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Words and phrases that make me go 'hmmm...', Part 2
I often hear phrases that jar with me or with which I take issue, e.g. “it depends on your audience”. A previous email looked at six such phrases, and today you've six more (two are brief ones you've seen in previous emails). They aren’t in any particular order.
“This Trendy New Thing is a great new way to convey stuff” (it could be Story Telling or Infographics or Word Clouds etc). True story: I once attended a three-hour evening class on infographics - I wanted to see if I could learn to love them, but I came away hating them even more. The lecturer showed loads of infographics that others had created to convey their stuff to their audiences… but how many infographics had the lecturer created to convey his stuff to us? Just one, and that was done ironically - as he clicked it onto the screen, he sported an ironic smile. Conclusion: if someone is trying to persuade you to use a Trendy New Thing, see if they use it themselves.
“If you use simple words, you lose nuance” No, it’s the other way round… simple words help nuance, and long words obscure nuance. The nuance is hidden amongst the long sentences and tough-to-read words, and I once saw a great example of this (cue another true story): I gave a Course to about eight economists, one of whom brought along a publicly issued report they’d done - and it was indecipherable.
Shocking - but what happened next was even more so... you see, over lunch I rewrote three of its paragraphs in simple language, and later that day showed it to them. They then argued with each other - did my rewrite correctly reflect the before version? The problem wasn’t with my rewrite – they all agreed on what it was trying to say. Rather, they couldn’t agree on what the publicly issued version was trying to say. Unbelievable... you couldn't script it. (Or in the style of their report: "The objective of script-creation transpired to be an unachievable target for you"...)
“It depends on the audience” When I suggest eschewing a visual – or ditching a graph for a table - people object: “Surely it depends on your audience”, they say. Often, people say this because they can’t think of a decent reason to object, so they resort to this ‘depends-on-audience’ pushback.
OK, granted, some stuff does depend on your audience, e.g. should you use jargon? Should you be bossy or subservient? Well, it depends on your audience. But this depends-on-audience chestnut is highly overplayed, for it preys on our differences. Instead, think of our similarities, for we have so much in common with each other. We all want clarity. An easy life.
So, deliver clarity. Imagine you’re trying to work out how to convey some numbers. Don’t agonise over the mistaken belief that ‘it depends on the audience’. Rather – and at the risk of stating the obvious – think about the different ways you could convey your numbers, then choose the way that works best.
Sometimes, the best way is obvious, e.g. if showing how many Olympic medals countries have won – or showing how sports teams are doing – do something called a ‘table’. If the numbers are over time and you wish to show trends, try (wait for it)… a ‘graph’. If the numbers are over time and you wish to show the outcome, try ‘words’ (“income is up 10% since 2022”).
(Notice that not once in that previous paragraph did I agonise about my audience. I simply assumed that whoever they are, they want an easy life.)
P.S. above, I said: “Choose the way that works best”. This begs the question: on what criteria do you decide which is best? See page 22 of my book.
"My boss tells me they prefer graphs" When people say this to me, I counter: "I don't count that as evidence... at least, not until you show me the table you gave your boss before they then said they prefer graphs". I bet the boss was given the most god-awful table... at which point the boss thinks: "HUH?!?".
The boss doesn't then tell the person to improve the table, for the boss surmises that, well, tables can't be improved... surely a table is a table, and that's it, no?
Instead, the boss thinks: "Hmm... what to do with those numbers? YES! I've an idea!! Do a graph!!!". The next day, the boss sees the table redone as a god-awful graph - and thinks: "huh?!" (but now in lower case, not upper case, for a bad graph seems slightly less offensive than a bad table).
The boss stares at the bad graph and thinks: "I've no idea what it means, but I'm happier - I must be a graph person".
No. All it proves is that people prefer dreadful graphs to dreadful tables. Which doesn't advance the thinking far. Instead, do a decent table and a decent graph, then see what people think.
Which sounds easy, but it isn't, for Excel encourages us to do dreadful graphs and tables. But that's a story for another day, so let's move to the next phrase that jars.
“We need to think about our objectives” Is there a project you hate? Want to ensure it goes nowhere whilst fooling others you support it? Simple… get people in a room and mention 'objectives'. You'll mire the project in never-ending navel-gazing. A previous email looked at this in detail.
“No point in doing good reports, no-one reads them anyway” It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy – you don’t do good reports, hence people don’t read them. If you do good reports, they will – and you look good too.
This last phrase stirred up a hornet's nest for me - it reminds me of all the garbage people spout to justify their beloved decks (reports written in PowerPoint). I've never included the garbage in an email update, and it's too voluminous to include here. I might shove it in a future email, plus I'd also do a brief kiss-and-tell on the worst decks I've seen over the years (kept anonymous, of course, to protect the guilty). It'll be a truly comic Chamber of Horrors... watch this space.
Til next month.
Jon
P.S. I often get emails that say: “Video clips… a great way to inspire, persuade, impress, sell, blah, blah – so commission us to do one for you today!”. I email back: “If video clips do all that - if they are that effective - why did your email try to persuade me with something called 'words' as opposed to using, say, a video clip...?”.
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