"Looking forward with confidence" or how to write a results announcement

A former boss once told me that I shouldn’t sweat blood and tears over producing a resounding quote for the annual results announcement: it should always end with the words, “I look forward with confidence to the future”.

This might sound lazy, but is in fact genius. Just won a pile of new contracts? Try: “We grew our business significantly in 2012, earning major contracts and improving profitability. I look forward with confidence to the future”. Ta-dah! Cue applause.

Alternatively, your sales and profits have sky-dived and you’ve had to fire half your staff: “Following a year marked by difficult conditions in our principal markets, we have put in place a restructuring plan designed to improve profitability. As such, I look forward with confidence to the future”. In other words, things can only get better.

It doesn’t end there. A spot survey of 2012 results announcements from the FTSE shows you could conceivably write a results announcement from a pre-defined list of words and phrases, simply swapping in the words “bank” or “mining company” depending on who you’re writing for.

2012 wasn’t a great year for most companies, so there was a lot about “foundations” (Barclays, BP) and “building” (the latter featuring particularly heavily at Rio Tinto, which was building on strengths as well as building focus – that’s quite a lot of building work for a company whose underlying earnings were down 40%). “Solid” was probably the most overused adjective: Aviva made “solid progress”, despite losing £3 billion, and BP even managed to lay a “solid foundation for growth in the long-term” (unlike the short-term, which is about “delivering operational milestones”). There were lots of “difficult economic backdrops” and “challenging economic conditions”, although most companies were “well-positioned to deliver future growth”.

No-one’s seen an “outstanding” progress since the heady days of 2007, although Unilever, which seemed almost embarrassed at producing some decent results amid a sea of FTSE red, ventured a “good”. “Substantial progress”, by contrast, seems to be reserved for companies that were doing particularly badly before, or who are hated by the general public because they pay their employees too much (i.e. banks).

What to take out of this? I can’t really criticise: not only have I written endless announcements where my company is looking forward with confidence to the future, but when I’ve tried to write anything else, it’s generally been changed by the chairman or one of his myriad advisors. In fact, originality is perhaps best left out of results announcements, if Barclays’ attempt this year is anything to go by. Its Chief Executive ended his statement by explaining the bank had a common purpose, which would be delivered by embedding five core values, and that by building this culture (bear with me) he is confident that Barclays “will become the ‘Go-To’ bank for all our stakeholders”. I sincerely hope that next year, it will have made substantial progress.

Carry on corporate filming

"Do you think that factory looks industrial enough? It needs to look more industrial. There isn't any smoke coming out of the top".

Welcome to the world of corporate films, where the obligation to cover everything you do in under two minutes leads you inevitably in the direction of shameless cliché.

This particular shameless cliché was damp and cold. I mean, really, truly, eyewateringly cold. We'd planned to go to Marseilles and shoot a few grim industrial scenes in bright sunshine for a nice gritty contrast, until we realised it would double the budget. So here we were on a freezing February afternoon in Le Havre- me, the producer, the runner and the cameraman. We had two days to film a factory, some container ships, a wind farm, some "happy colleagues having lunch", a petrol station, someone receiving a text message while walking down a beach - as you do in your average lunch hour- and a toy shop. (We'd wanted a child, but it was too expensive to hire one, so we'd settled for a text message picture of the producer's child and a teddy bear bought in the shop.)

To add insult to budget injury, the whole thing had to be "generically European" as my boss had vetoed anything French, so we'd already spent several miserable hours arguing with car hire companies to give us anything other than a Renault, and avoiding the hundreds of boulangeries and signs plastered in French, including one particularly tricky Total petrol station that greeted us with a cheerful "bonjour" in giant neon letters above the pumps. We had finished the previous day's filming at 1am.

This being a "subjective view" film, the cameraman was also the actor, wearing a suit, and a strange contraption involving a film camera strapped to a motorcycle helmet with thick black sticky tape.  This being the provinces, everyone wanted to know what we were doing.

"Why is he wearing that weird hat?

-We're making a film.

-Right. He looks weird. Are you from Paris?"

We were at the final scene of the two days, where the main character is on his way home with the teddy bear he's bought for the child, and "drives past a factory belching out smoke". Unfortunately, the factory, which had been obligingly polluting the sky with toxic fumes when we'd driven past it in the morning was now the smug embodiment of corporate citizenship, with not a wisp emerging from the chimney.

"Could we maybe change the scene? Like, thanks to your company, the factory doesn't belch out smoke any more?

-That kind of changes the concept of the film. Can't you add in some smoke in post-production?"

-Couldn't we do a nuclear power station instead?

-They look too clean. It needs to look dirty."

And just at that moment, against the dark grey sky, with a small slat of sunlight shooting a ray of winter warmth on the steel of the factory, a miracle happened. Smoke started to curl from the top of the chimney.

A word from the Executive Vice-President of Word-Processing Initiatives

I sometimes have fantasies about what the killer title to have on my business card would be. Most of us do this, usually in the context of imagining bumping into an odious former boss, or the girl who used to pick on us on the school bus when we were five. "How am I doing? Oh, fine, here's my card, we must have lunch together".... and with a samurai flash of card displaying a title that left no room for doubt as to your importance and wealth, you would completely destroy their self-worth.

The problem is that very few titles actually pass muster. There is something rather laughable about being Chairman and Founder of a company that only includes yourself. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, I met someone yesterday who introduced himself as Vice-President of Strategic Initiatives for the Industry Business Line.

He had recently been promoted and was clearly extremely pleased with himself. I didn't like to point out that:

1) Vice-President of Strategic Initiatives implies there is likely to be a president, a senior vice-president or even an executive vice-president also in charge of strategic initiatives. That sounds like a lot of people in charge of some initiatives.

2) What are strategic initiatives anyway? They sound pretty lame. A strategy has oomph. A programme at least sounds concrete. Initiatives sound like lots of people sitting around in a room talking about whether or not something is a good idea, which, let's face it, if there are three vice-presidents in charge of the same thing is likely to be true.

The golden rule is that no title should be longer than three words, otherwise it isn't a proper job. Chief Executive - only two words. Chairman - even better, only one. (Marketing & Communications Director is just about ok, but only if you cheat and don't count the ampersand).

Of course this is heresy to most senior company executives, or indeed Americans, who are all senior vice-president of something. There is also a theory that in a recession, companies can't give people pay rises so they try fobbing them off with fancy titles instead. My advice is, don't fall for the trick. Demand the extra cash.

And if you do want to argue a title change, go simple. My absolute favourite is the head of the National Theatre. He's simply called The Director. What else do you need?

How to speak estate agent

I haven’t written for a while because I’m buying an apartment. I say “buying”. I actually mean shopping. The inner fishwife in me loves looking around other people’s apartments. Sometimes, you get good design ideas: the rest of the time you can gasp at their terrible taste.

It also brings you into frequent contact with estate agents, a strange breed who, I am starting to realise, are pretty similar both sides of the Channel. Crucially, they have their own language. So in the absence of any deep insights into corporate communications, this week I’m serving up the guide to estate agent speak - in London and Paris:

Charmant	Extremely small.
Atypique	The shower is in the kitchen.
-ette	Kitchenette. Cuisinette. Studette. Whatever the language, “-ette” translates as “unliveably small”.
Bijou	London estate agent term for “charmant”.
Has potential	Start learning about plumbing, now.
Good investment	Don’t even think about trying to live there.
Coup de coeur assure!	The owners are in the middle of a messy divorce and need to sell this apartment immediately.
Vaste	Anything over 35m2*. Still considered unliveably small by anyone who has the social misfortune to live outside the Periphérique.
Sans perte de place /  bon agencement	“The number of square metres might look terrible, but this apartment really is worth the extra €20,000”.
…Village	As in, “Abbeville Village”,“Harringay Village”… Description for a small row of shops including Sainsbury’s Local and Starbuck’s used by London estate agents to play into every tired urbanite’s dream of the rural idyll where Mum and Dad live.
…Borders	Highbury Borders is Finsbury Park. Hampstead Borders is Finchley Road. If it’s bordering, it isn’t actually there.
Dans quartier en pleine restructuration	Gangland.
Recently regenerated area	Some prostitutes and drug pushers by the tube station, but a few gay interior designers have recently moved in.

*Paris estate agents – and Parisian buyers – are completely obsessed with square meterage. This is because the difference between a large apartment and a small apartment is a washing machine. Don’t even think about a dishwasher: these are for people living in the provinces.

New Year’s resolutions : cutting out the fat

A lot of people you talk to at this time of year have one big objective: to end 2013 thinner than they started it. In real life this involves a dispiriting programme of limp salad and mineral water, usually disappearing mid-February into an orgy of leftover Christmas chocolates and red wine.

But when it comes to communications, losing the flab is definitely worth doing, and with a bit of effort, it can be maintained all year.

This is on my mind particularly at the moment because I’ve been helping structure a series of presentations and plenary sessions for my company’s senior management conference in March. Inevitably, this means lots of time on Powerpoint. I have a personal hatred of Powerpoint. It’s the microwave oven equivalent of communications – in theory, you can do anything with it, but in practice, the result is usually overcooked, tasteless and flabby.

So based on the last week’s experience, here are my top tips for cooking up the perfect Powerpoint presentation:

• Think about what you want people to take away. Research shows over and over again that people can’t absorb more than four to five key messages at best, and long-term, they’ll probably retain only one. This isn’t anything to do with intelligence- many of the brainiest people are also the ones with the least time on their hands, and therefore the least likely to concentrate unless they think it’s worth their while.
• Separate what you want to say from the way you want to say it. There are three elements in a slide presentation: your message, your slide and your notes. Your slide and your notes are there to support your message, not replace it. Find a way to present the most important points graphically – can you use a picture or a chart?
• Tell a story: don’t just present information. All good stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. Start by giving an overview of the main points you plan to cover and provide a recap at the end. The ‘moral’ of your story is what you want people to take away. The need to refocus on a business line in response to a competitor’s offer is arguably less enticing than having to kiss lots of frogs before meeting a handsome prince, but the principle is the same.
• Use a checklist and cut ruthlessly: a maximum of five key points, supported by relevant examples and figures in the presentation as a whole; one slide for one idea, explained in a maximum of two minutes and no more than three bullet points per slide, with 6-10 words per bullet point.
• Finally, avoid death by Powerpoint:  People are more likely to remember ideas if they are presented in different ways. Is there anything you can use to explain your ideas other than a slide e.g. a prop, or a short video? Some of the best presenters don’t use slides at all – think Steve Jobs in his famous product launch setpieces. However, take a reality check: if you get nervous in front of an audience, or if people don’t want to sit next to you at dinner parties because they think you’re boring, don’t do it.

In fact the best Powerpoint presentation isn't like a microwave at all. It's more like a miniskirt. Long enough to cover the essentials, but short enough to be interesting.

Seasons greetings- or how to offend people before the year's even begun

In case you hadn't noticed, it's nearly Christmas. I say you might not have noticed because in London, by this stage of December, most people are living on a diet of champagne and Berocca, with lunch sliding via a few office mince pies into a dinner where everyone seems to be wearing the same semi-ironic Santa hat procured from some dodgy stall on Oxford Street. But this being Paris, a few tasteful lights have gone up near the local mairie, your office colleagues will be grumbling that they have to use up some of their obscenely large holiday allowance to go shopping for presents, and otherwise it's business as usual.

That is, apart from the cartes de voeux. In a country that tends to do things the right way round when it comes to religion (no RE lessons at school: lots of public holidays for religious festivals) the end of year cards are something of an institution.

And so, a large pile arrived on my desk last week. Corporately tasteful, carefully avoiding any potentially offensive allusion to religion, they sat there accusingly while I tried to work out who should benefit from my seasonal wishes.

What I hadn't banked on was the steady trickle of colleagues asking me what they should write in their cards. It began last Wednesday. "I want to say, 'Que cette nouvelle année vous apporte la réussite dans tout ce que vous entreprenez, que le bonheur soit au rendez-vous dans vos cœurs et dans ceux de vos proches.' How do you say this in English?"

You don't. You really don't. If you were to write to a business contact that you hoped they succeeded in everything they undertook, and that happiness would reign in their hearts and those of their loved ones, they would probably never work with you again on the grounds you had clearly gone bonkers. 

Day two wasn't much better. "Que cette année soit pour vous source de réussites et de joies" is marginally less verbose, but wishing that next year will be a source of success and many joys seems to imply your contact may be expecting twins.

When I explain this, people are puzzled and disappointed.
-"But what should I say instead?
-Merry Christmas.
-Can it not be a little longer and nicer?
-How about, 'Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year'?"

They don't believe me. I may even lose my crown as oracle-of-all-things-English. And I haven't even written my own cards yet. Maybe I'll wish my English contacts a 2013 that rhymes with prosperity, health and joy and my French contacts seasons greetings. Then I won't have to send any next year.

Is a picture really worth a thousand words?

I’m about to say something that threatens my employability, or at least the figure in front of the zeros on my payslip each month. Design is more important than words. You can write the sharpest prose imaginable: if it’s badly presented, it will look sloppy and unprofessional.

Of course the reverse is also true: stylish design spattered with verbose nonsense smacks of all fur coat and no knickers. But it at least has the advantage that it looks ok from a distance.

I got to thinking about this because a designer friend of mine pointed out that while she likes what I write, she finds the black background makes it difficult to read the words. In a blog about communicating clearly, I’ve committed the cardinal sin of letting the design get in the way of the message.

I have a feeble excuse for this: it’s because I couldn’t think of a suitable picture to put at the top. The problem is that pictures come with immediate associations. A word’s meaning can be fluid, capricious, bent to the context it’s used in, in combination with other words. A picture leaps out of the screen and claims the meaning for itself. For this blog (broadly Anglo-French, focusing on language, corporate communication and translation) a picture of lots of flags might do the trick – except that flags make you think of politics. A picture of London? Finance. Paris? One of those blogs about Anglo-Saxons discovering smelly cheese and sexy people. Tower of Babylon? Too academic, un-corporate.

Bad design is worse than no design at all. It can cheapen, distort or constrict in a way that the odd badly-chosen adjective cannot. It plays the lead role in forming the reader’s first impression (and given that in the age of social media most people have the attention span of a gnat, this may well turn out to be the only impression they form.) And yes, I know there’s no such thing as “no design” – the minute you choose Helvetica over Arial or white background over black, you become a designer – but let’s say the potential for gaffes is lower than if you start sticking your holiday snaps at the top of the page.

Of course design is about more than pictures – the very best design is so much an extension of the structure and essence of the message that the user barely notices it. But I’m definitely not there yet. So if you think of a decent picture and a nice background colour I can use, please let me know.