Don't be a Victim of the Buzzword Bingo movement

 

"We are determined to promote constant attention on current procedures of transacting business focusing emphasis on innovative ways to better, if not supercede, the expectations of quality!"

- Actual closing paragraph of a nationally circulated memo by Lucent Technologies

"The clichés of a culture sometimes tell the deepest truths."

- Faith Popcorn

Do your employees seem to be paying more attention lately to what you are saying in meetings? Are announcements from top management getting more careful scrutiny than they used to?

You may have, overnight, become a more dynamic speaker and your employees may have awakened to your greatness. The more likely reason for their new found enthusiasm in your monologuing abilities is that they are probably just playing "buzzword bingo". The good news is that you can use this latest business game to your advantage.

The game is played like regular bingo except that instead of numbers in the squares there are random business buzzwords: paradigm; bottom line; optimization; Total Quality Management; reengineering; out of the box; etc.

Before the speech is made or the announcement is published, the employees discreetly print up buzzword bingo cards (they are available online at numerous sites) and hand them out. As each buzzword is used in the speech (or meeting) they check off that square. Up, down or diagonal wins, just as in regular bingo. And since it would be too obvious to shout "BINGO", the winner coughs discretely or gives some other innocuous sign to signal his or her victory.

So how do you take this reborn game fad and turn it to your advantage? How can buzzword bingo make you a better manager? By helping you communicate better with your employees, that's how.

Don't hide your message behind the ambiguity of buzzwords. (I defy anyone to define "paradigm" without looking it up.) Say what you want to say in plain, direct English (or in whatever language your company conducts business).  I've always considered using whatever prevailing buzzword is de rigeur at the moment as a symptom of mental laziness, or, in some cases, a symptom of unoriginal thinking.  Their use is therefore an expedient method to hide behind.

Take your next speech, email, or policy statement. Generate a buzzword bingo card yourself from one of the sites. Review your message against the buzzword list. How quickly would someone have "won"?

Now go back and edit that speech, etc. and take out the buzzwords. Replace them with direct messages. You’ll be surprized at how quickly your people do start paying attention to what you are saying - for the sake of the message and not for the sake of winning at "bingo".

If you have any suggestions or topics you'd like to see covered, or if you'd like help with an issue you're currently experiencing, please drop me a line at gbossinakis@live.com. 
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Life Cycle of the North American employee

"A leader's job is to make the strengths of the people who serve under him as effective as possible and their weaknesses irrelevant.  And this applies to you as much as it applies to those of us who are your bosses"

- Lt. Colonel Antoine Fasching, U.N.I.S.R.

"Men and women want to do a good job, and if they are provided the proper environment, they will do so."

- William Hewlett

I was once sitting in the office of a colleague of mine who was an HR professional, and  saw a chart of a 9 step Employee Life Cycle on the wall to her left. I remember asking her at the time why would HR require a tool that detailed for nothing more than formalizing a process that would appear prima facie to be intuitive to most people, especially those of us in a Management role.  Now, HR departments fill a much needed role in the corporate environment. They can make sure we get appropriate job descriptions written and posted to the company or relevant websites. They can use their understanding of our company culture to identify applicants who might fit better. They can research salary trends, benefit programs, and competitors' hiring practices. They guide us through the legalities and they produce the reports of staff levels versus budget, of turnover rates, and of employee morale. And because, like Accounting, they are a support function we need to treat them as such. It is our job as management, not theirs, to find, hire, motivate, lead, and retain the best talent.

All that being said, how does a 9, 10 or even 12 step chart detailing a typical employee's career cycle aid us in our roles?  Maybe Human Resources professionals need that much detail, but I believe that functional managers don't.

An employee life cycle is the steps the employees go through from the time they enter a company until they leave. Often Human Resources professionals focus their attention on the steps in this process in hopes of making an impact on the company's bottom line. That is a good thing for them to do. Their goal is to reduce the company's cost per employee hired.   Unfortunately, they aren't the ones who really make a difference – managers are.

In most people's minds, they don't really work for companies; they work for a boss. To the extent that you can be a good boss, you can keep employees, keep them happy, and reduce the costs associated with employee turnover. In the process, you will make your own job easier and increase your value to the company.

Employees are one of a company's largest expenses these days Unlike other major capital costs (buildings, machinery, technology, etc.) human capital is highly volatile. As managers, we are in a key position to reduce that volatility by understanding and implementing a condensed employee life cycle of Hire, Inspire, Admire, Retire.

HIRE

This first step is probably the most important. It is important to hire the best people you can find. This is not a time to be cheap. The cost of replacing a bad hire far exceeds the marginal additional cost of hiring the best person in the first place.

• Hire talent, not just skills. Skills can be taught to a talented employee. A skilled employee cannot be given talent.
• Improve your interviewing skills. Often this can be as simple as knowing what questions to ask during the hiring process.
• Make your company a place people want to come to and work for. Company culture can be a powerful recruiting tool. Make sure yours reflects the goals the company wants to achieve. 

INSPIRE

Once you have recruited the best employees to come to work on your team, the hard part begins. You have to inspire them to perform to the maximum of their abilities and capabilities. You have to challenge and motivate them. That is where you will get their best effort and their creativity that will help your organization excel.

• Make them welcome. Make them feel like part of the team from the first day.
• Set goals for them that are hard, but can be achieved. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals. Encourage them.  Support them.  Communicate with them (this is a 2 way street.  Don't get caught monologuing to them).  Only mushrooms and fungi flourish in the dark.
• Be a leader, not just a manager.

ADMIRE

Once you have hired the best employees and have challenged and motivated them, you cannot relax. The biggest mistake I have seen many managers make is to ignore employees. The same attention you paid to their work assignments, to their satisfaction levels, to their sense of being part of a great team needs to continue for as long as they are in your group. As soon as you start to slack off, their satisfaction and motivation decreases. If you don't do something, they will become disenchanted and will leave. They will become part of the "employee turnover" statistic you were trying to avoid.

• You want TGIM (thank goodness it's Monday) employees not TGIF (thank goodness it's Friday) ones. 
• Give them positive feedback as much as you can, even if it's just a good word.
• Provide appropriate rewards and recognition for jobs done well.
• Maintain your integrity and always conduct yourself honorably.  An employee may not always agree with your decisions (and will probably never let you know about it in any case), but if they believe you to be fair, you will have their respect.
• Create referral programs and reward your employees for referring other employee candidates "who are just as great as you".

RETIRE

This is when you know you have been successful. When employees see your company as the employer of choice, they will join you. When they recognize you as a good boss and a real leader, they will stay around through the bad times. As long as you continue to inspire, motivate, and challenge them, they will continue to contribute at the high levels you need in order to beat your competition. They will be long-term employees; even staying with you and your company until they retire. They will refer other quality employees to your company, including their relatives. You will attract and retain second and even third generation employees. Along the way, you will have had some of the most creative employees, some of the most productive employees, and the lowest employee costs in your market. You will be able to spend the money you save in this way on other key competitive elements, including raises and bonuses for all employees – even yourself.

If you have any suggestions or topics you'd like to see covered, or if you'd like help with an issue you're currently experiencing, please drop me a line at gbossinakis@live.com. 
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Public Speaking

"Public speaking is the art of diluting a two-minute idea with a two-hour vocabulary."

- Evan Esar

"You can speak well if your tongue can deliver the message of your heart."

- John Ford

"Grasp the subject, the words will follow."

- Cato The Elder

When we're planning on how to get a point across to a group of people we will be addressing, we often think long and hard about what we want to say. We draft our speech by listing the key talking points, intersperse it with a humour we hope will bring a little levity, and sum it up with what (we also hope) will be a memorable finish.  I admit that I have done exactly this many times, and only after listening to enough speeches and presentations do I look back and realize that such a course of action was the wrong way to go about it. Instead of focusing on what I wanted to say in order to get my point across, I should have focused instead on what I wanted the other person to hear.

Countless books and articles have been written that explain why sending the right message is so important and teaching you how to send exactly the message you want to send. Their authors stress the importance of being concise, precise, and specific in choosing your words, regardless of whether you write them or speak them. They tell you that this is the best way to get your point across to your audience.

But do we ever stop for a minute and consider who our audience is going to be?

The secret is knowing that what we want to say, and what words or sentences we want to use, are unimportant.  The only thing that is important is our audience.  It  is our audience who will decide what we are going to say and how we are going to say it. Explaining the value of a new telephone system is different if you are speaking to the finance department than if you are addressing the telesales staff. The better you know your audience the easier it is for you to tailor your message to them. And the more your message is tailored to your audience the more likely it is that you will get your point across.

Though it might seem obvious once explained in these terms, it is not so obvious a thing when we are preparing;  at least, it is not so easy to bear in mind. While the message you send is important, the message the receiver hears is even more important. If you know your audience you usually have an idea of how they will interpret or filter what you say. You can use this to your advantage to make sure they receive the message you are trying to send.

We all know, for instance, that if we are addressing a group of first-graders we can't use "big words" because they won't "get it". They won't understand our message, or any nuance of language we use. So we choose words they will comprehend. Rather than using "big words" that convey the message we want to send, we use words we think they will understand. That way they will hear our message and understand what we want them to.

I am not suggesting that we speak to, or consider the intelligence of, any group of people as being that of elementary school children.  However, I would suggest that as the speakers who will have the attention of any group, we should be tailoring the message so that it is relevant and easily understood from their perspective, in terms that readily grasped from the position of their duties and tasks. 

We should not be trying to explain, for example, technology concepts to accountants using technical terms. Or using a financial analogy to get a point across to the Creative Department. If you want your service department to handle more calls per day, tell them that. Don't tell them they need to "reduce the time interval between customer-interface opportunities in order to better leverage company resources with the aim of improving the overall satisfaction metrics" 

To increase your chances of getting your point across, focus more on the receiver than on the sender. Tailor your message to your audience to improve their comprehension. Don't worry so much about what you want to say as about what you want them to hear and understand.

If you have any suggestions or topics you'd like to see covered, or if you'd like help with an issue you're currently experiencing, please drop me a line at gbossinakis@live.com. 
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