Who doesn’t want more straight talk? It’s in short supply these days.
Perhaps that’s why Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sent an internal memo out last Tuesday announcing that 336 employees are leaving the company. He intended to deliver this news without corporate speak. But didn’t succeed. The memo was full of jargon and holes.
Gideon Lichfield, a senior editor at Quartz, got a copy of the memo and helpfully deleted jargon, adding his “straight talk”. He too fell short of the mark.
Both are applauded for trying to take on the straight talk, truth-telling challenge. It’s not easy. Mark Twain understood this. He wrote: “A lie can travel halfway around the world, while the truth is putting on its shoes.” Some leaders are better at straight talk than others. Here’s what they do:
1. Avoid Jargon: Jargon is not technically a lie, but it can camouflage truth and distort meaning. The word “jargon” means: “special words or expressions used by a particular profession or group that are difficult for others to understand”. The term dates from Middle English where – and I am not making this up – it meant “twittering and chattering”.
Lichfield slashed business jargon in Dorsey’s memo, attacking phrases like “produce a streamlined roadmap”; “make the most significant structural changes to reflect our plan ahead” and “we do so with a more purpose-built team.” The awkwardness of each overblown phrase suggests that Dorsey or Twitter's lawyers let caution trump clarity.
2. Choose Candor: Straight-talking leaders are good storytellers. They avoid PowerPoint and communicate through stories, not bulleted data. Their stories are rich with authentic vocabulary and candid context. As a result, storytelling leaders often shine light into dark places.
Dorsey got into trouble because his memo lacked narrative and context. So when Lichfield tried to restate the memo’s true intent, he made assumptions and statements that didn’t add up. For instance, Lichfield deleted “we are doing this with the utmost respect for each and every person” and replaced this with “But it’s not their fault; we hired them when we shouldn’t have.”
By introducing “fault,” he misses a business truth: People were hired at Twitter based on what was known then and expected in the future. These conditions will change, even faster today than in the past. No one is “entitled” to a job anymore. Those days are over.
But Lichfield was reacting to a platitude from Dorsey and had no strategic insight to guide him. Yes, Dorsey wrote that Twitter needed to be faster and nimbler. But what does that mean? Are they slow and clumsy today?
3. Be Personal: Straight-talking leaders are empathic. They imagine what their audience needs and wants to hear. They step into their shoes. As a result, the reader gains knowledge, insight and will buy the company story.
Not once in the memo does Dorsey use the pronoun “I”. There are plenty of wes, ours and an “us,” but nowhere does Dorsey reveal what he thinks, believes and wants. At the end he asks employees to “Please reach out to me directly with any ideas or questions.” But he has not revealed who he is.
What does Dorsey feel about this change in the company’s fortunes? He doesn’t tell us. Not only does he not deliver straight talk, he fails to connect. Why would someone write to a person who claims to talk straight and never personalizes the communication?
Advertising legend Dan Wieden once wrote: Leaders are “forever looking for strategies, methods – any logical way to ensure success, anything that will justify their position at the head of the table.” But we who follow leaders want more. We want to know if this guy cares about me. We have to know this before we agree to follow.
I applaud Dorsey for offering departing employees “generous severance packages” and offering to help them find new jobs. I applaud Lichfield for rooting out jargon. Both have tried talking straight. Let’s hope they keep trying.
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