Category: Entrepreneurial Wellness

In May, 2020, Tomos Roberts (aka “TomFoolery”), a spoken word poet based in the UK, wowed our Covid-stricken world by composing and performing “The Great Realization.” (I blogged on the performance, some 15 months ago.)

In that “pandemic poem,” Roberts argued that the earth-shattering effects of Covid-19 offered an unparalleled opportunity to appreciate what matters–from one’s family to the environment that groans from our abuse. Other narrative poems have followed, all featuring Tom’s trademark rhyming couplets and indomitable cheerfulness, which coexists with his awareness of the injustices that fill the news.

Shortly after the success of “The Great Realization” (which American actor Jake Gyllenhaal  promoted as a future children’s story), Tom encouraged the Covid-weary by delivering another poem, “The Inventor.” When Covid continues to wear on us and when so many of us lament the ongoing degradation of our earth, Tom’s speaker’s exchange with the cynical “inventor” (an authority figure and naysayer) may offer us insight and thereby hope:

“Sat in a chair, with a desk in the way, he’s looking at me looking like I know what to say.

What would you like to be, he unloads to the air, with his steely hard, unhelpful stare.

An inventor, I say, as I hold his eye, there’s a smirk across his face that doesn’t fail to pass me by. “An inventor,” he exclaims and then giggling repeats. “Do you have a new invention that this planet really needs?”

I’ve held my tongue for long enough, the effrontery’s too great, but calmly I stay smiling like I’m talking to a mate.

I’m sorry, I’m not here to pitch your product. I’m sure you couldn’t comprehend but if I were you I’d cool down a touch and try not to condescend.

I haven’t reinvented the light bulb, there’s plenty of people making phones. I don’t have a shiny gadget or an appliance for our homes.

No, I picture a new society. One of freedom, and of beauty, where people aren’t given menial positions and where every member knows their duty. I picture one in which rights and freedoms are afforded every soul, and not dependent on arbitrary factors but with a humanistic goal.

I picture a place without such structures, where only a tiny few can win–a place where we don’t oppress one another based upon pigmentation in our skin.

Maybe we could get to a place where health and education are free, since they’re things of incalculable value or at least that’s how it appears to me.

Maybe we could work less, as I see no reason why, if we had the technology available, anyone should toil until they die.

I picture one where leaders are chosen for diplomacy and not selected for brute power, one with structures of support for those that meet their darkest hour.

I picture a place where big business would be tasked with innovation and we instilled societal guidance to deter from domination. Competition is good. If it drives us to improve. But the utility doesn’t last long, if all the rest of us must lose.

I picture a place where dance and art and poetry can be held in high esteem, where children are encouraged to be creative, to imagine, and to dream. I can see you rolling your eyes at this but telling me it’s not true that imagination and creativity are things that robots just can’t do. A place where justice learns to operate without such human bias, that we can enjoy the gift of music, and the calm effect of quiet.

I believe that this is possible. I believe this is where we’re heading. I believe that this isn’t  fantasy or just a story that I’m telling.

I believe that I have a part to play and I believe that so do you.

I believe that by believing it becomes more likely to be true.

I believe there are those who will slow us, due to lack of wisdom or private gain.

I believe that it’ll be hard to create and even harder still to maintain.

I believe we’re in touching distance, of being so much greater, because life’s a game, and a game will always be so much bigger than the player.

I know you don’t believe it’s possible. I can see you shake your head. But you know, the only reason we don’t already live in that world is because we haven’t invented it yet.”

Listen to Tom perform this poem, himself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwpDiW8npmM

(c)  Tomos Roberts (TomFoolery)

And now it’s your turn:  Who is the “inventor” in your life, who challenges the value of your creativity, your inventiveness?  Could it be the pandemic, itself?

Please drop me a note; I’d be delighted to hear from you.

A few months ago, a colleague of mine commented that she preferred to read copy that was “less detailed” than mine, because less focus and concentration were involved. “Shortness sells,” she quipped, half jokingly, rewriting the age-old writer’s adage that “specificity sells.”

But that moment stayed with me, since most writers are neurotic about the effectiveness of their writing and because it is not specificity per se (or brevity) but precision that should win the day.

To answer my colleague, I’d say that yes, brevity can be useful, but unless we’re talking about aphorisms and taglines or other hard-core, digital marketing, brevity won’t sell.

One of my favourite copywriters, Henneke Duistermaat, recently blogged on why longer-form copywriting is useful—the form in which I have specialized for the past 10 years (e.g. writing blog postings, articles, media releases, case studies, website copy, etc.).

Length, when written well, can be more precise, vivid and, in her words, “full of zest” than its shorter counterpart. “Even if your text becomes longer,” Henneke writes, “precision captivates readers.”

Business-to-Business copywriting (B2B) is a good example of this, as it is often longer than its Business-to-Consumer (B2C) counterpart. The former features more detailed content and research.

The non-writerly colleague I mentioned at the outset of this post disputes the need for detail in business writing. I certainly strive to avoid long, rambling, boring writing. But I disagree that detail means doldrums. Writing should not aim to be brief, but sufficiently long to express its insights and engage its audience. As Henneke comments: “Brevity can suck the spirit out of your writing. Writing that’s too brief is soulless. It lacks the power to engage and inspire.”

In a recent blog posting on her website, Duistermaat shows what short copy can lose, when she cites a seven-word, newspaper description of American Arthur Ashe’s serve in tennis:

“Arthur Ashe started the match on serve.”

By contrast, she cites a 165-word depiction of that same serve, written by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, John McPhee:

Arthur Ashe, his feet apart, his knees slightly bent, lifts a tennis ball into the air. The toss is high and forward. If the ball were allowed to drop, it would, in Ashe’s words, “make a parabola and drop to the grass three feet in front of the baseline.” He has practiced tossing a tennis ball just so thousands of times. But he is going to hit this one.

His feet draw together. His body straightens and tilts forward far beyond the point of balance. He is falling. The force of gravity and a muscular momentum from legs to arm compound as he whips his racquet up and over the ball.

He weighs a hundred and fifty-five pounds; he is six feet tall, and right-handed. His build is barely full enough not to be describable as frail, but his coordination is so extraordinary that the ball comes off his racquet at furious speed. With a step forward that stops his fall, he moves to follow.

The precision of McPhee’s depiction of how Ashe serves, the statistical detail it includes of Ashe’s size, the reference to his previous practice and so on, all elicit readers’ interest and pull us into the story. As Henneke says, “When you read McPhee’s description, you feel like you’re on court watching the match unfold.”

Precision (rather than unwieldy length) is also better at eliciting the reader’s emotion. The detail of the above sample is persuasive and intensifies its drama.

And through these qualities, the writing also makes the writer (i.e. McPhee) more credible. We sense that McPhee is an expert about tennis and understands the significance of the performance he’s describing.

Now not all writing can provide such detail. Henneke observes that writing must cycle between an “ebb and flow,” or else it will risk being long-winded. But the alternative to that is not (or not only) brevity.

But when length coincides with precision and all of its ensuing power, we all (as writers) become more likely to serve a winner.

And now it’s your turn. Do you agree that precision can make longer-form copy more powerful than its shorter counterpart? Please include your samples! I’d be delighted to hear from you

In the context of the tragic and horrific discovery of 215 unmarked graves from the children of the Indian Residential School system in Kamloops and some 751 graves on Cowesses First Nation, Saskatchewan, many of us have been feeling deep sorrow for our Indigenous neighbours. The word “apology” has been on our lips, in the media, and on Parliament Hill.

Many of those reading and watching about these discoveries were not involved in the abuse of 150,00 Indigenous children, who were cruelly taken from their families and mistreated or tortured, even to the point of death. But we recognize these atrocities and express sorrow for what we did not control. We also offer to walk with our Indigenous sisters and brothers as they seek to heal and to be reconciled with themselves, their painful histories and  with other members of Canadian society. We must also commit never to let such atrocities recur.

Much of the abuse we have been learning about germinated from leaders of the Catholic Church, in schools run on behalf of Canada’s Federal Government. Most thinking and feeling Canadians agree with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Indigenous leaders, such as FSIN Chief Bobby Cameron, that Pope Francis needs to express a profound apology on behalf of the Church he represents. Moreover, Trudeau and SK Indigenous leaders have called for the Pope to come to Canada to deliver his apology—in person.

At least one Catholic person whom I know believes that the Pope should also express that apology—formally—in Rome, something he has failed to do, since it is his Church and the Federal Government (originally led by Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald) which must take responsibility for these egregious violations of human rights.

What worries me is that as we Canadians walk in loss with our Indigenous neighbours, many other, less serious matters seem to trigger knee-jerk apologies (some of which we hear in local news) that weaken the sentiment of what an apology really means. This reality affects and connects both entrepreneurial communities and Indigenous ones. Words are powerful and  the words “I am sorry” can be depleting. This week’s blog posting considers how.

Outside of the echelons of the Vatican and away from the atrocities of the Residential School system, while it may sound initially jarring, there are truths about the value of apologizing in our workaday lives that we need to acknowledge, if we are to preserve the meaning of “I am sorry” for our Indigenous neighbours.

It has often been noted that apologizing, along with Tim Horton’s coffee and the latest NHL scores, is a reflex of many Canadians. (Many have casually joked that when you step on the foot of a Canadian, s/he will apologize more quickly than you do.)  In entrepreneurial circles, the American Jen Fisher (Chief Well-being Officer at the financial regulatory and advisory firm, Deloitte), has observed that apologizing reflects our instincts to seek acceptance and belonging.

While Fisher has made no public comment connecting apology making and human rights violations, such as those committed against Indigenous children in Canada, Fisher says that in far more minor circumstances, we need to “reclaim the power of the apology for when we really need it.” She writes: “ ‘I am sorry’ is too important a phrase to waste” in miniscule moments in an office or boardroom. The words are then weakened so as to have less effect, when they are “actually warranted,” such as in cases  of human rights violations.

If we apologize unthinkingly (i.e. over-apologize) in minor situations, we “appear less confident, which can in turn make us less confident.” We feel that lack of confidence, which then interferes with our capacity for empathy that all humans desperately need to offer each other. Knee-jerk apologies, then, can do more harm than good.

Fisher recommends nine ways to reconsider how we use apologizing in the smaller moments of workaday life:

(1) Know when to apologize: Fisher recommends that we choose to apologize in part by acknowledging what we have done.  In cases such as the Residential School atrocities, we need the power of a full apology from Church and from Government, and from the vantage point of citizens who were not there, but who still share victims’ pain and want to offer support.

By contrast, in workaday exchanges, such as when we request legitimately a service,  Fisher says, we have not done wrong and should avoid weakening expressions like “I’m sorry to bother you.”

(2) Go to the root of the problem: If you apologize for something in particular, Fisher says to “go to the source of the problem. If you can change what is mistaken, it may save you from over-apologizing.” For instance, if you’re frequently arriving late to commitments in your life, recognize that you need to revise how you manage your calendar. “Thank you for your patience,” is more appropriate than an apology, in cases where one’s delayed by uncontrollable circumstances.

(3) Be open and truthful: In more workaday circumstances (emphatically unlike the Residential School atrocities), it can be better to give context for something you cannot stop or control. Fisher cites the example of a worker whose young child cries in the background of a Zoom meeting: “You can explain that [the child] missed her nap.”  Here, too, “you can let others know why” or enlist their help to fill a gap for which you might otherwise over-apologize.

(4) Learn from mistakes: In routine life (emphatically unlike the Residential School atrocities), when small things happen imperfectly, Fisher says: “even if it is our fault, instead of ‘I’m sorry,’ we can take responsibility and acknowledge what happened and learn from it. What is essential is that we provide an explanation as to ‘how we’ll do this differently next time.’ ”  We need to let our colleagues, friends, supervisors and others know that we “take their concerns seriously.”

(5) Reach for empathy, not sympathy: The psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut made famous the distinction between sympathy (“I’m sorry that happened”) and empathy (“I can tell that was really terrible/overwhelming/painful for you”). Fisher says that while sympathy is good, empathy allows us to open a conversation and deepen a relationship.

She notes that we can use our empathy “to . . . stop someone else from feeling the need to apologize,” when it is not warranted.  (In front of a screaming child on an airplane, a fellow traveller could say empathetically, to the child’s parent: “I feel like your child does, today!”)  We must shore up our supplies of empathy for times when a full and heartfelt apology (such as in the context of our Indigenous neighbours’ histories) is warranted.

(6) Be grateful:  Fisher notes that while over-apologizing depletes our self-esteem, “gratitude does the opposite.”  When we think of things we’re grateful for, our minds are buoyed, and that buoyancy can spread to others. If we are grateful that we have benefited by living and working on land once held by our Indigenous neighbours, then we need to gratefully acknowledge that and do what we can to be reconciled with those neighbours. We can give them our gratitude and support of many kinds to help them to heal.

(7) Never apologize for caring for yourself: Fisher says we should never apologize for taking time to take care of ourselves—and this applies to everyone. When we don’t take sufficient care of ourselves, we’re more likely “to show up as poor versions of ourselves and to apologize preemptively for things” that we’re just “too depleted to deal with.”

Being “unapologetic” about workaday self-care can save ourselves from actions that could demand serious apology, later.

(8) Give yourself and others grace in challenging times: In religious terms, “grace” refers to unmerited Divine assistance given by a Deity to humans for their regeneration and redemption (OED).

In the terrible context of the atrocities committed against our Indigenous neighbours, when the Federal Government and the Catholic Church apologize, they would do well to point to the reality that only genuine spiritual assistance can overcome the inhumanity they have caused. Only grace can uplift victims from inhumanity done (treacherously) in the name of a God or organized religion or government.

As a workplace wellness specialist, Jen Fisher writes more generically about showing grace to ourselves and others, as these pandemic times recede. But her words also apply to the work of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. She writes: “As our society begins to open back up and people  . . . return to the workplace, it’s not always going to go smoothly. People are going to have different comfort levels about . . . simply being around other people again. So give yourself some grace.”

We can add: Don’t over-apologize when apologies are not needed. Save those apologies for when they really are. Fisher concludes: “And extend that grace outward, too, since we don’t always know what challenges others are dealing with.”

Now more than ever, our Indigenous friends need the gift of emotional and spiritual grace: It can begin with a heartfelt apology from others, for what they have experienced and continue to endure, today.

Let’s follow Fisher’s insights to avoid over-apologizing for miniscule things and save our apologies for when they are really due. 

And now it’s your turn: What do you notice about mainstream culture’s tendency to over-apologize, when unwarranted, that weakens our feelings and words for times when apologies truly are needed?  Please write in; I’d be delighted to hear from you.