Worcester Business Journal

www.wbjournal.com June 8, 2015 • Worcester Business Journal 27 I f you're lazy, never have an original thought and don't want anyone to read what you write, clichés are for you. But the rest of us should avoid using them. Clichés, like strawberries, may be appealing at first, but they quickly become overripe. The business world is, of course, rife with them. Here are a handpicked few that are especially annoying. "Drink the Kool-Aid." These days, you can be sued for using language considered to be insensitive to a person's race, gender or sexual preference. But references to a mass suicide induced by a Marxist crackpot in 1978 are OK. This expression is lethal to the ears, contributing to the slow, painful death of the English language. It would be fun, though, to see Kraft Foods use it as a tag line for Kool-Aid. "He threw me under the bus." This is yet another expression of violence in corporate America, and, like, "Drink the Kool-Aid," it makes little sense. You may be able to drag someone under a bus, but throwing even a petite person is difficult. And why a bus? Why not a minivan or a halftrack? Which bus is the bus? Let's resolve not to throw anyone under the bus again, except for those who use the phrase, "Drink the Kool-Aid." "It is what it is." Whatever "it" is can't be what it isn't, so it should go without saying that "it is what it is" — and you should go without saying it. "Take it to the next level." To "take it to the next level," you need to "improve your game." If you just "dial it in," you may fall back to the previous level. If business were a video game, maybe you could take it to the next level, but it isn't. How do you know when you've reached the next level? How many levels are there? It's not clear what's being taken to the next level, but this "it" is what it is. "Think outside the box." Very little thinking is done inside a box, so it's probably true that we're all thinking outside of the box. Like "the next level" and "the bus," "the box" is apparently a very specific box. To reach the next level, you may have to take the bus to the box. If you truly want to "think outside the box," you'll need to throw away the box. Sadly, these and hundreds of other clichés are verbally waterboarding employees throughout corporate America. We would like to leverage our thought leadership to create a paradigm shift, but we have limited bandwidth. n David P. Kowal is president of Kowal Communications Inc. in Northborough. Contact him at Kowal@kowal.com By Gayle Suzanne Gayle Suzanne is a life coach based in Charlton. Contact her at gayle@suzanne.com. 10 Things I Know About... Avoid these 5 business clichés KNOW HOW 10. Embrace change. It's a whole lot better than fighting it. 9. Sometimes you have to let go. Letting things go is a sign of strength, not weakness. If you think back to when someone hurt you and your heart races and blood pressure rises, let it go. 8. Discomfort is worth the risk. Going outside your comfort zone opens up all kinds of possibilities. There's a whole big world out there. Try that belly dancing class or go skydiving. 7. How you get there doesn't matter. Just because someone carries out a task differently than you would doesn't mean it's wrong. If you both end up with the same result, it doesn't matter how you got there. 6. Focus on 'can' rather than 'can't.' We all have gifts and talents. Concentrate on those rather than on your weaknesses. You gain confidence, feel better and can serve others. 5. Separate work from the rest of 'you.' Creating boundaries is necessary in order to maintain a healthy life balance. Sometimes we have to say "no" to serve our highest good. 4. Be a solo act on occasion. Pushing yourself to go to that event alone will bring you to a new level. You'll stretch yourself and possibly connect with someone who can change your life. 3. Slow and steady wins the race — really! Taking small steps along the way toward a goal creates a winning strategy to achieve it. 2. Live without guilt. Watch that sitcom, have a couch day, read a book. Even though there are chores to be done, you deserve to just be. 1. Engage in a random act of kindness. Someone out there needs what you have. A smile or a kind word is a free token of love you can share anytime. You never know who is in desperate need of a little hope. n Shifting your perspective T here's no quick fix when it comes to trust within your office or team, or among colleagues. In management, it's imperative your employees trust you so you can have impact and influence in the workplace, and that you continue to build trust over time. Trust creates a work environment of high morale, unified pride and strong camaraderie. Here are three ways to earn trust: Trust yourself. Trusting yourself is a learned skill, and further positions you to embrace risk, writes Glenn Llopis at Forbes.com. Trusting yourself means bringing your authentic self to everything you do. "Most people don't trust themselves enough because this becomes the basis for ultimate accountability," he writes. "In fact, most people would rather be more accountable to what others want them to be, rather than what they seek to be themselves." Be transparent and truthful. The rumor mill is fueled by speculation when there's a distinct lack of communication coming from executive offices. "If there is a void of information, employees will fill it and they will always fill it with negative information," says Jim Dougherty, a veteran software CEO, in an article by Carolyn O'Hara at HBR.org. Regularly sharing information such as financial results — whether good or bad — will show you trust employees, and make them more likely to trust you. Know that trust staves off dysfunction. "Too many executives try to hide things or spin them. And once trust is undermined, everything else is prone to unravel," writes Rick Wartzman at Businessweek.com. He notes the recipe for success of management consultant Peter Drucker, to "build an organization that is battle- ready … where people trust one another." Companies that succeed in this goal include NetApp, Edward Jones, Boston Consulting Group, Google and Wegmans, he notes. n 101: EARNING TRUST >> BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to the Worcester Business Journal BY DAVID P. KOWAL Special to the Worcester Business Journal Want to 'think outside the box'? Dump that and other banalities from your communications

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