Mastery of language
In Year 10 at school, we were assigned John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”. I never admitted to my teacher that I couldn’t finish it, although my (bad) essay on it possibly hinted to him that I hadn’t.
But just recently I read (and re-read) with pleasure this letter Steinbeck wrote to Marilyn Monroe in 1955, asking for her autograph. Take a read and marvel, as I did, at the way he builds his case with humour and flattery, and his mix of careful — and careless — language.
One of my mentors, Alan Weiss, is fond of saying, “Language controls discussions, discussions control relationships, and relationships control business.”
This simple favour that Steinbeck asks of Monroe is a small artefact loaded with linguistic skill that all of us wanting to improve our influence, our relationships, and our business outcomes, can learn from.
Question: What can you do to improve your dexterity with words?
Get in the way
One of the ‘Gifts of Lockdown’ is the almost complete absence of traffic. This means I get out on my bike most days and the other day I saw this.
I doff my hat to whoever had the genius idea of placing a bike-shaped ad (for a bike repair workshop) right at the place where cyclists have to stop at a red light. It’s like Dyson putting little pictograms of all their products on their public washroom hand dryers, or Bookdepository sending me a wine voucher with my books (what one earth makes them think bookish types drink wine as they settle down with a novel in the evening?)
Question: Where do you place your communications that (productively) get in the way of your customers?
Not everything that can be counted counts
I work solely with public value organisations so I watch with interest the growth of commercial businesses that have a strong ‘for purpose’ ethos. Good examples are Ben and Jerry’s ice cream (owned nowadays by Unilever), Patagonia and Danone.
But, my 12yo son, Jasper, asked me recently, “Dad, why do some companies just want to make as much money as possible, and others want to do good things as well as make money? How do they decide which they want to be?”
Back when I was his age, the World Economic Forum produced its first Davos Manifesto (“A Code of Ethics for Business Leaders”) in which they wrote: “the purpose of professional management is to serve clients, shareholders, workers and employees, as well as societies, and to harmonize the different interests of the stakeholders”.
Fast forward almost half a century to 2019 and a Who’s Who of global business (think the likes of Apple, IBM, Disney, McDonalds, Amazon) signed an expanded statement which included this: “A company is more than an economic unit generating wealth. It fulfils human and societal aspirations as part of the broader social system. Performance must be measured not only on the return to shareholders, but also on how it achieves its environmental, social and good governance objectives.”
But, are the 190 signatories measuring these things?
Now, just in the past 12 months, we see a Metrics Discussion Paper that proposes headline and detailed measures on planet (air pollution, nature loss), people (dignity, equality), prosperity (net job creation, community investment) and governance (ethics, purposefulness).
I frequently tell my clients’ boards that they have four strategic roles: insight, foresight, vigilance and capability. These sorts of metrics significantly raise the vigilance bar, so I’m looking forward to the next 50 years when accountability to these (or metrics like these) will, I predict, become the norm.
Question: Would your organisation agree to move towards accountability for a wide range of human and societal metrics?
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Until next Friday, have a relaxing and productive weekend, and find ways to productively get in people’s way.
Andrew
Not a week goes by when I don't get something truly valuable from what you write Andrew. This week you went one better with John Steinbeck's letter to Marilyn Monroe which had me laughing out loud at his brilliance and turn of phase - thank you. I also liked the piece on corporate ethics and purpose which I will reference for sure.
I love John Steinbeck's writing even more now!