CHAPTER 2

Using the Secrets of Effective Business Communication

As you’ll recall from Chapter 1, we tried to justify our existence and also describe the competitive advantage afforded to those who work to improve their business communication skills. What separates the best communicators from the rest of us? This question was posed by Anne Grinols, a nationally recognized professor of business communication, at a discussion during the 2010 convention of the Association for Business Communication.¹ Those in attendance, including Jason, discussed what they’d observed and what they’d learned from research. As a result, Jason crafted a lecture that he calls the secrets of effective business communication. He’s delivered the lecture for his students as well as during a number of invited presentations. In this chapter, we share with you the ten secrets and how they can be applied to your professional life.

Before diving into the secrets, however, we should tell you what we mean when we talk about effective business communication. Effective business communication must accomplish two goals: (1) Your audience must understand your message, and (2) your audience must respond the way you want them to respond. Both of these goals matter and they should be accomplished while fulfilling the ABCs of effective business communication: accuracy, brevity, and clarity (we address the ABCs later in the book). For instance, it’s not enough for your employer to understand you when you ask for a raise and then not give it to you. In addition to meeting these two goals, effective business communicators practice the following ten secrets.

Secret 1: Communication = Relationships

We thought an equation might get your attention. One of the first secrets of effective business communicators is that they understand the principle that communication is about relationships. In order to help you arrive at that conclusion, we need to first discuss what we mean by communication. Although what we’re about to discuss will sound like definitions, it’s important to remember that there are no right or wrong definitions. One of Jason’s professors used to say that some definitions are more useful than others. Definitions provide limits and frame our ways of thinking about a subject.

Many books begin their discussion of communication by providing readers with a picture of the basic process. In that process, person A sends a message to person B, who then responds in some way. Those models, which we discuss later in the book, are a great way to learn about how communication works and what kinds of barriers communicators confront. They help us think about the nuts and bolts of communication. For now, however, we want you to think beyond the communication model.

There are literally hundreds of definitions for communication. Rather than get into the weeds, we direct you to a few resources.^2,3 We point out, however, some important distinctions about how communication is defined.

The first distinction is between definitions that describe communication as purely symbolic and definitions that include spontaneous and pseudo-spontaneous signs. Symbolic communication is intentional and is usually associated with written and oral communication. The words and numbers we use are symbols that we put to intentional use. The e-mail that a financial planner sends to a client contains symbols and is intended to send a specific message. Communicators intentionally construct messages to be conveyed to their audiences. Definitions focused on symbolic interaction describe communication as discrete.⁴

Other definitions of communication move beyond symbolic interaction to include spontaneous and pseudo-spontaneous messages.⁵ Spontaneous messages include emotional responses to stimuli. For example, the stunned look on a stockholder’s face when he learns of a sudden and precipitous drop in stock price. Pseudo-spontaneous communication includes false and intentional representations of emotion. An employee is taking part in pseudo-spontaneous communication when the boss fires her but she doesn’t show any visible emotional reaction. She is intentionally displaying (or not displaying) an emotional reaction to send a specific message. In this case, she’s trying to send the message that she’s unaffected.

We prefer the definitions that include symbolic, spontaneous, and pseudo-spontaneous messages. Symbolic communication is important, especially in the United States where business is conducted in a low-context culture that wants everything in writing. The symbolic message is really important. However, we believe that spontaneous and pseudo-spontaneous messages influence the nature of what is being communicated symbolically. For example, consider that employee we mentioned in the preceding text who has been fired. Does the nature of that message change if the person doing the firing has a giant grin on his face while delivering this sobering news? The spontaneous and pseudo-spontaneous messages matter. And they affect the nature of the relationship. Effective business communicators are aware of all three messages and how they impact their business relationships.

The other important distinction between communication definitions is whether communication is viewed as an event or a process. We follow the definition that communication is processual in nature.⁶ Our messages don’t take place in a vacuum. The last e-mail you sent at work or school was an event in a much larger process. You were responding to something.

Communication is patterned over space and time.⁷ As an example, we all follow basic social scripts. We all say good morning to our coworkers and customers. The situation may vary (e.g., the words we use, the gestures we use), but the basic pattern stays the same. We were recently at a presentation where the speaker played a YouTube video of the many different versions of the song “Besame Mucho.” The notes followed the same pattern between versions, but the arrangement changed. Similarly, communication follows patterns but can still be different from one situation to the next.

Thinking about communication as an ongoing process also acknowledges the role communication plays in building and maintaining healthy relationships. The process approach recognizes the interdependent nature of communication. This approach allows us to avoid dehumanizing our audiences, acknowledge the important role of relationships in our professional lives, and understand the interdependence and mutual influence that truly characterize our dealings with others.⁸

Imagine that you are trying to sell a product to your customer and that customer frowns, leans back in her chair, and crosses her arms. Do you think, “This is going great; I won’t change a thing”? Probably not. You’re more likely to think that things aren’t going so well and it’s time to change the pitch. But what if you’ve worked with this customer for years and happen to know that this customer is quiet, thoughtful, and rarely smiles? Your history with that person may, in fact, lead you to an entirely different interpretation of the communication episode.

Another common example is the business colleague who always tries to dominate discussion during meetings. Each time this person acts in a domineering way, you can either submit to that style or push back. Your choice will be affected by your past experiences in meetings and with this colleague. In turn, these factors and your choice to use a one up (push back) or one down (submit) tactic in response to domineering behavior will influence how your colleague responds. In both of these examples, the relationship has influenced the communication process and vice versa.

So, communication is a process including symbolic, spontaneous, and pseudo-spontaneous messages in which the parties involved are interdependent and able to influence one another. What does that imply? Why does it matter?

The great communicators have come to understand that communication is really about the building and maintaining of relationships. In other words, communication is the sine qua non of relationships. Expressed another way, relationships do not exist without communication. Edna Rogers put it best, “The concept of a relationship implies some form of interconnection between different sets of events, individuals, or entities; in essence it refers to an interconnectedness of differences.”⁹ Your reputation, your history with others, the things you have done in the past, and many other factors impact your relationships with others. Relationships exist only if we first communicate.

Think about your own industry. Do you think relationships are important? How do you build and maintain relationships that will help you succeed in your career? The first step is understanding that communication matters. You can’t have relationships without communication, and the quality of your communication translates to the quality of your relationships. Vincent Finelli, the risk analyst you met in Chapter 1, put it nicely, “Professional relationships are everything in a corporate environment. You need to be a hard worker, but most importantly you need to fit in with your colleagues.”

So, it’s important to understand that in a world where relationships matter, your communication skills will largely determine the quality of those relationships. We understand that you won’t always have good news to share with those you encounter in your professional lives, and some people will test the limits of your grace and good nature. We are not suggesting that you have to be a 24-hour-a-day ray of sunshine, but that you need to be aware of how your communication behaviors affect your professional relationships. You can deliver bad news without being bad. The person you say no to today may be the person from whom you need help tomorrow.

Secret 2: People Are Busy

Effective business communicators understand that other people are busy, and it’s important to respect others’ time. We all are bombarded by messages and information that are demanding of our attention. E-mails, voice mails, phone calls, instant messages, reports, memos, meetings, and other communications beckon our attention. We simply can’t keep up. As a result, we ignore some things and pay attention to others.

According to a recent study, new MBA hires send and receive approximately 200 e-mail messages each day.¹⁰ A 2014 Harvard Business Review article stated the typical executive receives 30,000 e-mails per year.¹¹ The average worker in the United States spends 650 hours writing more than 41,000 words in e-mails each year.¹² In addition, the average worker attends 62 meetings per month.¹³ A 2016 study of one large organization concluded that one weekly meeting of midlevel managers resulted in a $15 million per year cost to the organization.¹⁴ And sometimes we check e-mail while attending meetings, which is also a waste of time because multitasking decreases our productivity.¹⁵ So much of our work time is not seen as a resource, and much of it is wasted as a result. The authors of a recent article in the Harvard Business Review expressed the problem this way:

Most companies have no clear understanding of how their leaders and employees are spending their collective time. Not surprisingly, that time is often squandered—on long e-mail chains, needless conference calls, and countless unproductive meetings. This takes a heavy toll. Time devoted to internal meetings detracts from time spent with customers. Organizations become bloated, bureaucratic, and slow, and their financial performance suffers. Employees spend an ever-increasing number of hours away from their families and friends, with little to show for it.¹⁶

We recently interviewed Ms. Connie Myles who has 26 years of experience in finance and currently works as a Director of Financial Planning and Analysis for a major telecommunications firm. She told us that in her experience:

Respecting people’s time is a message that really resonates with me. I never take my cell phone into a meeting. Yet, in almost every meeting I attend, as I look around the room, there are many individuals skimming their emails during a colleague’s presentation. It sends the message that their time is more important than that of the presenter.¹⁷

Every piece of communication impinges on our senses, like any other stimulus that impinges on our senses. If we tried to keep up with every piece of information communicated to us, we would go insane! To highlight this point, think about all of your senses. At any given moment, all of those senses are being impinged upon. Do you pay attention to every little stimulus? Of course not, your body would freak out.

For example, think about the socks on your feet. They impinge upon your senses every second of the day. Does that mean you are constantly and consciously aware of how they feel at all times? No. You do not pay attention to that information. It is usually unimportant and not salient. Except for right now. We bet you can feel those socks at this very moment. Our point is that just as your body can’t consciously think about those socks all of the time, your mind can’t process all of the information that is being communicated to you. As a result, we all use selective perception processes to help us pay attention to important information and filter out everything else.

Connie Myle
Director of Financial Planning and Analysis Telecommunications Firm

Great business communicators know they have to make a choice to either (a) find a way to make messages stand out or (b) risk having communications ignored, like the socks of the communication world. Great communicators understand that people are busy, place a value on time, and find ways to respect time and get attention. Ms. Myles put it best when she told us:

People with good communication skills will excel in comparison to those with poor communication skills. If one tends to fly below the radar, no matter how smart he may be, he will never be recognized for his efforts. One needs to be able to present their findings whether written or verbally. Great leaders are great communicators. They connect with their teams. They keep their teams engaged.¹⁸

Communicating concisely is important to respecting people’s time. It’s important to be clear and brief. Every word we use takes time. Every time we make an error in communication, we lose time in correcting that error and we waste our audience’s time by creating confusion. Although there are a number of ways that we can respect others’ time and get attention, we offer some advice you can follow in two areas: meetings and e-mails.

Effective meetings are all about the planning. We like to listen to the advice of efficiency and productivity guru Merlin Mann when it comes to meetings. From his speeches, we can take away a few simple lessons.¹⁹

• Hold meetings only when necessary. We shouldn’t hold a meeting simply because our team traditionally meets on the first Wednesday of the month. Have a purpose.

• Invite to meetings only those who need attend. Again, we tend to invite people out of tradition. Think about the agenda and who really needs to be in attendance. Consider how you would respond to each person on the guest list if he or she asked, “Why should I be there?”

• Let people know what they should do to be prepared for the meeting.

• Show up prepared. Think about how annoying it is to sit in a meeting and wait while an unprepared colleague shuffles through notes or can’t find information that would have been readily available with a little preparation.

• Stay on task and stay on time. If you schedule a meeting to conclude at 10 a.m., then finish at 10 a.m. Be thorough in how you plan out the time.

Beyond face-to-face communication, research and (too much) experience tells us that e-mail is the preferred channel of communication in the modern work environment. As noted already, this leads to abusive e-mail behavior. Here are some rules to improve your use of e-mail that respects others’ time and gets your communications noticed.

• Write short, actionable subject lines. Consider using two words at the beginning of the subject line that tell the reader some action is required. For example, “Please Advise.” Such subject lines let the reader know he or she must do something other than simply read the message. You know you delete e-mails without opening them. If you don’t believe you have a reason to open an e-mail, you won’t. It may be a dirty little communication secret, but there’s no reason to pretend that other people won’t delete your messages if they aren’t compelled to read them.

• Use the top-of-screen test. Newspapers put their best headlines above the fold on the first page, because that gets people’s attention. We should practice the same principle in our e-mails. Try to put your request and the most vital pieces of information at the top of your message, preferably in an area that covers less than half the computer—or mobile device—screen (see Figure 2.1). Due to common e-mail interfaces that default to providing e-mail content on only half the screen, readers often skim messages and move on without looking past that first half screen unless they feel compelled to do so. If you don’t make your point in the first few lines, it will likely be overlooked.

• Use bulleted and numbered lists. Another way to make important pieces of information stand out in an e-mail is to offset it in a bulleted or numbered list. Use lists only for important pieces of information. Remember the following rule about lists: If everything is important, then nothing is important.

• Pick unique times to send messages, when possible. Think about a time when you might send the message and have it appear at the top of the receiver’s inbox—like sending it at 8:30 a.m. if the person arrives at work at 9 a.m. A colleague of Jason’s recently commented that he was surprised to see that Jason sends him e-mails at 4 a.m. Jason may not sleep much, but his colleague reads those messages.

• Don’t hide behind your e-mail. Sometimes an e-mail simply isn’t an effective means for communicating your message. Great communicators understand that point. Relationships often require you to get out from behind the monitor and interact with the people around you. Remember Secret #1? At times, e-mail can damage a professional relationship. E-mail is inappropriate when you need to consider others’ feelings, when you are angry, or when you need to make sure you are understood.²⁰

• Avoid overusing “cc” and “bcc.” Just as with meetings, please send information only to people who need that information. Wasting others’ time by copying them unnecessarily is a sin to the effective business communicator.

Figure 2.1 Busy inbox requiring you to pass top-of-screen test

Secret 3: Each Communication Carries Two Messages

When we communicate with others, we are implicitly negotiating the nature of our relationship (Secret #1) with others. It’s a truism of communication and completely unavoidable. In their famous (in communication nerd circles, anyway) 1967 book, Paul Watzlawick, Janet Beavin, and Don Jackson discussed five rules of communication that are always true (see Box 2.1). As you can see, we have already discussed Rules 4 and 5. In this section, we address Rules 1 and 2.

Let’s first discuss this idea that “one cannot not communicate.” Ignore the grammar in that sentence and focus on what that sentence means. Any behavior that can be perceived by someone else has the potential to communicate. Therefore, we can’t avoid communicating with others when we find ourselves in the same social space. We are continually communicating information about ourselves, our reaction to others, our reaction to the situation, and our intentional messages.

For example, think about that coworker who walks past you in the hallway, puts his hands in his pockets, looks at the floor, and doesn’t say a word. That person may be trying to avoid communicating with you, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t communicated with you. In fact, because you perceived this behavior, you have drawn conclusions about what your coworker is “saying” to you. Depending on the context and your history with that coworker, you may draw any one of several different conclusions. Despite your coworker’s efforts to avoid it, communication still occurred. So, why does this matter?

Box 2.1 Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson’s (1967) communication rules

This rule matters because the message you received was probably not the message that was intended. In fact, the message you received was likely more than what your coworker intended. People assign meaning to stimuli. They use whatever information they have available to draw conclusions about you, the situation, the relationship, and the intentional message.²¹ Great business communicators understand that they are always communicating. Everything we do that can be perceived by others sends all sorts of information that can be interpreted in many ways. It’s important to understand that something as simple as how you dress communicates something about you. And that leads us to Rule #2—your communications carry both content and relational messages.

In business, we tend to believe that we make rational decisions and act rationally. We underestimate the importance of emotion. We focus on the written word. Our organizations comprise people who have emotions, and those emotions matter. The words we use make up the content message we send with every communication. However, every communication carries a relational message, a message about the nature of the relationship and the relative status of those involved. These relational messages matter as much as—and sometimes more than—the content messages. Great business communicators pay careful attention to both the words they use and the context in which they’re used.

For example, a colleague who is a member of a financial advisory board for a small business attends board meetings on a regular basis at which dinner and beverages are usually served. Board advisors offer their expertise to the small business during the meeting, and this has historically been viewed as a benefit to the business. However, the most recent meeting was held earlier than usual and food was not served. Clearly there is a nonverbal message here, whether intentional or not, indicating that the business no longer values the expertise of the members enough to indulge them with dinner and drinks.

Secret 4: Nonverbal Communication Needs to Complement Verbal Communication

What we say and how we say it need to complement one another. Secret #4 is closely related to Secret #3. Effective business communicators understand that when verbal and nonverbal communication do not complement or reinforce one another, greater weight is usually given to the nonverbal communication. In other words, if you say during a conversation that you’re passionate about your job, but you say it in a whisper while staring at your shoes, your verbal and nonverbal behavior are not saying the same thing. The person you’re talking to will be more likely to believe the nonverbal message.

Effective business communicators understand this principle and pay attention to it for a handful of reasons. First, when what we say and how we say it don’t align, our messages lose clarity and can create confusion. Second, when what we say and how we say it don’t line up, we lose control over our communications. The audience draws its own, often inappropriate, conclusions about the intended message.

The vice president we introduced you to in Chapter 1 shared the following insights from his own experience.

When a verbal/non-verbal communication is aligned (i.e. “You did a great job” accompanied by a smile), the verbal cue is dominant and supported by the nonverbal cue. However, it’s been my experience that when verbal and nonverbal communication are misaligned, (i.e. “You did a great job” accompanied by rolling one’s eyes), the nonverbal cue becomes dominant and the verbal cue is almost dismissive. Key to anyone’s career is genuine verbal face-to-face communication that delivers both key facts/information and portrays sincerity to the message receiver. This is critical to building relationships, trust and loyalty among colleagues. Once such verbal based relationship is established, written and other forms of communication are more important and actionable to the message receiver.²²

Those insights are accurate and supported by research. Research in deception detection tells us that when we believe a coworker is being dishonest, we pay closer attention to the coworker’s nonverbal behaviors. As we learned from Secret #1, our interpretation is colored by our past experiences with the coworker (among other things). Although that seems reasonable, the research tells us that we pay attention to the wrong nonverbal behaviors.²³ As a result, we are not good at detecting lies.

To be fair, benign fabrications can be used to help others save face (e.g., when your supervisor asks if you like his tie). But, by and large, we want our nonverbal communication to complement or reinforce our verbal messages.

Secret 5: You Are Not Your Audience

Are you passionate about your career in finance? Do you love numbers? Too often, you may be alone. You should not assume that the things you care about are the things your audience cares about. Our audience members’ perspective just doesn’t line up with our own. Even when our audience members are similar to us, they don’t always necessarily see issues and problems from the same perspective. To demonstrate this concept, try playing the following game.

In finance, you talk about things like present values, future values, return on investment, and cash flows. These are fairly common concepts to you and when you talk with other finance professionals, they know what you’re talking about. However, you will often have to share this “simple” information with people who do not have a background in finance. They do not share your perspective on these topics. Therefore, you will have to understand their perspective and talk about these matters from their perspective.

If you’re going to be an effective communicator, you will have to learn the lesson that your perspective does not matter as much as your audience’s perspective. Effective business communicators think from their audience’s perspective and then write and speak about their own ideas from that perspective. What if you don’t have a great deal of information about your audience? In that case, you have to approach the communication situation the way many great leaders do. A 2016 Forbes article argued that great leaders, such as Steve Jobs, communicate using the language of third graders. In other words, they simplify their language to the point that a third grader could comprehend most, if not all, of the content.²⁴

One thing we know about all audiences is that they care about themselves more than anything else. When crafting messages, always try to answer the WIIFM question—What’s In It For Me? Audiences will invariably, and often subconsciously, ask themselves the WIIFM question. So, always try to answer it. Remember how we started the book in Chapter 1 by trying to address common questions we hear about the importance of business communication? That was our first attempt to answer your WIIFM question.

Great business communicators understand that the more they know about their audience members’ backgrounds, beliefs, and attitudes, the more successful they will be in engaging that audience. Learn to put your own perspective in the background and your audience’s perspective in the foreground. Not only will it keep your audience engaged, it will also enhance their perception of your goodwill.

Secret 6: Communication Breakdown Does Not Exist

What does the bearded fellow in Figure 2.2 have in common with communication breakdown? Don’t tell our kids, but neither really exists, and it would really upset them to know that communication breakdown isn’t real. You probably hear the term communication breakdown all the time, but we implore you to purge it from your vocabulary. After all, as we learned earlier in this chapter, communication is a process. It’s a made-up word with hundreds of definitions. It is not tangible.

It’s our opinion that the phrase communication breakdown is commonly used to deflect blame when things go wrong. Even effective business communicators make mistakes. They encounter barriers to communication that they fail to overcome. It happens all the time. The major difference between effective business communicators and the rest of us is that they accept personal responsibility for their failures and learn from them. We advocate for an approach to communication that embraces accountability. Don’t blame your failures on a thing that isn’t tangible. Be accountable and learn from your errors.

Figure 2.2 A child posing with a model of communication breakdown

Secret 7: Your Written Messages Are Permanent

As we mentioned earlier, we live in a low-context culture that places a great deal of weight on those things we write. In fact, e-mail has become one of the most preferred channels in the modern workplace because of corporate cultures that value the channel.²⁵ According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, e-mail usage has become so commonplace that all four generations in the current workplace have reported usage rates of 90% or greater!²⁶

Effective business communicators know that the things we put into writing carry legal weight. And as important, the things you put in writing almost never go away entirely. So, you should get into the habit of approaching your written communications from the perspective of the effective business communicator. Treat your written communications as permanent and legally binding.

As of the writing of this book, the 2016 presidential primary season is underway. One problem for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is the fact that while acting as secretary of state, she allegedly sent official e-mails using an unsecure, private server and e-mail account. According to some accounts, a number of the e-mails she sent through that server contained national defense information. As a result, she is accused by her political opponents and some in the media of conducting government business via private e-mail and putting national security at risk.²⁷ Whether this issue goes away or leads to legal problems—as in the case of former CIA Director David Petraeus—remains to be seen. However, a more professional handling of her work communications would have helped her avoid these issues.

In another interesting example of this permanency secret, parents of children attending Brandywine Elementary School were outraged when a satirical form was inadvertently sent with an e-mail advertising events at the school. The bullying report form, titled Hurt Feelings Report, mocked children who are victims of bullying and offended many of the families who received the e-mail. Although the school apologized for the error, the e-mail and its ramifications are permanent. The things you put in writing simply don’t go away.²⁸

Secret 8: Credibility Fuels Communication

How people feel and think about you is largely determined by your credibility, a characteristic comprising trustworthiness and expertise.²⁹ Think of trustworthiness as the degree to which other people believe that you have their best interests in mind. Expertise has to do with the degree to which people believe you know what you’re talking about. Studies show that business professionals with high credibility are better liked and are more persuasive.³⁰ If you were a financial services customer, wouldn’t you rather take advice and purchase products from a professional who is knowledgeable and looks out for your best interest? Effective business communicators understand that credibility is one of the most important factors in shaping their reputations and that they are not naturally endowed with credibility.

Almost anyone in finance would rather do business with Warren Buffet than Tom Hayes. Tom Hayes is a former employee of UBS and Citigroup who is spending 14 years in jail for his role in conspiring to rig the London Interbank Borrowed Rate (LIBOR) interest rate, which is used globally to price financial products. That scandal cost banks billions of dollars to settle with regulators in the United States and Europe.³¹ This scandal will cost far more in the long run and will very likely destroy the credibility and careers of some senior banking officials.

Former bank chairman Gianni Zonin is another example of this credibility secret. He was the head of an Italian bank that made it through the most recent recession. The bank was part of the local community. It provided sponsorship to local sports teams and paid for the construction of a theater. But the bank fell on hard times due to bad loans and questions about its business practices. While an investigation is ongoing as of the writing of this book, Mr. Zonin stepped down amid the allegations and his credibility has been destroyed. A recent Morningstar story reported that Mr. Zonin, once a local hero, has become a pariah:

Mr. Zonin, a 78-year-old wine producer, has gone from respected leader to pariah, banned from a half-dozen restaurants and heckled at his church, residents say. “If I see Mr. Zonin on the street, I take a side street,” said Luigi Ugone, a bank shareholder who was recently part of a protest against the bank in the center of Vicenza. “I don’t even want to see him.”³²

Credibility is what we in the social sciences call a perceiver construct. In other words, none of us actually has credibility, because it resides in the minds of our audience. We “have” credibility only to the extent that others see us that way. As you’ve probably heard before, credibility can take a lifetime to build and a minute to destroy. Effective business communicators shape others’ perceptions of their credibility by keeping their promises, delivering results for their business partners, communicating in a way that respects others, finding common ground with others, and acting ethically.

Secret 9: Keep It Short

We discussed earlier in this chapter the need to put your audience first. You need to communicate from their perspective. That means you must understand that your audience rarely cares about the same things you do. Even if they care about the same things, they may not care as deeply as you. Keep your messages clear and short. We have never heard anyone say, “I wish that meeting took up more time.” Keep it short.

Secret 10: You Are the Message

Just as important as what you say and how you say it is the fact that you are the one saying it. Effective communicators understand that how the world perceives them has a direct influence on how their behaviors are perceived.³³ In other words, you are the message.

One important takeaway from this secret is that you may not always be the best communicator of your own ideas. Sometimes if you want your idea to be approved or the customer to say yes, then you have to allow someone else to deliver the message. One of our authors—the bald one—holds an administrative position at his university. Faculty members have a natural and healthy skepticism for proposals made by administrators. So, sometimes our bald author will enlist the help of faculty members to make proposals on his behalf. He understands that his messages will be better received by faculty members if they are delivered by faculty members.

You may be familiar with the Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal that broke in September 2015. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigation concluded that VW installed “defeat devices” on diesel-engined cars. These defeat devices could tell when the cars’ emissions were being tested and enhance the cars’ performance so that carbon dioxide output would decrease during testing. The findings and eventual admission by VW has led to the recall of millions of vehicles and the company’s first quarterly loss in 15 years.³⁴ A bigger long-term problem may be that VW cannot be taken at its word. Assurances from the company that it will work to fix the problem are being met with harsh skepticism.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, said that Volkswagen should buy back the diesel cars at the original purchase price. “If they want it, every VW clean diesel owner should be able to get their money back,” she said. ... Schakowsky said assurances from the company that the cars will eventually be fixed, perhaps by the end of next year, are not enough. “Volkswagen’s word isn’t worth a dime,” she said. “To find a company that deliberately cheated asking customers for patience, is not acceptable.”³⁵

Effective business communicators understand that they are their messages. Once your reputation has been tarnished, it is far more difficult to get others to “take your word.” Your audience always considers the source.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we hope to have convinced you that following the lessons learned from these ten secrets of effective business communication—summarized in Table 2.1—will help to separate you from the crowd. Many of these lessons are common sense. Despite this fact, too many professionals fail to put the secrets into practice. Being an effective business communicator is hard work. Only those who are willing to put in the effort required to establish and maintain healthy relationships will realize the career-enhancing benefits of the ten secrets.

Table 2.1 Chapter 2 takeaways

Secret	Easy application
Communication = relationships	Deliver bad news without being bad.
People are busy	Respect people’s time.
Each communication carries two messages	Pay attention to context.
Nonverbal communication needs to complement verbal communication	Be authentic.
You are not your audience	Put your audience’s wants and needs ahead of your own.
Communication breakdown does not exist	Take responsibility for your actions, and learn from your failures.
Your written messages are permanent	Think before you send.
Credibility fuels communication	Keep your promises, deliver results, respect others, find common ground, and act ethically.
Keep it short	Understand that your audience does not care about the same things as you.
You are the message	Act in a way consistent with how you want the world to see you.