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The casual era of business may soon be gone.

[Except, of course, for Silicon Valley.]

Suit jackets are the new ‘hoodie.’  Remote workers are being asked to spend at least one or two days in the office.  Face to face conversations are gradually replacing texting … and smartphone emails.

One thing that isn’t changing (and one we believe should change):  Overly formal, non-conversational, stiff writing.

How to recognize it?  It won’t sound like a real person.  It quietly screams ‘I’m self-conscious about what I say.”  And it relies on our favorite consultant-ese to communicate.  [Let’s vote out phrases and words like ‘best practices,’ ‘leverage,’ even ‘iconic.’  See our previous writings on those subjects.]

Understand, please:  We’re not advocating the loose lips kind of communication, where texting reigns and periods are invisible.  Or the type that insists on using abbreviations and emoji for delicate topics.  Buttoning up way-too-informal dialogue is okay by us.

What we are promoting is communication that is clear and reflects how people talk, write, and interact.  A narrative that tells a story, in language accessible to everyone.  A document that sells, yet sticks to the facts.  Video that is simple, compelling, and causes us to do or believe something. 

Seriously.  Is that harder than we think?

BUSY. BUSIER. BUSIEST.

As kids, we used to do the one-ups:  “Yah, my mom’s smarter and prettier than yours.”  The retort:   “Well, my mom has a Ph.D. and is a university professor.”

Things haven’t changed much in all those years.

These days, it’s all about being busy, a status symbol if ever we nailed one.  “I’ve got to fly to Jakarta, deliver a presentation, then work with a client in London.”  Or:  “The CEO asked me to work with him on a series of U.S. and Latin America site visits as well as filming those conversations for significant investors, turning it into a roadshow.”

Hard to beat, eh?  Problem is, it’s contagious, darned inefficient, and a barrier to real communications and effectiveness.  Because the “gotta be busy” syndrome stems from times of economic uncertainty, bosses who value hours above real thinking, and/or a psychological need to be important.

Sure.  The kinds of businesses we practice – from communications and design to marketing and branding – are filled with last-minute deadlines and client demands.  So it’s natural to bristle and state that you manage your schedules well, thank you very much.

Let us just point out one study.  At the Pentagon.  Some years back, they discovered that working hard wasn’t netting them the desired results.  The generals then mandated alternative work schedules and flex work policies.  Guess what?   Work quality improved; sharper thinking ensued.

So as masters of the [communications] universe, look around your shop, your office, your team.  Measure quality and productivity, along with sick days and goals.  Then tell us if Uncle Sam knows best.

EAVESDROPPING

Sometimes a mere conversation says it better than we do.  Here’s what we overheard one day in the coffee shop queue:

Barista:  “I wanted to let you know:  We won’t have any more of these tea bags in a few weeks.  Our warehouse is out.  Like, permanently out.”

Customer:  “Why?”

Barista:  “We’re changing to looseleaf tea.  Tea that will brew for a few minutes while customers wait.  And that will be interesting!”

Customer:  “Why is that?”

Barista:  “Because corporate hasn’t figured out yet that many of our shops attract buy and run customers, especially before work.  Customers here simply won’t wait five minutes for tea.”

Customer:  “I don’t understand … .  Isn’t tea the up and coming beverage?”

Barista:  “Yeah, I guess it is.  But we haven’t yet reached the trendy point, where customers, like in Asia, will stand on line for many minutes for a cuppa.  Don’t worry, we’ll change back to tea bags as soon as corporate sees the numbers!”

Sound like any of your clients or employers? 

GO DIRECT, YOUNG PROFESSIONALS!

There’s a corporate America practice that has us flummoxed. 

It usually doesn’t work 100 percent of the time for 100 percent of the people. 

It requires lots of preparation and cajoling. 

And it truly needs a major support system, bolstered in part by human resources, policies and procedures, and heavy-duty communications.

The culprit:  Cascading information from managers and supervisors to staff and teams.  Somehow, many times, information gets stuck in the middle.

Our solution?  Straight from a Forrester Research survey, revealing (no surprise) that 66 percent of consumers trust recommendations from people they care about, while only 18 percent trust brand information found on Facebook, Instagram, and the like. 

Instead of labeling it in the same league as the somewhat tarnished multi-level marketing, think of it as the friends and family kind of swap, using employees to ‘sell’ to other employees (in this case, to exchange data and info).  Online and social media make it incredibly easy to sell to those you know; internally, most companies host communities and affinity groups on their intranets, encouraging conversations and collaboration.  And if we plot out a well-defined influencer network and map, so much the better.

[Yes, we know the downsides:  That kind of freedom makes brand and corporate messages so much harder to control.  And timing would be, to an extent, loosey-goosey.]

Yet the power and meaningfulness of direct connections overcomes, to us, any objections.  Your take, dear readers?

WHAT HARVARD LEARNED FROM US

As communicators, we feel vindicated.  Big time.

In a summer 2014 issue of Fast Company, no less an intellectual celebrity than the current president of Harvard, historian Drew Gilpin Faust, admitted she was bewildered and challenged by communicating messages in a large organization.  Her solution?  Say them again and again and again.

We wonder, though, if the good Doctor truly embraced the concept of different repetitions.  Training gurus will tell you to communicate the same thing six different ways – through pictures, spoken and written word, demonstrations, teaching, and activities, for example – for stickiness.  Plus they’ll also point out the difference between learning and mastering repetition.  Think of a nascent marathoner who’s figuring out, with help, the right ways to run.  That’s the learning part of the equation.  Then contrast that with a seasoned miler who’s perfecting his/her technique to win that race.  Voila:  Mastery!

With us, though, the issue with repetition is boredom.  It’s an imperative of our and any business that, with new information, strategies, benefits, changes, we better understand it in order to spread the messages.  Invariably, though, we get fatigued, tired of the same-old, same-old and yearn for the novel.  So we quit, perhaps earlier than the sixth iteration.

The same thing sometimes occurs with our advertising brethren.  The client or the agency or whomever decides that ‘enough is enough’ and shifts the campaign, even though it might just have started to work.  Even though not enough eyes and ears have been exposed.  And so on+.

Guess we’re becoming Walt Whitman:  “Do I repeat myself?  Very well then, I repeat myself.”