Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter's Guide [Hardcover]

I daresay this is the only business-related book dedicated to Mr. T. That alone gives you a good sense of the approach the authors take in this well-met ode to common sense. Even if their advice were worthless (it's not), this would still be an entertaining read - full of humor and real-life examples we are all too familiar with. This really is a book that should never have needed to be written. Business people should never have fallen into the traps the authors pointedly identify here - but business language has not only fallen into the quicksand of increasingly senseless drivel, it continues to flay around even as it sinks ever farther down.

The irony is that business people speak like idiots because they want others to think they are intellectual giants. They throw in all kinds of big words, engage in self-congratulatory nonsense, faithfully adhere to CYA principles, and basically try to impress their audiences with their incredible intellect. They walk away from the podium feeling as if they really poured it on, while the audience walks out (after waking up) taking nothing the speaker said with them.

The authors identify four traps that cripple the effectiveness of business communication: the Obscurity Trap, the Anonymity Trap, the Hard-Sell Trap, and the Tedium Trap. They make very valid points about each one. Obscurity comes from the desire to show everyone how smart you are. Even the simplest concept must have the fanciest of names, and the result is mindless jargon, meaningless phrases, and an alphabet soup of acronyms. It's the ability to say nothing in as many words (especially big words) as possible. Anonymity seems to be bred within the corporate environment, making business people little more than invisible cogs in the great business machine. You're not supposed to think for yourself, do anything the slightest bit out of the ordinary, and heaven forbid you should actually have a personality and let even a tiny bit of it show in your work. The hard-sell is almost the equivalent of lying. This creates the used car salesmen of the business world. Ideas and proposals are promoted as if they were heavenly edicts; the product is nothing short of perfect, even better than perfect, and any potential or known problems are swept under the rug. People see through the hard-sell; if your business is on the brink of bankruptcy, a big speech about how well everyone is weathering the storm inspires only negative reactions. Tedium comes from an ingrained fear business people have of putting something of themselves into their presentations. Speakers tell audiences what they want to tell them; they don't consider what the audience itself wants or needs to hear, and in this PC world of today, people are so afraid of offending someone that they would rather drown their audiences in monotonous drivel than to inject anything spontaneous or remotely interesting into their speeches or writings.

I think it is true that the authors sometimes go a little too far in terms of their advice and suggestions, but their real point is delivered in a wonderfully effective manner. It all boils down to being yourself; you should be the same person at work that you are on the weekends. Put something of yourself in your work, allow for spontaneity and flexibility in your business speaking and writing, engage your audience by showing them you are actually a human being just like them, be honest about problems and take responsibility for identifying and correcting them, etc. The book is just chock full of extremely helpful advice, and I think anyone - not just professional-types - can benefit immensely from reading this entertaining, extremely helpful little book.