Today, I was quoted in the Washingon Post on Barack Obama's speaking style and earlier this month I was quoted in the New York Times on Hillary Clinton's. [See Fast Company feature: The Brand Called Obama.]

Obama is clearly the winner (so far) in the communication wars and it's difficult and a little sad to watch Clinton and, to a lesser extent, McCain criticize Obama's speaking style. Their criticism reflects their frustration with this "upstart" who came from nowhere to upend the contest in ways neither of them expected. It's all empty rhetoric, they say, he's a great speaker, sure, but there is no substance to back up all the oratory.

This attitude doesn't surprise me because I hear the same types of complaints every day from my clients, many of whom are great at what they do (must-have skills for the job) and think that's all that should matter. The work should speak for itself. But work, while important, can't speak. People can and that's where style comes in.

Expert speaking style enables a leader -- or an ordinary person -- to accomplish a critical goal: to get his or her message out. Style gives words meaning and makes the speaker believable. For example, the vast majority of Obama's supporters don't know him personally and have no idea how he'd be as president. He could be wonderful or he could be awful. (We don't know how Clinton or McCain would be either.) Still, because of his oratorical prowess, supporters believe in his ability to do the job (there is hard evidence of his intelligence, as there is for the others). But his speech makes them feel as if they know him. He comes across as trustworthy, funny, comfortable. And, oh, that voice! It’s deep and expressive.

Obama’s speech also has an excellent rhythm, the pauses and cadences that allow his audiences to absorb his meaning and participate with echoes, answers and chants. This often overlooked aspect of motivational speech accomplishes a couple of things: It gives the speaker much needed breaks and by encouraging audience response, enables them to feel joined with the candidate, active participants in his success. A more subtle benefit is that it bespeaks sensitivity and generosity to his supporters; instead of doing all the speaking himself, he allows them to give voice to their own excitement and enthusiasm. He reads the room.

It has been years and years since we've been treated to someone with this type of oratorical mastery. If anything, Obama’s eloquence starkly demonstrates just how far we have fallen in settling for poor speaking (in politics and business). We have somehow convinced ourselves that the only thing that matters is the work. It's the steak, not the sizzle, just the facts, Jack, style should never trump substance, and everything else is fluff. This is not and never has been true. People may not know how Barack Obama would do as president, but his ability to inspire forces us to consider the possibility.

Obama may be a “new” kind of candidate, but in fact, he epitomizes an old paradigm. Style does not trump substance; style is substance. We feel it, we thirst for it and we drink it up.

A big part of a leader's job is to motivate, inspire and persuade. We are all in the business of persuasion and thus, this presidential election season is an excellent time to observe and to learn about the amazing and transformational power of speech. No longer can it relegated to the category of “soft” skills. The fact is that if a person can speak very, very well, anything is possible.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High-Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT •

08:18 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment

Leadership: When My Fingers Do The Talking

I've noticed a funny phenomenon when I type: My fingers sometimes type out words that are spelled similarly or may even be derived from the word I intended, but are not. I notice other people also do this. It seems to happen automatically, such as when I want to type the word real and end up with really. Or just now, when I typed the word "type" in the last sentence, my fingers automatically put in the word "of" to follow. I had to go back and delete it. I don't know if it happens for some reason like I've got a million things going on in my head and I just automatically type the words and phrases that are most common, regardless of whether I intend them or not.

I have to be very careful about this because I've found I can get into some trouble. For example, I've typed the following sentences in emails:

Here's what we accomplished at the eternal meeting. (I meant external.)

That depends on his pubic speaking skills. (I meant public.)

In that case, Barack Obama would bean Hillary Clinton. (I meant beat -- hmmm, maybe not.)

She has a bit part in the presentation. (I meant big.)

And my favorite,

This technique will help to jog your member. (I meant memory -- ahem.)

Then, of course, there are the many, many words for which my fingers just seem to want to transpose or rearrange letters:

from becomes form
new becomes knew
favorite becomes favority (for some strange reason)
community becomes communicty

not to mention the numerous grammatical errors, especially:

your for you're

to for too

Sometimes I feel like I'm in third grade.

Does anyone know what this phenomenon is called? Has it happened to you? If so, please share some examples.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com

01:11 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Leadership: Ignorant Expertise

Last weekend I purchased a Panasonic DVD recorder. It came with the usual manual and quick-start setup guide. I’m not a techie, but I’m no slouch; I know how to follow directions. Well after 2 hours of following the instructions to the letter, I couldn’t make it work. There was a help-line phone number so I called and got instructions from the rep and within 15 minutes had the machine fully integrated with my other devices and working perfectly. So why weren’t the written and graphic instructions any good and why did they not reflect the setup sequence and connections the phone rep had in her hands?

Back in December, there was a fascinating article in the New York Times that discussed the issue of expertise and how the more expert we become, the harder it is to imagine not knowing what we do and the less we can imagine others not having the knowledge we have. I struggle with it constantly when I speak to or train new groups of people. I’ve been doing what I do so long and my knowledge is so deep, it’s hard for me to imagine they don’t already know it.

This kind of thinking is dangerous. When I have this mindset, I am at risk for leaving out important points, glossing over them or making them with less passion than I used to earlier in my career when the knowledge was newer and fresher. Fighting it requires a lot of discipline and self-coaching.

When such thinking dominates in the business world, we end up with an abundant use of jargon that no one understands but those who are saying it and the inability to explain complex concepts because the people doing the explaining are so close to their subjects. At its worst, such “ignorant expertise” chokes off innovation because those with the expert knowledge don’t allow others into their exclusive club.

And it goes much further. According to Chip Heath, co-author of “Made to Stick,” “People who design products are experts cursed by their knowledge, and they can’t imagine what it’s like to be as ignorant as the rest of us.” Heath goes on to explain how a gadget as common as a remote control became so complex:

“I HAVE a DVD remote control with 52 buttons on it, and every one of them is there because some engineer along the line knew how to use that button and believed I would want to use it, too.”

The NYT article describes an experiment that was done in 1990 where people were asked to tap out the rhythm of a familiar song and listeners were asked to name the song. The “tappers” were asked to predict what percentage of the time the listeners would get it right. They vastly overestimated the success rates and couldn’t understand why something that was so clear in their minds could not be heard by others.

There are solutions. One, mentioned above, is to be very disciplined. That, however, may not be enough as it is difficult to see ourselves as others see us. So, sometimes we need someone who is brought in specifically to look in from the outside, to act as an observer, a see-er. When I’m with my clients and they explain a concept to me, if I can’t understand it, it’s unlikely others will either. I’m the sounding board. They simplify and are more successful as a result.

Perhaps if the folks responsible for writing the manual and set-up guides for Panasonic had had someone looking in from the outside, someone whom they took through the steps they had written out, they would’ve discovered those instructions didn’t work and saved me and countless other customers hours of time and frustration.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High-Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com