Is honesty in communication important?
Well, think about how refreshing it was to hear Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens speak plainly when he said recent stock market turbulence was because ‘markets are dropping their bundle’.
The comment cut through the usual jargon about bulls, bears, corrections, commodities, liquidity and liabilities.
He explained a complicated concept in three simple words, and we all understood what he meant.
I recently came across two other entertaining examples of saying what you mean and meaning what you say (in advertising, of all places).
A gem of an ad for Krispy Kreme doughnuts begins with the large headline: ‘Doughnuts are bad for you’. It then lists a host of other things that are also bad for you like cream cakes, lie-ins, loud rock music, lack of exercise, germy gym towels, stress, life and living (because it kills everyone in the end)…
The punch line, of course, is about balance: ‘At Krispy Kreme, we think the key to life, by which we mean eating doughnuts, is balance. Sure, if you eat them morning, noon and night, and they are brought directly to your armchair, then that would bad. But then if you’ve never felt the pleasure of eating a delicious fluffy original glazed doughnut hot off the line and, heaven forbid, you get struck by lightning, well surely that would be bad. Really really bad’.
The second example is this quirky ad from the Tourism Tasmania ‘Go behind the scenery’ campaign featuring a photo of a ‘MISSING!’ poster.
Under the headline and Tassy’s distinctive silhouette, it reads: ‘Odd-shaped island not far from Melbourne. No collar (or tie—not very formal). Friendly and approachable. Answers to ‘mate’. Carrying seven new gold Qantas Australian Tourism Awards, nine silver and three bronze (keeps winning them). If found, please contact all the people who keep leaving it off maps of Australia. Then come visit—before everyone finds it’.
Both these ads tackle tricky issues head-on and with honesty and humour. It takes courage to do this but it creates effective and memorable communications.
There’s a lesson in that for other forms of written communication.
Business, corporate and government writing, and especially political spin, can fall into the trap of weasel words rather than honesty—and yes, there is a big difference between spin and professional communication.
Award-winning author, Don Watson doesn’t pull any punches about this in his latest book, Worst Words. He states that public language ‘inclines to pomposity and deceit’ and ‘is also evasive and dishonest in its essence; abstract, devoid of useful information and concrete examples, remote from human reality, filled not with detail but with hogwash’.
Ouch.
So why do we fall back on jargon and clichés?
- Sometimes it’s fear of being accountable for tangible outcomes—think ‘we seek to do x, y, z’ rather than ‘we do x, y, z’.’
- Sometimes we’re overly cautious, leading to so many lengthy qualifiers.
- We might succumb to osmosis, absorbing in-house buzz words and in-the-know detail.
- Or as Don Watson says of politicians and the relentless media cycle, we might need ‘new ways to say nothing gravely, or something that conceals something else’.
[tweet_box design=”default” float=”none”]Five simple steps to avoid writing hogwash[/tweet_box]
What can we do about it?
- Ask lots of ‘Why are we doing this?’ and ‘What do we want to happen as a result?’ questions.
- Ask lots of ‘What does that mean?’ questions.
- Distil the answers into clear, concise key messages targeted to your audience’s frame of reference.
- Be brave and use plain English.
- Layer your information, so readers can dig deeper if they want the explanatory detail.
And why does it matter?
- Here’s Don Watson again: ‘..as far as I know, no one has studied the effects on human beings of long-term daily exposure to jargon and clichés: but we may assume that a world whose language defies visualisation, and is stripped of all lyric, comic and descriptive possibility, is far from an ideal human environment and some kind of trauma may result’.
Thank goodness for doughnuts.
TOP TIP: Be honest…effective communication is about saying what you mean and meaning what you say.
| Cinden Lester has more than 25 years’ experience as a professional writer, editor and communications specialist. She worked as a broadcast journalist, in private sector marketing and public relations, and in government communications before establishing her own Canberra-based communications consultancy in 2000.
Contact Cinden if you’d like help with your communications. |
