Steve Neiderhauser

How to avoid Clichés

The other day a coworker called me on the speaker phone and said, "We were just talking about you. Are your ears burning?"

I replied, "My ears are sizzlin'."

The people on the call laughed and giggled. Why? Because I took a cliché, its corners of meaning rounded and smoothed through decades of use, and gave it an edge. An unexpected twist.

I remember seeing Stephen King write in one of his books, "The smooch of death." What caused Stephen to skip the stock phrase, "Kiss of death"?

He understands that clichés are the kiss of death when trying to arrest your audience's attention.

Talent Scout

There's a quote in a Project Management Leadership magazine from Theo Tombeur that caught my eye:

"It's better to hire people with broader knowledge and expertise rather than specialists. It's always possible to find specialists and hire them on a temporary basis."

The context of Theo's quote relates to projects in China and the dearth of project management talent. Although, the quote also applies to US companies because they've become so lean there's little room to eliminate talent without reducing profits. So here's the real question for HR managers who have ignored all the benefits of the ambidextrous employee: How do you cultivate a broader knowledge and talent in your employees?

There are ways to accomplish this goal. First step — Make it your company goal to recruit and develop multi-talented professionals.

The Entertainment Dimension

While many business managers believe they sell software or siding or swing sets or whatever they make, what they really sell is a customer experience. Their products are simply the table stakes to the game of business. So these managers would do well to consider how artists or writers design their products.

They could start by reading the interview of Debby Applegate in the January issue of the Writer. You see, Debby won a Pulitzer Prize for her book: The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher. The educational part for business people is that she studied and applied the formulas for suspense writing to her nonfiction work to keep her readers engaged page after page.

She read all the books on how to write thrillers and mysteries. In the end her goal distilled to one thing:

"Can I make you turn the page? And that is everything. Every single page, every single paragraph, I would ask myself: What do I have to write to make you read the next paragraph? ...I really wrote the book according to the formulas of the suspense genres."

Although, there was one book that she relied upon to make the ink on the page move her readers — Conflict, Action and Suspense by William Noble. She found one of the techniques in this book so effective, she still uses it all the time.

Debby sets an example for writers and managers. With all diligence, learn to use artistic techniques to enhance your work of nonfiction by adding an entertainment dimension.

The day of the specialist is dead — Long live the renaissance man.

Art of Hiding Information

There I was, reviewing a weekly project plan with a major customer when one of the senior executives said, "On the project chart, I can’t tell if the tasks are complete because the color of the percent complete bar is almost the same as the background."

I looked. He was right. I steered him to another indicator for the task. But I noted his feedback.

When next week’s meeting rolled around, I changed the color of the percent complete so the color contrast was sharp as a knife. Now, when you receive feedback from a customer like this, it’s usually a good idea to consider their suggestion and let then know what you've done with the feedback — for example, created a new feature or made changes to the wording on a web page.

Just before emailing the new project plan, I thought about describing the changes, but had a change of heart and said nothing of the new color scheme. So halfway through the next meeting, that same executive started to chuckle and said, "You've changed the background colors. Perfect. I love it."

Because I did not describe the changes in advance, I allowed the executive to discover the changes, creating a positive surprise and a laugh of delight. When we master the art of hiding and revealing information, we actively engage customers in our story.

What story concept did I rely on when deciding not to spoil the surprise for the customer? There were two:

Hidden wisdom is powerful wisdom, it speaks to our subconscious. Aside from the color-change story, the customer now tells himself — and possibly others — a story about his experience that day.

Story Throughline: If the throughline of the customer experience guarantees the customer will see the changes or feel the new experience, let the customer discover the new product or feature, for discovery is the foundation of surprise. On the other hand, if a product change based on a customer suggestion will take six months to reach the customer, provide immediate feedback about the change.

Using story concepts to create customer experiences is natural, because a customer will describe every experience they have in terms of a story. And in writing or storytelling, parallel structures are powerful structures.