Gruntled Employees

Of sticker shock and empathy

I'll never forget the stickers from the night before my wedding. On the other hand, my brother Bill probably can't remember them.

Because of the fumes.

Let me explain:

Just before the wedding, my bride-to-be had everything under control. The flowers were set, the caterer was prepared, the ceremony site was ready. She was as calm as a bride can be. But then a friend of my parents asked what should have been an innocuous question:

"What are you doing for wedding favors?"

Wedding favors? Now to me, "wedding favors" was as foreign a concept as "centerpieces" and, well, "marriage." Turns out "wedding favors" are defined (by Wikipedia) as "small gifts given as a gesture of appreciation or gratitude to guests from the bride and groom during a wedding ceremony or a wedding reception." Who knew?

Alarm bells replaced wedding bells! This was a crisis of the first degree! Fortunately, the inquiring family friend was quick to provide a suggestion: small silver picture frames in which we could place cards telling each guest where they'd sit at the reception. Then they could take their frames home and toss the seat cards and replace them with pictures of their cats, or whatever. (This was 12 years ago, before there were blogs.) Brilliant!

My fiancée sped to the local Christmas Tree Shops, a New England bargain store that specializes in little knickknacks. Amazingly, Heidi found a bunch of little frames similar to the one in the cheesy picture above. She immediately bought 150 of them and brought them back to me. My job was to do the desktop publishing: make nice calligraphic seat cards with each guest's name and table number. That job was hard enough. My brother's job was much worse.

He had to do the stickers.

You see, every single one of these little silver frames had a silver UPC sticker on it. Not so much on the frame, though. On the glass! And the glue on these stickers must have been that kind of glue they use for keeping those tiles from falling off the Space Shuttle. The stickers themselves fell apart if you tried to scrape or pick them off.

Since he was best man, Bill's job was to remove the stickers. The only hope was to use some high-powered chemical solvent and a razor blade, which is what Bill did for hours in the underventilated living room of my apartment. Twelve years later, he's still not the same. (Actually, he's fine, though he lives in Oklahoma, which is odd.) (His living there; not the state itself.)

Anyway, this brings me to my point: the frame-maker forgot about empathy. Someone at Cheapo Frames Unlimited or whatever made a decision to put bar-code stickers on the glass part of the frame. Maybe he or she did it because the store would need to scan the stickers at the cash register. Maybe it helped with inventory control. But I guarantee you that the sticker decision-maker lacked the critical character trait of empathy — namely, empathy with the customer who was going to be using the cheapo frame. He or she never stopped to think how the customer would feel when confronted with the unremovable sticker. He or she never wondered how the customer would be able to see the wedding guest's table number (or how the guest would later see the cat picture) through the permanent label that obscured the frame's transparent glass face. The frame-company decision maker had no empathy for the customer.

And neither did his or her supervisors. Neither did the owner of Cheapo Frames Unlimited. Neither did the buyer at Christmas Tree Shops.

Having empathy for the customer — or the end user of a product or service — is an undervalued, underpromoted, and undertrained quality in today's business world. Here are some examples where empathy for the customer or end user is missing:

• The people who package children's toys. In their quest to thwart the one or two percent of toy-store customers who would steal accessories out of a Dora the Explorer package, or whatever, they tie everything down with wire, then tape it to the inside of the box. It takes twenty minutes to free your kid's toy from its package. The manufacturer didn't think about how unhappy that delay would make the child, or her dad.
• Customer support lines that play recorded advertisements for the product you're having trouble with while you wait 31 minutes for a live human being. My particular favorite is when you call your internet provider because you can't connect, and the recording tells you that you can get answers to your questions at www.whatever.com. Uh, no I can't ... The company never thought about how that would sound to a frustrated customer.
• Billboards that have the same tiny little text at the bottom that a print ad has. I'm driving 60 miles an hour past your billboard; how am I supposed to read the little text? Obviously, the art designer didn't think about the driver's ability to actually read it (or didn't care if it was read).
• Lawyers who fill their letters, contracts, and briefs with pompous and stuffy legalese. Don't they want the reader to actually be able to read it?
• For that matter, lawyers who bill by the hour. Don't they wonder how the client is going to feel when she gets a bill showing that it cost her more money because it took longer for her to get what she wanted?

Managers need to make sure that everyone in the workplace thinks about what the customer is going to do with the product or service, and how the customer is going to feel about it. That's empathy, and it's critical to a company's success.

Seth Godin has written about this before in his excellent blog. See his post from three years ago called, simply, "Care." And Becky Carroll at Customers Rock! blog has a nice post on empathy called "Empathy Matters."

As for the wedding favors, they were a hit at the reception, Heidi and I are still married 12 years later, and Bill's only a little woozy from the solvent fumes.

The world's shortest employee handbook

We've talked before about HR professionals' and lawyers' propensity to overwrite when it comes to employee policies. (See, for example, "A two-word corporate blogging policy.") We make a lot of money writing personnel manuals for clients. But a question we often ask is: "Do you really need one?" While it's understandable and appropriate for an employer to make sure that its employees know what the rules are, a comprehensive employee handbook with Hammurabiesque (admittedly, not a word you see often) edicts on employee conduct can cause more harm than good.

The most common downside to having a personnel handbook is the risk of unintentionally giving up management rights and creating inadvertent employee contracts (as opposed to "advertent" ones?). Caselaw abounds where companies have written handbooks setting out rules for employees to follow only to have a court conclude that the employer is also contractually obligated to follow the handbook. And many courts have held that the lawyerly disclaimer buried in the introduction ("Management reserves the right to blah blah blah ...") doesn't get the company off the hook.

Another problem with handbooks — this one cited less often — is the creation of an impersonal, rigid structure that encourages employees to "game the system." Employees are smart when it comes to getting what they want. If a policy creates a loophole that allows more time off if you call it "personal time" instead of "sick time," you will see a rise in personal-time usage. This is not my being cynical; this is my recognizing that employees, like all humans, are (often) rational actors.

Finally, a thick manual of dos and don'ts sends a message that you don't trust your employees, or that you consider them wayward children. (By the way, why do people think you pluralize the noun "do" with an apostrophe? You don't. Apostrophes make things possessive, not plural.) Some policies are important to spell out, like how vacation accrues. And some policies are legally mandated, like sexual-harassment policies (in many states). But too many policies are the result of HR and legal types hyperlegislating conduct in the workplace. For example, dress codes or bereavement policies that go on for more than a sentence or two. You're better off without this paternalistic nonsense.

For an example of policies run amok, check out the manual of Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University. The thing's so long that the table of contents is a set of hyperlinks. Do not read this while driving or operating heavy machinery. Here is the bereavement policy:

Staff members shall, upon request, be granted up to three (3) days annually of bereavement leave for the death of a parent, spouse, child, brother or sister, grand parents [sic], grand parents-in-law, grandchild, son or daughter-in-law, mother-in law, father-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, step children, children-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and first and second cousins. Other relationships are excluded unless there is a guardian relationship. Such leave is non-accumulative, and the total amount of bereavement leave will not exceed three days within any fiscal year. If additional days of absences are necessary, employees may request sick or annual leave, after providing an explanation of extenuating circumstances.

What about second cousins once removed? This is what an employee who just lost a loved one should be reading? This is the kind of stuff that gives HR and lawyers a bad name. (By the way, "grand parents" means mothers and fathers who are swell. I think they meant "grandparents.")

Now before my law partners lock me away, I should say that there are situations or workplaces that call for a comprehensive manual. And if a client really feels the need for a handbook, we'll prepare one that protects the client and conveys its wishes without all the silly stuff.

But for the strategic employer who views its workers as its most important asset and wants to promote an atmosphere of professionalism and trust, let me propose the world's shortest employee handbook:

"Respect others."

(Now, wait. Before you accuse me of breaking out the zither and the "Kumbayas," hear me out. As I've said many times before, our roles as HR professionals, employment lawyers, and managers all boil down to the notion of showing employees respect. It says here that disgruntled employees are just gruntled employees who have been dissed. (Convenient, huh?) Employees you don't treat with respect are the ones most likely to sue you (see the discussion on firing employees with "retained dignity"). And I'm not making these pronouncements based on a Pollyannaish view of the world. Instead, I'm making these observations based on 13 years of defending employers from lawsuits. End of self-defense bit.)

Think about it: what policies in your typical handbook can't be distilled into the two words "respect others"?

• Policies about harassment and discrimination and office romance are all about respecting coworkers.
• Policies about trade secrets and computer usage and even attendance are all about respecting the company.
• Policies about dealing with customers or answering the phone or about handling complaints are about respecting the customers.
• Even policies about drugs and alcohol are all about respecting yourself.

Employees who follow this Rule Number One (and Only) will be valuable members of your team. Employees who fail to respect others should no longer be, unless you feel they deserve another chance.

Two words. Think of how much paper you'll save.

I know I'm going to take some heat for this, especially from my own office ("Quit telling people not to hire us, you idiot!"). But I'd love to get a discussion going. Bring it on.

What would Jack Bauer do? Use plain English

The case for using plain English is being made in other places besides this blog. It even showed up in the season premiere of "24."

In the first episode of Season 6, the President's top advisers are arguing about his orders. The National Security Advisor, Karen Hayes, disagrees with the White House Chief of Staff Thomas Lennox's interpretation of the President's wishes. Lennox is the early frontrunner for this season's unscrupulous White House adviser; Hayes, who previously worked for CTU, appears to be the voice of reason. When Lennox passes along an order that contradicts what the President had said, Hayes calls him on it.

"In plain English," she says, "you're second-guessing the President."

Lennox snarls, "Plain English does not allow for the nuances that my job requires, Karen."

Perhaps lawyers feel the same way, that plain English is inadequate for handling the "nuances" needed for legal writing. They think that legalese allows them to express themselves more precisely, as if talking about "said contract" is more precise than "this contract," or that "two (2) weeks" is more exact than "two weeks."

They're mistaken. As the leading reformer of legal writing Bryan Garner writes in his Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, the "myth of precision" is one of the greatest problems with legalese:

Traditionally, lawyers have aimed for a type of "precision" that results in cumbersome writing, with many long sentences collapsing under the weight of obscure qualifications. That "precision" is often illusory for two reasons: (a) ambiguity routinely lurks within traditional, legalistic language; and (b) when words proliferate, ambiguities tend to as well.

Plain English is not dumbed-down English. As world-class plain-English advocate and law professor Joe Kimble writes in his essay "Answering the Critics of Plain Language":

As for the notion that plain language is unsophisticated, once again just the reverse is true. It is much harder to simplify than to complicate. Anybody can take the sludge from formbooks, thicken it with a few more provisions, and leave it at that. Only the best minds and best writers can cut through.

So while the Machiavellian Chief of Staff might fear that plain English won't get his point across clearly, he would do well to listen to Jack Bauer, who regularly uses plain English to great effect:

• "The only reason you're conscious right now is that I don't want to have to carry you."
• "When I'm finished with you, you're gonna wish you felt this good again."
• "I'm gonna need a hacksaw."

Hating lawyers around the world?

Since my recent post, "Why businesspeople hate lawyers," I've learned that this isn't just a problem for lawyers in the United States. There's an excellent legal-marketing blawg in Brazil called, unsurprisingly, "marketingLEGAL." (Or maybe it is suprising. Only the title is in English; the blog is in Portuguese.) The blog's author is Marco Antonio P. Gonçalves, a legal-marketing specialist in Rio who is coauthoring a book on the subject. Marco Antonio devoted a recent post to translating my thoughts into Portuguese and expanding upon them. Apparently, lawyers in Brazil face similar problems of popularity, and the trifecta of hourly billing, legalese, and legal-not-business advice are at the root of the problem. (I'm guessing his solution to legalese would not be "plain English." Is there such a thing as "plain Portguese"?)

A note on language: I listen to a fair amount of bossa nova (the Gilbertos, Jobim, Getz), but I don't speak any Portuguese. Fortunately, we have Google to translate foreign-language blogs and webpages. That an online service can instantly convert a webpage into another language with reasonable accuracy is very cool. But it does lead to some amusing false notes. It calls the post "Why business-oriented men do not like lawyers," and it labels "hourly billing" as "collection for the moment." You can read the translation of Marco Antonio's post here.

Working our way across South America, I just got an email from Ivan Cavero, who writes the Peruvian blawg PracticaLegal: Sólo Marketing Legal. (Google's intepreters can give it to you in English here.) Ivan is a legal-marketing trailblazer in Peru, and he came across my post via Marco Antonio's blawg. He's working on a similar post for Spanish readers.

A while back, I heard from Jim Belshaw, a strategic consultant in Sydney, Australia, who writes the excellent and thought-provoking blog, Managing the Professional Services Firm. He's got some good thoughts on work-life balance and associate retention.

Some might be concerned that the problems US lawyers (and their clients) face are shared around the world (or at least, I guess, the Southern Hemisphere). But I find it comforting to know that people like Marco Antonio, Ivan, and Jim are adding to the conversation and helping to find solutions to these problems. So: obrigado, gracias, and ta, mate.

Legalese: code for "assumes the reader is a moron"

In my last post, Why businesspeople hate lawyers, I complained that legalese is one way for lawyers to show off their basic lawyerliness. This sets them apart from their clients, and puts their own interests before their clients'. And what is the defining characteristic of legalese? It is where the writer — a lawyer, or someone trying to act like a lawyer — writes in a way that Assumes The Reader Is A Moron.

Let's call it ATRIAM for short.

Examples abound. For instance, most legal briefs and motions begin like this:

____________________
                                 
John Smith,          
    Plaintiff               

v.

Example Corp., Inc.,
    Defendant
____________________

Defendant Example Corp., Inc.'s Motion to
Compel Production of Documents from
Plaintiff John Smith Pursuant to
Fed. R. Civ. P. 34

Now comes Defendant Example Corp., Inc. (hereinafter, "Defendant"), who moves to compel the production of documents (hereinafter, "the Documents") from Plaintiff John Smith (hereinafter, "Plaintiff" or "Mr. Smith") pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 (hereinafter, "Rule 34"). For the reasons stated below ...

*   *   *

Put aside for now the superfluous "now comes" business and the omnipresent "pursuant to" (do lawyers have trouble saying "under"?). Let's talk about the "helpful" parentheticals:

Was the lawyer thinking that the reader — in this case, a judge — wouldn't remember what he or she read ten seconds ago? Is the judge really going to read the caption (which names the parties), read the title (which says what the document is), and then get to the first paragraph and go, "Who the heck is this John Smith? And what is he doing here?"

Journalists don't have this problem. Have you ever read a newspaper article that turns a person into a defined term? Roger Clemens ("Mr. Clemens") struck out eight batters yesterday. After the game, Clemens said ... Would the reader not know who "Clemens" was without the parenthetical? Are sports-page readers smarter than brief readers?

Maybe the lawyer thinks the hereinafter parentheticals are helpful, or perhaps more precise. But in this brief, there's only one Example Corp. and there's only one Smith. The caption identified them, and said who's the plaintiff and who's the defendant. The only time a parenthetical is helpful is when the names are confusing, or when you need to distinguish one "Smith" from another.

In fact, most lawyers write this way because most lawyers write this way. We've been reading briefs and judicial opinions and memos since law school, and we think that's what we're supposed to do. We don't really know why.

But that's not a good enough reason. A lawyer shouldn't write anything without knowing why. By adding the unnecessary parentheticals, the lawyer is sending the ATRIAM message: that he or she assumes the reader is a moron.

More examples to follow ...

Why businesspeople hate lawyers

Oh, they may tell you that they don't. "Hate" is such a strong word, and so forth. But most businesspeople really, really don't like lawyers.

Why?

Three reasons, all of which are related:

1. Billing by the hour
2. Using legalese
3. Giving legal answers instead of business answers

And what do these three things have in common?

They're all examples of lawyers putting themselves first, instead of putting clients first. Hourly billing prices legal services based on the time the lawyer spent, not on the value the client received. What difference does it make to the client whether something took two hours or four hours? Rarely does the client get twice as much value when something takes twice as long (and thus costs twice as much).

Next, lawyers speak and write in legalese to show off that they are, in fact, lawyers. Rather than trying to find the clearest way to communicate with their clients, lawyers fall back on shopworn phrases whose meanings they're not even certain of. "Wherefore, premises considered" — I mean, who really talks like that? Lawyers use legalese the same way doctors and cops use the jargon of their professions — to set them apart from the people they serve. (For more on jargon, see Abandoning jargon "at a high rate of speed.")

Finally, businesspeople ask their lawyers business questions but get legal answers in return. How many of you have asked a lawyer a question about your business only to receive a memorandum on what a statute or regulation or court opinion says. You don't care about the dicta in Smith v. Landingham; you just want your lawyer to solve the problem.

So as we start the new year, lawyers should add to their lists of resolutions three things that put the client first:

1. Price legal services based on the value to the client
2. Use plain English
3. Give clients business answers

For more about putting clients first, read Dan Hull's always-excellent What About Clients? blog. Dan's a lawyer who understands about putting his clients first. His blog's tagline asks the fundamental question: "True service — are we lawyers delivering?" I'm certain that businesspeople don't hate Dan.

Dan started the year off with a terrific list of client-service blogs, which include heavy hitters like Guy Kawaski's How to Change the World and David Maister's Passion, People and Principles. Check out the list here.

Happy New Year!

More Orwellian rules on writing

Last week, I wrote about George Orwell as an unlikely writing teacher for lawyers, managers, and HR pros. In addition to his six rules for simple writing, his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language" offers six questions all scrupulous writers should ask themselves:

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?
5. Could I put it more shortly?
6. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

Of course, you don't have to ask these questions, says Orwell:

But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.

Big Brother might not be watching you, but your readers — your clients, your employees, your shareholders — are paying attention to your words. So should you.

Orwellian lawyers

The adjective "Orwellian" usually refers to an abuse of the English language for political or bureaucratic reasons. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is remembered in part for its description of Newspeak, a bastardization of English designed to oppress its speakers and limit their ability to think independently and critically.

Kind of like legalese.

As Rutgers professor William Lutz — himself described as the "George Orwell of the Plain Language Movement" — writes, "Language is power, period. The lesson of Nineteen Eighty-Four is that those who rule the language, rule.... The language of the lawyers, of the politicians, of the intelligentsia, is supposed to make [others] feel inferior."

But calling that kind of language "Orwellian" is ironic. Orwell hated that kind of language abuse. In his 1946 essay "Politics and the English Language," he listed six rules for writing good, plain English. The respected London newsmagazine The Economist starts out its own Style Guide with the six rules. Lawyers, managers, and HR professionals would profit from adopting them:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.


2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.


3. If it is possible to cut out a word, always cut it out.


4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.


5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.


6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.