Choose Your Words Sparingly!

Communication without words is telepathy. I doubt many companies can claim that as one their abundant resources. I’ve never seen it on a job description as a requirement. (I’ve regularly had to remind co-worker and supervisors that while I’m good at what I do, this trait was not on my resume. There are still times I probably need to remind my clients of this deficiency as well!)

Imagery is communicating with pictures. It’s an art form, but the effectiveness is legendary. (It even has its own “old saying” that we’ve all heard again and again: A picture is worth a thousand words.) It’s true! An image can send a clear message and stay with us for a lifetime. A Native American, with a single tear on his cheek as he looks at litter sent a powerful message many years ago. The firefighters raising the flag at Ground Zero still tugs at this generation’s heart they way the image of the soldier’s raising the flag at Iwo Jima did in 1945.

However, the majority of our Public Relations efforts and Business Communication will involve words! Moreover, to be effective it will require the right words. Remember, we want our message to impact and change, so our words should provide information, evoke feeling, touch the heart, challenge the mind and motivate action. The right words at the right time is a powerful combination. And in our last post, we saw the problems that can happen when we use the wrong word, particularly in a tense situation.

Because it’s that important, many people assume that piling on words is the answer—with more words, there’s a greater chance of connecting with the audience. But our message not only needs to be clear, it needs to be concise. We want to avoid words that aren’t needed—unnecessary adjectives (“new and improved”), verbose descriptions and redundant phrases.

Too often, because we work in a business environment, we want to appear…well, business-like in our communication. We take on a formal style, but results are more stilted phrases and extra verbiage. (Examples: “at the present time” is used instead of now; “at a later date” rather than just later. The simple word about becomes “with reference to.” “Please do not hesitate to call” could be reduced to please call and the four words “in the event that” could become the tiny word if) This is where restraint (or tough editing) is crucial.

Words have such power. What we put in is important, but so it what we leave out. Good communications, indeed Great Communication, is not how much is said, but how well it’s said. (Which probably means this should be a shorter blog post, right?)

Consider this:

* Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is only 272 words.
* The Twenty-Third Psalm is less than 120 words
* The Lord’s Prayer is just over 60 words
* Our Constitution’s Preamble is 52 words

Whether it’s history, literature, entertainment or advertising, a few words can stick in our minds and impact our collective memories:

“Give me liberty or give me death”
“I regret I have but one life to give for my country”
“Don’t worry, be happy”
“Where’s the beef?”
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”

We need powerful language to show the strength of our company or emotional words to show our compassion of our charity. We want words worthy of our message and our audience. We should be selective to employ those words which will work the hardest for our message.