Booher BanterYour Resource for the best ideas to improve communications skills.

Bad grammar is like bad breath—even your best friends won’t tell you.

A reader recently wrote me:

“A member of my team really struggles with grammar when he verbally communicates.  What’s weird is his writing skills are okay.  Also, he talks in a monotone.  I’ve coached him on adding a little vocal variety when he gives presentations.  But I’m not sure how to approach him on the grammar issue without offending him.  Any suggestions?”

Karen

Just one more example that proves the point I’ve been making for the past two decades:  you’re on your own to correct deficiencies in grammar skills. 

Frankly, I don’t know why that’s the case.  It just is. This manager is right to have concerns about how to approach someone on a grammar issue without offending.  In our own consulting work with organizations in the area of business, technical, or proposal writing, we can point out to an author that her report seems disorganized, and she’ll agree.  We can point out that an email contains extraneous details, and the writer will delete the rambling prose.  We can explain to a sales professional that his proposal has no apparent strategy and needs one, and he’ll thank us! 

But tell an author that his document has grammatical errors throughout, and he blushes and stalks away as if you’ve just insulted his mother.

Some people tend to perceive their grammar as a very personal thing—almost like their hair style, clothes, or home décor.  Others feel threatened with a comment about their grammar because they view proper usage as a skill they should have learned along with their multiplication tables back in elementary school.

For the most part, through my consulting experience, I’ve discovered that people may feel either insulted, embarrassed, or overwhelmed—but rarely grateful—when you point out grammatical mistakes.

But that doesn’t lessen the need to do so.  Parents correct their children’s behavior every week—no matter how they feel about it.  They care enough to overlook the embarrassment. Their concern is for the child’s well-being, safety, or future success in life.  Friends take the same stand and risks when it comes to giving feedback to best friends.  Managers often do the same for those they mentor.

That said, Karen, if you’re still up for the task, here are a few suggestions for you and others who may be in similar situations:

1. Don’t expect gratitude.  You may even want to “test the waters” first.   Example:  “I’ve noticed a few things in your writing that I may be able to help you with—things that may be holding you back and may be creating a negative image.  If you’re interested and have a document ready to go out, I’d be happy to go over it with you.”
2. Point out that many very smart, competent people have difficulty with grammar, and that language and grammar can be very complex subjects.
3. Be prepared to state the applicable grammar rule.  Those who are weak in grammar will assume your corrections and explanations are a matter of “style” and “preference.”
4. Link proper grammar to clarity.

Another approach, of course, is to say nothing, but instead simply to correct the team member’s errors  and return the document to them so that they can see the marked edits. 

The goal would be for them to realize the need for help and ask for explanations about the changes or find other resources on their own.

If others of you readers have dealt successfully with a situation similar to Karen’s, please feel free to share how you handled the situation.

Posted at 1:04pm in General Communication, Grammar | Permalink | Add Comment » |

Couldn’t have said it better myself.   Although I’ve been paying the bills for almost three decades as a communication consultant and book author, John Baldoni, best-selling author of Leadership at Work, beat me to it in his review at Harvard Business Publishing.  He beautifully and briefly extolled the writing and shaping of the massive report recently released by IBM, months in the making. 

What does IBM teach us about interviewing hundreds of CEOs around the globe, collecting enough data to overflow a large landfill, and then analyzing and interpreting the information for a written report so that the average executive gains insights from it? 

You may want to adopt the same principles for your own important documents and presentations:

1. Have something important to say.
2. Organize your thoughts well.
3. Use your data points carefully.
4. Tell stories.
5. Write sparingly and well.

(For Baldoni’s full article, click here.)

Did this IBM report just fall into place?  Hardly.  You have only to look at the long list of credits on the publications to imagine the agonizing over which case stories to tell to exemplify which points in the Executive Summary,… the weariness about decisions regarding how much data to include and how much to omit, … the attention to layout for  skimming, … the hours of editing to find the precise, simple word. 

The final document is written with great attention and intention.  Both the result and the process serve as a model.

Posted at 11:50am in General Communication | Permalink | Add Comment » |

It’s odd that aggressive people never realize they’re being aggressive in their communication style.  Ask them, and they’ll tell you they’re just being “frank,” or “telling it like it is,” or “being realistic” or “telling the honest truth that everybody else was thinking.”

A quick definition:  assertive communication involves expressing yourself confidently while allowing others to express opposing views.  Aggressive communication refers to expressing yourself in a way that seeks to overpower or disallow any opposing views.

But I repeat:  Rarely does anybody ever consider themselves an aggressive communicator:  In fact, in meetings when things get heated, you hear disclaimers such as these:  “Well, I don’t mean to be argumentative, but …”  Then the speaker becomes argumentative, brusque, defensive, or offensive.

In reading one of my favorite publications, Communication Briefings, I ran across an article by Anne Warfield (http://www.impressionmanagement.com/):  “How to Be Assertive Without Being Aggressive.”   Ms. Warfield identifies some surefire ways to calibrate your own communication style when you have that sinking feel that maybe you are crossing that fine line between assertiveness and aggressiveness:

• Do listeners remain silent after your speak?
• Do listeners immediately start to argue with you?
• Do listeners square their shoulders or lift their chins when they respond to you?

If you answer yes to these three questions after you speak, you may be coming across more aggressively than you intend.

• Do listeners ask questions about what you said?
• Do listeners thoughtfully challenge what you said?

If you can answer yes to these last two questions after you speak, you probably have a genuinely assertive style.

Self-diagnose here and take it on the chin.  Better Anne Warfield to break the news than, say, your boss or a customer.

Posted at 10:55am in Communication—Interpersonal | Permalink | Add Comment » |

I just returned from speaking at the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) 60th Annual Conference and Exposition in Chicago. SHRM is the largest human resource management association in the world, and this year over 13,000 attended the conference! 

On the way to my mega-session, “10 Communication Strategies Every Leader Needs to Know,” I grabbed a copy of the SHRM Conference Daily. As fortune would have it, the newspaper reported the results of SHRM’s annual survey of employee satisfaction.  Guess what ranked number five on the list of reasons employees say they’re satisfied with their job?

You guessed it—open communication with their senior executives.

Communication makes the “top five” in many lists today:

• The most important ingredient in happy marriages.
• The most essential element in raising well-adjusted teens.
• The most vital skill in job-interviewing success.
• The greatest problem voiced by political parties in gaining support for their candidate.
• The most critical component of great customer service.
• The biggest challenge leaders experience in times of change and upheaval.
• The most frequent reason top talent joins a new team.
• The most frequent complaint employees cite as their reason for leaving an organization.

Communication may be the most important asset on your balance sheet. Nothing gets done until someone communicates an idea, a need, a problem, or a solution and then fosters open communication to develop a strategy and execute a plan.

Whether it’s writing or speaking, how well we communicate dictates how well we do business.

Posted at 11:19am in Communication—Interpersonal, General Communication | Permalink | Add Comment » |