Booher BanterBusiness Communication Consultant

While delivering a seminar earlier this month, I overheard this conversation unfold between two managers in the front row: 

"I can’t put off the decision any longer—I have to give the president an answer tomorrow about taking over the operations in Germany."
"I don’t know why you’d turn it down!  It would be a great experience for your kids. Only two years there. Then you’d come back here and have any job you wanted for the next twenty years."
"Maybe. It’d be great if it were just my wife and me. But I’d have to move our two youngest kids, my mother-in-law, and our granddaughter."
"The company wants you there, right?  Did they give you a choice?"
"I think so—I mean, I think I have a choice.  I guess that’s what I’ll try to determine in the meeting tomorrow.  The president did ask me if I wanted the job."
"They don’t ask. If you don’t take this assignment, it’ll be your last shot at the executive suite."

The manager with the pending meeting pondered his predicament:  What had the president meant?  Take it or leave it?  Or, take it and love it?

A little later in the seminar when our discussion turned to email, a participant brought up another example of mixed messages in the incoming email on her laptop. The opening paragraph of the email addressed to committee members read like this:  "You are cordially requested to be a member of the Goals and Planning Committee for the coming year.  As a member of this committee, you will need to attend a two-day meeting at the Houstonian on October 15-16.  If you have a serious schedule conflict and cannot serve, please contact me immediately so that a replacement can be found."    Which is it—a request or a command?   "You are cordially requested" implies a choice.  "If you have a serious schedule conflict" implies that she’d better come up with a good excuse for not showing up.

Our email in-boxes, management presentations, and television airwaves deliver such confusion daily.  Mixed messages make great fodder for lawyers, politicians, and comedians.  But if you want your messages to be understood in the marketplace, always shoot straight with your audience.

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Posted at 8:01am in General Communication | Permalink | Add Comment » |

I leave this afternoon (Friday) on a trip to Washington, DC, to deliver six speeches in four days at the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) Academy and the SHRM 2006 Annual Conference and Exposition.  If you plan to attend these SHRM events Saturday-Tuesday, please try to drop by one of my sessions and say hello. This link displays the SHRM Conference schedule.

My goal this week is to provide valuable, proven communication principles to the Human Resource professionals so they can go back to their corporate offices and literally revolutionize their individual industries.  I’ve often said that communication is the basic business act.  Nothing gets done until someone communicates a need, an idea, solution, a strategy, or a directive.  How well we communicate dictates how well we do business.   

After my last session at SHRM on Tuesday, I’m off to the Big Apple to meet with publishers on new projects.

Thank you for reading Booher Banter, and feel free to send me a comment on a communication issue you’re facing.  I’ll include a helpful communication tip to address your need in a future post.

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Posted at 10:05am in General Communication | Permalink | Add Comment » |

Do you work for someone else?  Unless you’re self-employed, getting along with your boss is a daily consideration.  Here are three pet peeves that surface often in my discussions with executives—issues that separate the star performers from those who will be passed over for promotion once again.

1)  Rambling, pointless emails:
Get to the point.  That’s the first complaint we receive from managers in our communication classes: "My staff takes too long to get to the point—they send four-paragraph emails when a couple of sentences would do."  Bosses are not cleaning out their in-boxes for sheer entertainment value.   Don’t let your email generate a "So what?" response.  Make sure you state a clear next action—either what you plan to do next or what you want the boss to do next.

2)  Non-actionable tirades:
Don’t bring a problem and dump it at the boss’s door as if to say, “There!  I’ve done MY part!” If you’re the person most familiar with the problem and with the most information available, offer something actionable that will move the staff closer to a solution. If you’re the one battling in the trenches, what’s your recommendation to others who can help?

3)  Technical jargon:
Remember that most managers are generalists, not specialists.  Don’t get so absorbed in your specialized world that you can’t communicate in layperson’s terms.  The most important part of your technical job is being able to "translate" what you’re doing and what you’ve accomplished so that bosses can make intelligent decisions based on your facts, data, opinions, and ideas.

In summary: Use short, actionable emails, be part of the solution, and communicate clearly across departmental lines.  Make these three characteristics regular work habits, and you’ll stand out from your less-polished peers.

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Posted at 2:19pm in Uncategorized | Permalink | Add Comment » |

The great philosopher Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot just by watching." If I could paraphrase Yogi’s quote and apply it to current events, it would go like this: “You can hear a lot just by listening.”

If there were any doubters of that truism, all they had to do was flip through the TV channels the morning after the news broke about the bombings that killed Al-Zarqawi in Iraq.  Each network anchor had a different spin on the story, filtered through their own biases or that of their producers and writers.  Some of the comments heard the morning after:

"It’s a great victory for the U.S. this morning."

"His death will have little real effect on the war in Iraq."

"I think we’ll begin to see things improve substantially now in Iraq." 

"His death will certainly boost Bush’s ratings at home." 

"But we need to do a reality check on how little his death will really affect Bush’s ratings here at home." 

"It’s only a psychological victory." 

"It’s a great symbolic victory." 

"Al-Zarquawi was the most recognizable terrorist name in Iraq." 

"Al-Zarquawi was nothing more than a street thug who knew how to use the media—others behind the scenes control the real power."

Biases and emotions have a way of working their way to the surface of most every conversation.  If you want an intriguing pasttime while waiting in line at the airport or grocery store, try decoding people’s language to see what you can learn about their underlying assumptions and belief system.  Have you heard examples of your own around your workplace?

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Posted at 12:35pm in General Communication | Permalink | Add Comment » |

The Success and Training Network (TSTN) launched the first-of-a-kind satellite TV network this week to bring you 24-hour programming from some of the most popular thought leaders in the country:  Tom Peters, Brian Tracy, Denis Waitley, Zig Ziglar, Connie Podesta, John Gray.  You can find up-to-the minute information on a wide variety of topics, …get a motivational shove to take that step in your entrepreneurial venture, …learn a new skill, … develop a new investment strategy, …or pick up a few tips for balancing work and family.

I’m pleased to be part of the faculty on this exciting new venture.  So consider this your personal invitation to join me for my weekly program called Communicate with Confidence®.  Click here for the daily programming schedule and the exact time in your part of the country.   Hope to have you watching!  And feel free to email me your communication challenges and issues—I’ll plan to address them in an upcoming show!

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Posted at 4:02pm in Uncategorized | Permalink | Add Comment » |