A shank is one of the worst golf shots imaginable. It’s embarrassing and unsightly.

RadioShack hit the equivalent of a business shank on Aug. 31 when it laid off 400 employees with an e-mail that read: "The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."

The public reaction was swift and caustic for the struggling company.

A corporate spokesperson explained that employees knew they would learn their fate via the fateful email. Rationalizing the bad decision only made the wound deeper.

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The best communications are clear, succinct, and relevant. Unfortunately, many business communications – memos, reports, e-mails, and even voicemails – drown in their own verbosity. Like quicksand, verbosity drags the reader down into murky depths leaving them overwhelmed and confused.

The biggest offenders are adjectives and adverbs. The other major offender is poor organization.

Conservatively, you can eliminate 30 percent or more of the words from most communications while also making those communications better. Here’s how.

• Use active voice. Eliminate all passive voice. Passive voice adds at least three extra words every time you use it.
• Eliminate adverbs. Find every adverb. If it is modifying an adjective, substitute a different adjective (e.g. very important becomes critical). If it is modifying a verb, substitute a better verb (e.g. walked slowly becomes ambled).
• Write a first draft and then reverse the order of your thoughts. Our educational system teaches us to make all key points and then summarize our argument at the end. This order is the antithesis of business communications. Reversing the order of your key points will often move the summary (the most important point) to the beginning followed by all the supporting material for your argument.

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Next time a business problem confronts you, try using McKinsey’s MECE approach to solve it effectively. MECE stands for “mutually exclusive, completely exhaustive.” The first step (mutually exclusive) forces you to think of all the ways to solve the problem and then group them into unique issues. The second step (completely exhaustive) forces you to double-check whether your list of potential solutions is complete so that you don’t overlook an opportunity.

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We have covered a lot of ground for CEOs in the four years of the Atkinson Advisor. The following are five stories worth revisiting from the archive:

• The Cardinal Rules for Crisis Communication (October 2002)
• Presenting CEOs Effectively on Corporate Websites (August 2003)
• Most Common PR Mistakes by CEOs (October 2004)
• Mississippi Power Gets It Right (December 2005)
• What To Do About Bad News (April 2006)

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Really Bad PowerPoint by Seth Godin

Really Bad PowerPoint is a 10-page e-book as entertaining as it is instructional. An expert in permission marketing, Godin laments the misuse of PowerPoint ("PowerPoint could be the most powerful tool on your computer. But it’s not.") and offers his opinion on how to make it valuable. Be sure to check out Godin’s four keys to a great presentation.

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The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichenfeld

The Ultimate Question is the latest installment from loyalty expert Fred Reichheld, a researcher with Bain & Co. The book revolves around Reichheld’s hypothesis that the crux of business growth and profitability is loyal customers who advocate a business to other customers.

While loyalty is nothing new, the unique element of the book is that Reichheld recommends using only one question to measure customer loyalty and adjust strategy: Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague? The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the difference between promoters (9 or 10 on 10-point scale) minus detractors (1 or 2 on the same scale). The author’s research concludes that a high NPS indicated a greater likelihood of growth and profitability.

Reichheld developed NPS to distinguish between companies pursuing what he calls bad profits (short-term expense cuts or price reductions) versus good profits (those generated by investing in customer service). For example, Reichheld points out that Amazon.com (NPS of 73) sought growth by investing in free shipping instead of pursuing a national advertising campaign.

American Express, eBay, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and Intuit are some of the corporations using NPS.

More details and NPS reports for several industries are available at www.netpromoter.com.

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