The Art of Spoken Communications

Reading an article in the New York Times the other day, I was struck by a problem I see all the time in business (and in life in general): our difficulty communicating clearly with others. The article was about an American baseball manager who’s training the Chinese Olympic baseball team. The story certainly applies to solutions providers.  Here’s why.

The manager tells the team:

“If you hit it here,”… acting as if he were hitting a ball after it passed his body, “you drive a Chevy. If you hit it here,” he said, pretending to hit the ball as it crossed the middle of the plate, “you drive a Cadillac. But if you hit it here,” he said, pretending to connect a smidgen earlier, “you’re in a Rolls-Royce with a chauffeur! Get it? That’s how much money they have. They don’t count it, they weigh it!”

They had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Despite the interpreter.

The article reminded me of two other communications-gap stories. One was another language/culture problem, the other just corporate comedy. In the first example, a respected publisher of one of the largest electronics newspaper in the United States was addressing a group of Japanese executives. He told them an anecdote about the U.S. semiconductor market and ended it by saying, “…but what do I know?” The audience was puzzled. If he didn’t know the electronics market, why was he addressing them? His intention was to be humble and self-deprecating. But it came across as awkward ignorance.

In my favorite example, a former employer of mine brought in a new senior executive to “fix” what was wrong with our corporate sales effort. This fella came into a meeting with a half dozen senior VPs heading our various business units. He was toting a well-worn copy of a magazine he had been publisher of….a decade-and-a-half earlier. He plopped it down on the table and it landed with a thud that made the room shake. His message: he knows a thing or two about selling advertising. What we heard: as long as we’re selling it 15 years ago!

And then his well rehearsed speech began. “There are three kinds of people in the world,” he started, with great import and seriousness. I looked out of my peripheral vision to see one of my colleagues in the room starting to stifle a laugh.

“There are people who watch things happen.” Now where is he going with this? He seems like he knows what the next line is, so I’ll be patient.

“Then there are people who make things happen. “ Ah, that must be himself he’s talking about.

“And there are people who say, ‘What just happened?’ ” Wow! Where did those lines come from? There was no Google at the time so I just had to sit and wonder. This is my boss’s new boss talking! C’mon, there must be a hidden camera in this room. This is a joke, right?

We then went around the room introducing ourselves to this brilliant executive. I took my turn and then my boss said, “What just happened?” I had to excuse myself briefly from the room.

Entrepreneurs take note: Whether you are talking to a group of people from another country or another company, or in the case of “What-just-happened-man” perhaps people from another planet, you had best have some insight into what those people are thinking, believing and needing to hear at that moment. You better have some emotional intelligence to get your message across, or you will be laughed out of the room.

Contributing blogger Mitch York is a personal friend of The VAR Guy. York coaches executives who are evolving into entrepreneurs. Find York — and his personal blog — at www.e2ecoaching.com.