Since reading The Elements of Eloquence, I am seeing tropes everywhere. Unfortunately, most people seem to go for the low-hanging fruit (Boo, badly overused metaphor!), especially in the titles of blog posts.
Numbered lists are probably the most common, for three reasons:
Someone did some research once and found that they lead to more click-throughs, so there’s at least a pseudo-scientific basis for this one.
They give the impression of completeness.
They promise a quick and easy read.
Alliteration is a cheap way to win one’s attention. It’s easy, and personally pleasing to peoples’ ears, even when it results in rotten writing.
Why do rhetorical questions get our attention? Is it because they spark curiosity? Do they exploit our continuous search for meaning in a chaotic world? Who knows?
This morning, Mike Kunkle wrote an excellent article about sales discovery, which is something that sales professionals generally don’t do as well as they should. Mike gives solid actionable advice on how to improve the process, but there is an important distinction I would like to add.
There are two ways to go about the discovery process: you can search or you can explore. Each has its own strengths, but most salespeople do too much searching and not enough exploring.
I would argue that most salespeople go into a conversation with the intent not to explore, but to find. Exploring is truly open-ended: it’s a search for the actual truth, whether or not the truth actually leads to a sale. Finding is getting the answers you are looking for so that it leads to a sale.
Most salespeople don’t do exploring well because they’re not paid to find the truth; they’re paid to find customers.
The difference is that they know what they are looking for, so they craft their questions specifically to lead towards the answers they want. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but unless the truth contains a real need that they may be qualified to address, “searching” questions become patently obvious to the prospect and breed distrust. Even if there is a real need, impatience or lack of skill and subtlety can rush the process and generate resistance.
And if it’s true that your ultimate goal is to jointly create value in which both parties can share, too much of a laser focus can cause you to overlook unexpected opportunities. Indeed, many scientific discoveries came about when a scientist got a fully unexpected result and had the curiosity to pick up the new thread to see where it led. How many of those types of opportunities have you left on the table by ignoring those threads? As Churchill said, “Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.”
The difference between exploring and searching, as I see it, is that exploration requires an open mind and a willingness to face up to unlooked-for and unexpected answers—those that might indicate to you and to the prospect that there is no current need for what you’re selling. Exploration requires a different mind-set than searching; it requires humility to recognize you don’t automatically have all the perfect answers; curiosity to ask the extra why; and courage to confront unwelcome answers.
Exploration is less about SPIN and more about humble inquiry, asking questions when you don’t already know the answer you want.
Exploration may be a less efficient and direct path to the sale you’re after, but when your counterpart senses that you’re honestly seeking understanding and not just another handle to grasp the sale, it fosters the trust, transparency and teamwork that leads to mutually profitable long term relationships. It’s the best way to jointly create and share new value.
The paradox is that the best way to get what you want is to be prepared to hear what you don’t.
William Shakespeare was perhaps the most eloquent writer in the English language, but according to Mark Forsyth, author of The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase, he was not a natural genius. He achieved his eloquence by mastering—through painstaking practice, time and sheer hard work—simple, well-known tools. Well, actually they were well-known tools in his time, because back then students still learned rhetoric in schools. No one learns rhetoric anymore, which is why the world is awash in crap, cliché and corporate communication.
Why do some combinations of words sound so much better than the ordinary? In that previous phrase, everyone will recognize alliteration. I don’t think anyone knows why we like to hear words in succession that start with the same sound, but we do. You may have also recognized the use of tricolon: we like things in threes, especially when the last one is the longest.
Forsyth’s contention is that eloquence is a skill that can be improved by knowledge of the classic elements that were first catalogued by the Greeks and Romans so long ago. It’s like the difference between basic dinner fare and a gourmet meal. An amateur chef can produce a tasty meal, but a professional, with the right ingredients and long experience in combining them just so, can turn out great meals consistently. But eloquence is harder than cooking, because you have to produce a different meal every time you speak or write.
I love this book and strongly endorse it even though it contradicts two of my favorite themes.
The first is that content is king, so my first inclination was to disagree with Forsyth’s other main point: poets succeed not because they express profound ideas, but because they express ordinary ideas exquisitely. But it really is true. Sometimes we hear a phrase that just sounds so right that it’s easy to assume it’s a profound or novel thought. But when you strip away the eloquence and consider the idea, you might find it’s quite ordinary, or even nonsensical. Shakespeare could have said “your dad’s body is thirty feet deep”, but he instead said, “Full fathom five thy father lies.”
Ian Fleming deliberately gave his main character a nondescript name, yet when he said, “Bond. James Bond”, he spoke one of the most memorable lines in movie history. He used diacope, which is a verbal sandwich in which you say a word or phrase, insert an interruption, and then repeat the word or phrase.
It’s easy to assume that I have a suspicion of superficial elements that dress up an untrue or inferior idea. Yet I love a well-turned phrase at least as much as the next person.
There are three ways to read this book. First you have to read it and enjoy it. That’s easy. Then you have to study it. That’s tough but useful. Finally you can practice, practice, practice. (Parataxis with epizeuxis thrown in) You can simply enjoy it, which is easy to do because Forsyth has not only done a great job in compiling examples of the various elements, he has also come up with plenty of his own. You can also study and learn the elements so that you can recognize them when you read or hear them. Don’t worry, it won’t ruin your appreciation of good phrasing—understanding how the effect was created does not make it any less impressive. The third way is to do what Shakespeare did: actively practice. This is risky, as it’s easy to create a lot of crap that just misses the mark, but over time you might just improve the quality of your expression.
The difficulty in writing a review of a book like this is that everything sounds so pedestrian. Anything you write pales in comparison to the greats, so does that mean that one should not aspire to occasional flights of fancy? Is there a place for the elements of eloquence in ordinary business communication, or are they reserved for writers and other creative types? (Rhetorical questions)
I personally believe that while simple, plain and clear expression is perfectly fine most of the time, if you can occasionally slip in something that makes people sit up and take notice, or to repeat what you said afterward, the effects on your personal credibility and reputation may not be to your dissatisfaction. (Litotes) They make you sound smart, the elements do. (Prolepsis)
Hyperbole is something that corporate communication does a lot of, but not well. When everything is awesome or world-class, nothing is. For comparison, note how Dashiel Hammett described the skills of a detective: “(he) could have shadowed a drop of salt water from golden Gate to Hong Kong without ever losing sight of it.”
Another of my themes is the importance of efficiency and concision in speaking and writing, of cutting out unnecessary words, but religiously sticking to that would rule out merism and eliminate lines such as,
“Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them…”
which could have more concisely said by, “Cannon all around them.”
Of course, King could have shortened his speech by not saying “I have a dream…” so many times. (anaphora)
So, it’s OK to use more words than mere efficiency would dictate, but if that bothers you, you can even out the balance through zeugma (leaving out a verb) or syllepsis (using one word in more than one way), as demonstrated by,
“Sir Edward Hopeless, as guest at Lady Panmore’s ball, complained of feeling ill, took a highball, his hat, his coat, his departure, no notice of his friends, a taxi, a pistol from his pocket, and finally his life. Nice chap. Regrets and all that.”
There are two things this book may do for you–make you a better speaker, or make you a worse speaker. It could be easy to overdo it, or to get so carried away with your own wordcraft that you produce more of the aforementioned crap, which is why you should, when preparing for a speech that is one of the most important of your life, one that will determine the subsequent arc of your personal success, such as a keynote to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, or to your own CFO, who by the way despite her reputation for terseness and brevity is not immune to the power of eloquence, try out your lines on a trusted friend, one who can provide a fresh ear, sounding board, and impartial opinion. (That was hypotaxis, which has probably mercifully gone out of fashion, but was fun to write.)
It’s your choice. You can buy this book and work hard on becoming more eloquent, or you can ignore this and keep producing… (aposiopesis)
I harped last week about the critical importance of careful preparation and anticipation for the Question and Answer period after your presentation. In case that did not convince you, I’d like to introduce you to Gunter Schabowski, who made one of the most consequential gaffes in the history of Q&A.
Gunter was a member of the East German politburo who became its principal spokesperson in 1989, as Gorbachev’s reforms began inspiring eastern Europeans to test the bonds that held them in the Soviet orbit. East Germans in particular were chafing to open the borders between themselves and West Germany.
In response, the politburo had decided to open the borders under special conditions and proper permissions, in a meeting which Schabowski did not attend. He was handed a note to that effect just before his press conference on November 9, 1989. What the note did not say was that the rules would not apply to the West Berlin crossings, and that they would not take effect until the following day, to allow time to communicate the rules to the border guards.
In the press conference, Schabowski read the note out loud when he was asked (probably by Tom Brokaw) when the rules would take effect, Schabowski said: “As far as I know, effective immediately—without delay.”
Schabowski’s answer aired on West German television at 7:17pm, and thousands of East Germans rushed to the gates. As the news covered the growing crowds, more and more East Germans flocked to the border crossings. Border guards became increasingly concerned as the crowds swelled, but no one would take the responsibility to order them to fire on the crowds. Finally, at about 11:30pm, the guards simply opened the gates—and the East German regime effectively died at that moment.
What does this incident teach us about fielding questions after a presentation? The obvious lesson is that you should prepare carefully and do your best to anticipate how the audience will react to your message and what their legitimate concerns and questions might be—especially when so much is at stake.
But, (and here I’m trying to anticipate your question), the pace of events precludes careful preparation; real life does not always afford the leisure to ponder all the possible questions and objections. Sometimes you have no choice but to speak before you’re ready. That’s true, which is why sometimes your best answer is also the most honest one: “I don’t know, but I’ll find out and get back to you.”
Chances are that you will never face a Q&A where you could lose your reputation, your job and your country because of one careless answer—but are you willing to take that chance?
, he was not a natural genius. He achieved his eloquence by mastering—through painstaking practice, time and sheer hard work—simple, well-known tools. Well, actually they were well-known tools in his time, because back then students still learned rhetoric in schools. No one learns rhetoric anymore, which is why the world is awash in crap, cliché and corporate communication.
