CHAPTER 11

Honor the Concrete

We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images.

—Salvador Dali

Think about that word concrete. To most of us, the image the word conjures up is the gray-white stuff that makes up sidewalks. That image is a great way to understand the way the term is used in writing. Concrete is hard and durable. It can take all sorts of pressure and it remains the same. It holds things together. It can be painted, as in swimming pool bottoms, or drawn on, as with sidewalk chalk. It can be made into pillars several stories high, as in upright posts that suspend bridges over large rivers.

But one thing it never is: something else. Like concrete, good communication is almost always definite. Unfortunately, many of us are anything but. Consider the following example.

Try this experiment: Ask six people you know to describe what you mean by a “sports car.” Chances are excellent you will receive six different answers: every color from white to black to red. You’ll also get everything from a Mazda Miata to an antique Jaguar such as the one James Bond drove in the early movies to what is known as a muscle car—and even those may have to be explained. No one knows precisely what you mean by that term sports car. You know what you mean. No one else does.

Now while you may be thinking that you won’t be using the term sports car at work, you will be using other similar terms. For instance, what does the phrase make this report highly visible mean? What does the term at the end of the day mean exactly? Truly at 5 p.m. today—or 7? Midnight? Or in the summation of the project? Are you using the term literally or symbolically? Do you even know what you mean?

What does have a successful outcome mean? How can, for instance, a department measure whether it’s doing a good job if the instructions and the starting point of the goals aren’t spelled out in clear terms? A department may say we want to increase our profits by 16 percent by the end of next quarter. Well, that sounds good. But specifically how? Does it do so by laying off employees? Selling more products? Increasing the prices on the products you already have?

To be clear, you have to use words that are unmistakable in their meanings. You don’t use words that allow you—or anyone else—to weasel out of what the message was intended to convey.This concept is called being concrete. It means when I say you need to sit in the chair, you know what I mean by the word chair. You know it’s not a sofa, you know it’s not a rolling stool, you know it’s not the floor. You know exactly what I mean. You don’t get a chance to say, “But hey, I thought you meant….”

And while we may think that being concrete is another form of being aggressive, in reality it is not.

Your receiver can then respond with her own ideas—and neither of you waste time having to redo your conversation once you find out that you are talking about different things.

Abstraction: The Enemy of Simplicity

The opposite of concrete is abstract. An abstraction is a concept whose definition changes with each person who hears the word. How does one define a word? Think about it. In some cases, such as defining a table, you and your 60 closest friends would all agree on what a table should be. You may imagine different sizes, but in general you all have in this case a concrete definition: a table has a flat top that is supported by legs.

But let’s say you and only two of those friends decide you want to go out on a Friday and have a good time. Chances are very strong that all three of you have varying ideas of what a good time should be. That’s because the concept of a good time is an abstraction. And when you start having multiple meanings of a message, the confusion begins.

Some people argue that being concrete limits possibilities. On the contrary: being concrete gives everyone the same starting point. It doesn’t create confusion at the starting gate. A table, for example, can be made out of wood, stone, plexiglass—the list goes on. It can have three legs, four legs, one leg. Ask any college design major: having a concrete, agreed-on starting place expands creativity, not limits it. Without that agreed-upon starting place, you have no idea where to begin.

Being concrete, then, is allowing creativity. It also allows both simplicity and details. If I tell you that the sports car I mean is a 1961 Jaguar XKE, creating the image in your mind is simple. You can then add details: black cowhide leather seats, a teakwood dash, and a holder for one martini—shaken, not stirred.

Remember: simplicity does not mean simple-minded. By concentrating on the essence, the core or main idea of something, and seeing it as it is, one sees precision and details. By stripping away the emotional baggage, emotional reactions, and attachments that we often unconsciously place on words and ideas, we see objectively, which allows us to see the word as it is. Therefore, it becomes what it is, not what our emotions want it to be.

Take, for instance, a Coach handbag or a designer pair of jeans. To many, having the little symbol on our possessions sends a message to ourselves—and hopefully others—that we are superior in some way; we have enough money or enough style or enough economic or social class to own one of these things. But if we strip down the symbols and emotional attachment, we see the item as it is: a leather bag to carry items in, or a stitched-together piece of denim that covers our bottom halves. We can then examine the workmanship, the quality of the materials, even the design of the item. Does it have a working zipper, for instance? Are the pockets in alignment?

Once we see the details, our emotional reaction to the word changes. In most cases, it diminishes, which helps with our own ability to see clearly not only the word, but the entire idea. Having that touch of “what will people think of me?” either consciously or unconsciously blurs the ability for both the sender and the receiver of the communication to see the idea as it is.

Just as we did with the designer item, by stripping away that reflection of self and touch of solipsism in our communication, we see the details and possibilities that one misses with large words, large sentences, and pomposity. Consider, for instance, the confusion that arises from a many commonly used business communication phrase: As soon as possible—what actually does that mean? Possible for you? Under what circumstances? To the extent we ignore what? If 3:00 is as soon as I can devote time to the task, is that early enough for you? Why or why not? And why for that matter do you and your time requests matter more than the ones I already have?

Implied in the as soon as possible is I need it and do it soon or else. It is one of the ultimate in self-absorbed messages; even if the writer consciously means that the other person can take his time. Implied unconsciously in the message is it’s really all about me; I didn’t check with you to see what you had going on or what you might need; I just need it. Without taking the time to clarify and be concrete, the sender of the as soon as possible message comes across as a self-centered aggressive despot, no matter what his intentions were in sending that message. He falls back into that I box we’ve been referring to all along.

Inside all of us is a sulky self-centered teenager. Depending on the day and the day’s events, that sulky teenager can be buried deep under the covers or be sitting up front of our reactions, arms folded and just itching for an argument. If the teenager is awake and butting into our professional demeanor one day, and we receive a message that said something has to be done as soon as possible—oh, my. If we are in the middle of another large project, that inner teenager would probably put the as soon as possible item on the back burner just because she doesn’t like her autonomy affronted. Your as soon as possible now means as soon as she feels like it, no matter what your needs are. It’s all about her, you know.

However, for the writer, the issue and the request may mean he needs information that is dire and has to be supplied within the next half an hour in order for the writer to continue to do his work. The use of the comment as soon as possible doesn’t convey that message. If the writer had taken the time to explain simply and clearly I need the information to 10 minutes in order to complete a report the boss wants in two hours, the teenager probably would have paused what she was doing, sent the information, and moved on. Both would have been happy, secure in simplicity and clarity of the request. Even the teenager couldn’t come up with an argument about that one. (Well, maybe….). But most people don’t take the time to realize that simple and clear is best. They know what they mean; therefore they convey what it means to them, without thinking of clarifying and simplifying for others to understand.

Being concrete means thinking about the many ways your words can be taken. You know what you mean, but if you are in that I box, you will usually neglect to see that others don’t think the same way you do. Even something as simple as confirming to a coworker who’s offered to pick up lunch for the office that you would like a salmon bagel may result in something other than what you intended. You may mean a plain bagel with salmon cream cheese; she may see that the shop offers bagels with smoked salmon on them and buy that. Or you may wind up with a plain bagel that just happens to have salmon flavoring baked inside it. Regardless, to ensure that you get what you want, you have to think about how someone else could take your words.

While that sulky teenager in the sender wants to jump up right now and yell, “Why should I have to be the one who has to do everything?” he needs to be aware that by making sure what is said is concrete, he is actually gaining time. He doesn’t have to go back and redo something because it wasn’t done right the first time. He also doesn’t have it hanging over his head, coming back to haunt and torment him (like yesterday’s forgotten homework now piled up on top of today’s). Most importantly, he gets what he wants. In a weird Machiavellian fashion, making sure that he is concrete winds up benefitting him. It’s the ultimate self-satisfying tool, because the end does justify the means.

Can being concrete really be that important? Consider the following.

A few years ago a young woman sued her employer. For over four years, she had been receiving on her performance evaluations the comment that her communication skills “needed to be improved.” So when she first received one of these mentions and comments, she set about to do something about it. She took advanced software class and passed with distinction.

Yet on the next evaluation she also received the same comment; this time she enrolled into Toastmasters. Six months later she received the same comment, although she was making progress and felt that her public speaking skills in front of a group had improved. So she then took a business writing course, in which she made an A. Still, at the next performance evaluation, she received the same comment.

Frustrated, she went to HR. All they could tell her was yes, that her “communication skills still required work.” Although she had done everything she could think of to do, she then decided that she was being discriminated against in some way. In her mind, she had addressed everything that communication skills meant. What emerged at the hearing after she filed suit was that the Boston-based company felt that her southern accent made her inappropriate for any form of promotion. They felt that they had sent that message clearly through the comment that her communication skills needed to be improved. Yet at no time did she understand that was what they meant. She had fixed everything that “communication skills” meant to her.

But the lack of concreteness in the company’s directives backfired on them. While, as her boss explained in court, the company had hoped to avoid any kind of hurt feelings they felt would have occurred by expressing that her southern accent did not meet with Boston standards, in fact they were found guilty of discrimination and of failure to provide clear performance goals and directives. She won a sizeable sum and also left the company for another firm where she was hired at 50 percent more than the first company was paying her. By the use of abstractions, and lack of concrete communication, the Boston-based company not only paid a large sum of money in fines and lost goodwill in the news and press. It also lost a highly qualified and willing employee whose only fault was that she did not understand that her employers disliked her accent.

Had the company’s management not been so worried about how to avoid hurting this woman’s feelings and therefore worded its message in a convoluted abstract form, it probably could’ve found a way to be positive and nurturing while delivering the message. In the court hearing, the young woman stated that her feelings would not have been hurt had the company said “most of our administrators are based in Boston, and they feel that your accent will hurt your progress.” She was far more hurt by the fact that they refused to tell her concretely what she needed to do. Their wording wasted her time and wasted her potential, which was far more damaging than hearing that administration wanted her to work on her accent.

Connotations: Another Trap Waiting to Happen

So let’s say that you’ve been very careful to choose words with clear meanings, and you’re pretty sure that you’ve been concrete in your message. You may think you are ready to hit that send button, but wait. There’s more.

Words have denotations, which is what we were talking about with abstractions. But they also have connotations.

For instance, take the two words senator and politician. If you look them up in the dictionary, you will find almost the exact same definition, with the only difference being that the senator holds a specific office whereas the politician can hold several. But think of the images these two words create: for senator, we immediately think of someone upstanding and honorable, doing his best to represent the people who elected him, selfless and deliberate in all actions, a staunch pillar of our American government. When the media said that John Edwards had disgraced his role as a senator, it was referring to that image.

Now think of what comes immediately to mind when you hear the word politician. For most of us, we immediately get a sense of something not quite right, someone self-serving and glib-tongued, glad-handing, and slightly repulsive. Yet the two words by denotation are almost exactly the same.

All of us have these immediate knee-jerk reactions to words floating around in the backs of our minds, eager to come forth whenever their names are called. Being aware of those emotional reactions and keeping the wrong ones at bay is crucial in communication. Perhaps you describe an employee as sensitive. You may mean that she is pretty good at picking up the small details and nuances of the daily work processes, that she is highly emotionally intelligent. And you would be using the word in its proper concrete manner, as in She is aware and uses her senses to notice things that others do not.

But by that one use, without being aware of the connotation baggage, you could unwittingly send the message that she is self-absorbed, easily hurt and offended, and emotional. After all, that’s what the connotation could suggest to others. And by that one small use of words, you could doom her career forever.

Not All Words Are the Same

In his poem Ulysses, Tennyson wrote that the title character was “a part of all that I have met.” And that fact is true with our understanding of words—both their denotations and connotations.

All of us have a mental body of reference for words and their images. Some of these are taught by our experiences while some are a part of our upbringing. Children who were old enough to understand what was happening on 9/11 have a different frame of reference from those who are too young to have been aware. Popular culture also plays a part in how we process information and words; those who grew up listening to the Grateful Dead and the BeeGees will have different references in that mental box than someone who was a teenager in the age of Grunge.

So a supportive boss to a Baby Boomer may mean one who allows the employee to work independently and who rewards her financially. But that same concept of supportive boss to a Gen Xer may mean a boss who provides training and sets up the employee for quick career moves. The Gen Yer sees that supportive boss as one who provides very detailed instructions and spends a significant amount of time with the employee—what the Gen Xer would see as micromanaging and what the Baby Boomer would see as coddling.

Those differences reveal themselves in slang as well as in informal language. Be aware that different generations have different connotations for words. When a Gen Yer says that an idea is really sick, he means it’s terrific. Yet a Baby Boomer or Gen Xer, told that the idea is sick, will either immediately wonder how the idea shows obscenity or perversion.

People from different areas of the country also have different connotations as well as denotations for certain words. To someone who grew up in Ohio, a Coca Cola or Pepsi is a soda, while in other parts of the country a soda is an ice cream concoction with seltzer water. A toboggan in New England is a sled; in the South, it’s a close-fitting knit cap. A tag sale in the West is the same as a garage sale or attic sale elsewhere. The glove box is also the glove holder or glove compartment (although most of us put everything but gloves in this recessed storage area in the car dashboard).

Although differences are fun to notice, be aware of what is known as reactive devaluation, which describes the tendency to automatically judge a person as inferior to you or pretentious because he uses a different term than you do for the same idea. You devalue that person unconsciously because his use of words is different. Being aware of that phenomenon can save you hours of misunderstanding and eliminate possible bias, both in you and in your audience.

In Summary

A great deal of embarrassment, pain, and wasted time can be avoided if we take the time to pause before we spoke. What makes sense to us doesn’t necessarily make sense to others—yet the whole point of communication is for other people to see our ideas. Often we take for granted that our words are concrete, when they are anything but. Investing some time into investigating just how other people interpret words before you communicate with them can yield big results. In other words, be concrete.