Be Plainspoken

When I was working on ads one of the values we developed for our leadership team was to Be Plainspoken. That means communicating in an unadorned manner. It means having the conviction to be honest with one another so we can all improve. It means being direct not out of cruelty but out of an abundance of kindness.

Our desire to maintain harmony can cause us to be indirect about uncomfortable truths. Our desire to influence can cause us to pre-emptively address every arcane objection. Our desire to impress can cause us to use more language than necessary. And the expectations we have internalized about corporate communication often cause us to write in a way