MANAGEMENT
He who talks more is exhausted sooner. The light, sound and fury show is constrained by time. It has to end. It cannot last forever. Even Shakespeare, no business manager was he, recognised in Richard III where he said, ‘talkers are no doers.’
Corporate rhetoric and corporate reality are always distanced. The two are rarely in step. On examination of several mission/ vision statements of corporates that adorn the Board Rooms, the corridors and the printed profiles, it gets easy to understand why reality lies far away from the deception of rhetoric. Those institutions that focus on real image than a self-perceived one, achieve operational excellence. Playing on the sensitivities of others that include individuals and markets, may possibly in the short term, classify that institution as being clever and smart but if such organisations know for themselves of the ploy being untrue they emerge out as ‘enlightened institutions’. We read; we hear and are told of clichés like ‘world class’, ;best in class’, ‘best fighter pilots’, ‘Total Quality Management’, ‘Personalized Service’, ‘commitment’, ‘gratitude towards clients’ etc. all such appellations to marketing and image material are absolutely hollow and devoid of truth if these are not backed by a strong conviction to execute what is being promised.
Organizations that invest heavily into R&D with a singular objective of finding better ways to do the same or given job are most likely to live up to a claimed reputation. This process, the Japanese refer to as ‘Kaizen’. The assumption to such approach is based on a belief that no product or service is good enough. So the quest to redesign, retool, rethink a process or a service is genuine. Such achievements take place through analysis and support of TQM programmes.
Slogans that may pervade an institution like, ‘we offer life time employment’, ‘we are an equal opportunity employer’ or even better ‘nobody ever leaves us’, usually are meant for cheap thrills in playing at the gallery. While this being the rhetoric, such organisations sack employees at all, at the drop of the hat, if the results are any less, they would rush first to jettison the human resources. Our core value and culture is that we are a family organisation- all constituents are members of one large, big family. This lip service is as old as human deception. While this is being proclaimed, in reality the organisation would have an environment where every single individual distrusts the other and is ever ready to back stab at any given opportunity. Family culture- which family?
The sound and fury effect doesn’t long last. It expires within a short span of time. Look at the acknowledgement notes at the end of the chairman’s report in annual statements- high sounding phrases, of gratitude to their respective regulators, ministries, their indebtedness for ‘the guidance received “ etc. are run of the mill, overused clichés, the writer does not mean a word of it and luckily the readers too know well their hollowness, and are not susceptible to be fooled; it is the recipient of such accolades who may want to fool himself and his institution for a feel good factor!
Should corporate communication therefore be used to deceive employees and the world at large? Should success here be counted as the yardstick of corporate talk? Like in today’s world of breaking news era in the field of media, the corporate propaganda also spreads like the bush fire of Andes. Hollow and meaningless, yet they acquire popular acceptability only to get badly exposed over a period of time.
Continuous deception in corporate talk leads to declining morale, loss of credibility and leads towards an overarching aching decline of the organisation. To undo any institution, the management has to do nothing except double speak- nothing is more corrosive in the shortest time to erode the foundations of an institution than the lack of integrity; especially towards its own values and self-righteous slogans and statements.
Again read annual reports, we believe in highest quality of client service; ‘all calls made to our institution are answered before the third ring’ etc. hardly ever is this true! Clients are given the roughest ride and the calls are never picked up. ‘Our employees are our strength is also a popular corporate propaganda if it be true it would bode well to check it out with an anonymous and blind employee engagement survey. The truth that may emanate will most likely shake the corridors of the organisation and the foundation of the Board Room.
In his book, ‘The incredible boss’, David Freemantle quotes from what he gathered from an employee of a well-known institution but where corporate communications was laced with hopes that stood irrevocably divorced from reality. “….I was impressed with the company before I joined. It all sounded very positive. When they offered me a job they made three promises. Those were I would receive excellent training, that there would be regular salary review and that there were superb career prospects. That was fifteen months ago. I haven’t received a single day’s training, my salary is still the same and nobody has talked to me about my career let alone my progress in the job.” What dichotomy and what double speak? It is the low quality managers who thrive upon it.
Not far back, the HR manager of the place I worked at, refused to call a meeting of young officers at my behest, stating that we have not delivered upon what we committed to in the last meeting! I was impressed. I did not insist upon the meeting but instead set about to deliver upon the organization’s words- commitment.
‘The unluckiest insolvent in the world is the man, whose expenditure of speech is too great for his income of idea(s) - Christopher Morley. Belief in principles and convictions must lead to being believable to others; there is great need of credibility which in turn demands truthfulness.
Some corporate talk is necessary, but it should not be too far away from reality- don’t create credibility gap. It is necessary to the happiness of a man that he be mentally faithful to himself (Thomas Paine). ‘Go put your creed into the deed, nor speak with double tongue.’ (Emerson)
To prove that learned people can also be fooled by important sounding nonsense, a professor of marketing psychology trained an actor to deliver a supposedly scientific lecture to an audience of psychiatrists, psychologists, educators and administrators. In actuality the speech was a 100% double talk, meaningless words, jargons, acronyms, false logic, contradictory statements, irrelevant humor and meaningless reference to unrelated topics. Wrote the NY times later that polled after the talk, members of the audience rated it as, ‘clear and stimulating.’ As Benjamin Franklin wrote once, ’the learned fool writes his nonsense in better language than the unlearned, but still its non-sense.
Never fail to envy the dumb people after your speech!
The writer is a senior banker and freelance columnist
