A few months ago I was with a client at the Disney Institute. It was a very interesting visit. One of the neat things was when they stopped calling the people taking tickets at the gates “ticket takers” and started calling them “park greeters” their demeanor changed. They were now greeting people. Pretty cool.

Madison Avenue does this too. “New and Improved” – really? How do we know? They added some blue crystals perhaps but it sure sounds good.

And now our government will no longer use the term “global war on terror.” Hmm. There were critics, at home and abroad, that said the term sounded too militaristic. Well, yeah, haven’t we sent several hundred thousand people overseas to “fight,” I mean adjudicate or arbitrate the “discussion on terror?”

While I wish the Disney experience would be true for our service members, the truth is we are sending more troops to Afghanistan. I can only hope the Taliban and Osama get the word that we are no longer waging war on them.

What does this have to do with your business life? A lot, actually. People are not stupid. People don’t like to be lied to. People can see the truth even if you don’t speak it. Call it like you see it, don’t sugar coat it. If you do make a change, talk about the change. I know politics isn’t the real world so let’s forget that. You are in the real world with real people and the want real and candid answers.

I talked with a Credit Union CEO today about a wave of layoffs that they are about to make. He asked the right way to do it. I replied that there is no right way but there are a bunch of wrong ways. We then talked about some strategies for him to use and the first was about clarity and quality of communication.

In just about any endeavor, personal or professional, with clear and accurate communication you can rarely go wrong.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.