Richard Dawkins & the Power of Analogy

Anyone regularly charged with communicating new or complex information, either via presentation or the written word, will know how difficult it can be to pitch it at just the right level for the intended audience. Pitch it too high and people won’t understand, pitch it too low and they’ll feel patronised.

For a good example of just how to pull this off, try reading The God Delusion, British scientist Richard Dawkins‘ superb critique of religion. Dawkins broaches daunting topics such as quantum theory and the anthropic principle but presents them in a way that is understandable to the layman without ‘dumbing down’. He does this via a fluid, seemingly effortless writing style, plenty of personal anecdotes, some often hilarious witticisms, and best of all, plenty of well-chosen analogies.

Analogy is an essential tool in the communicator’s arsenal, and Dawkins is a master. In attempting to convey just how much science has expanded human consciousness after centuries of religious repression, he uses the image of ‘the mother of all burkas’, a giant black cloak which for thousands of years had only allowed humankind to see the world through a small slit. Over the last few centuries, science has gradually widened that slit, allowing us to understand more about the world and the universe in which we live. And he hopes that, one day, we may metaphorically (or, in the case of those unfortunates forced to wear real burkas, literally) cast off the offending garment and have a full 360-degree view of our universe.

I regularly do presentations on the topic of Customer Retention (in order to set up the context for CRM software demos), and tend to use the ‘leaky bucket’ analogy to convey its importance. When you have a leaky bucket, there are two ways to deal with it – either you keep going back to the tap and filling it up with fresh water, or you simply patch up the hole. Just as companies can either keep looking for new business, or look after the business they already have. No prizes for guessing which alternative is cheaper.

Using an image such as the big burka or the leaky bucket simplifies complex topics, grabs people’s attention, and is more memorable than simply stating the facts as they are, especially when you’re communicating with speakers of other languages. So next time you’re called on to present a complex topic, try and come up with some good analogies – it’s fun for you, and fun (and a lot easier) for your audience!

Ill Communication

Communication is a skill not possessed by all. For those who struggle to communicate clearly and persuasively, there are fortunately numerous courses, seminars and conferences available to help. However, I wouldn’t recommend the following event, to which I was invited last month. Here is the invitation email in full:

Corporate Communication Conference
“Becoming a crisis prepared, zero communication barrier, and positively reputated organisation”

1st & 2nd October 2007

Crowne Plaza Galleria Manila, Philippines

Dear Mr Tim Russell

Effective communication internally and externally can generate many business opportunities and avoid being caught unprepared during times of crisis. Preparedness is also crucial for your organisation to direct or shift strategies at the same speed at which external events are occurring.

This Corporate Communication Conference will address the main concerns and discuss on the latest issues pertaining Corporate Communications. You will hear successful communicators sharing their experiences on setting up, implementing, and accessing an effective team. Listen to what they have to say on how to deal with the media in both Philippines and other countries in the region. Gain productive benefits on managing crisis and using technology to facilitate communications for your organization.

Key Benefits that you will gain by attending this conference:

1)       Measuring and assessing the performance of Corporate Communications

2)       Increasing stakeholder’s confidence by enhancing the effectiveness of your Corporate Communication strategies

3)       Getting prepared for a crisis and developing an effective Crisis Communication Plan to counter it

4)       Elevating the transparency of your organization by understanding the role that Corporate Communications plays in Corporate Governance

5)       Capturing the media’s attention and successfully maintaining good rapport with them

Where do I begin? With their creative coining of the word ‘reputated’? The unfathomable phrase ‘accessing an effective team’ (‘access’, like ‘leverage’, frequently and incorrectly used as a verb)? The almost metaphysical concept of ‘Elevating the transparency of your organisation’? The numerous grammatical mistakes, which indicate that the company organising the event can’t even afford a proofreader?

I could mention all of these but instead I will merely focus on the fact that a company organising a conference about corporate communication can’t even put together a coherent email explaining the content and purpose of the event, and on the damage to a company’s image that can be done by bad communication such as this.

I organise 2-3 events per month and know full well the importance of clearly communicating the content and purpose of each one. If the agenda isn’t clear, people will not register. Or maybe they’ll think they’re going to get something different, register, and then complain when the event fails to meet their expectations. Either way, my company’s reputation suffers. We would become, as the author of the above email might say, negatively reputated.

I haven’t named the perpetrators of the above assault on the English language but I did reply to them personally suggesting that, if they want to teach businesses how to communicate, they should teach themselves first. I have yet to receive a reply.

Leverage is NOT a Verb!

Modern business-speak takes many diabolical liberties with the English language, but the Stateside ubiquity of ‘leverage’ used not as a noun but as a verb, really takes the cake.

Why use the noun form as a verb when there already exists a perfectly good root verb, i.e. lever? Would you say “I can’t imagination why he did it”? “This article confusions me”? “There is water seepaging through the wall”? No. But “to leverage” seems to have become acceptable parlance, without anyone seeming to be sure what it means.

In this excellent article, linguist Martin Edwardes looks at the root of the word and its usage in business, and concludes that it’s basically a ‘portmanteau’ word – “Just as whatsit can be used in place of any other concrete noun, so leverage can be used in place of almost any activity verb. This, of course, can lead to confusion (as is the case for whatsit): if an organisation is “leveraging a project” we cannot know, without other defining reference, whether they are starting it, ending it, or performing some intermediate process. But, at the same time, this obfuscatory aspect of the verb is an important part of its function and meaning.”

Edwardes hits the nail on the head here. People who talk about ‘leveraging’ things are usually trying to be obscure – either because they don’t want you to know what they mean, or because they haven’t got a clue themselves. Edwardes concludes that “It is one of the useful little white lies that allow the business world to keep turning.”

Thus, for people who wish to communicate in a clear, unambiguous, straightforward manner, ‘leverage’ should not be used as a verb. Ever. And really, unless you work for a company selling levers, it’s hard to imagine you using it as a noun that often either.

All of this is why I’ve chosen ‘leverage’ to appear in the title of a blog about clear business communication, its use as a verb being symbolic of the obfuscation, dissembling and cleverly disguised cluelessness that passes for much corporate speak these days. The point of my writings being to expose this sort of nonsense, and to help you communicate more clearly, particularly, as I do, when working in environments where your colleagues, suppliers or customers are not native English speakers.

I would be grateful to receive any examples of particularly cringeworthy uses of ‘leverage’, especially if they can top the following:

“For any requirements not met by using or modifying an existing report, the technical team will attempt to leverage a vanilla report.”

Vanilla report??? Time to write another post…