Executive Communications: Le Mot Juste and the Just Word
Posted on Monday, April 5th, 2010
The Fortune 100 company chairman looked at the draft speech and raised an eyebrow. The Dalai Lama quote, on the danger of blindly trusting others’ motives, didn’t sit well. “This is wrong,” he said. “I had dinner with the Chinese ambassador, who claimed that historically they own Tibet.”
My eyebrow went up.
As a writer, I’ve always felt it my responsibility to do more for the client than string together the usual set of tired affirmations and sports analogies. Though I might admire them personally, you will never find a single reference to Vince Lombardi or Dale Carnegie in the words I craft for a CEO. Life is not a game, nor can it be reduced to a positive thinker’s bag of simplistic aphorisms. When they address the public, corporate leaders need to present insights not only on their industry, but the planet. They must step out of themselves and onto the world stage.
In this case, I fathomed it was a lost cause. I folded the draft into my pocket and walked out.
The offending quote: “Once bitten by a snake, a man suspects even a coil of rope.” Google knows this. It applies in my field, as well.
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