By: Alison Davis

Halloween horrors! Don't make communication a frightening experience

Shared: From your friends #*@TechAutoCareers.com®* the online resource for the *Automotive Sales Fraternity™*

Almost everyone loves a scary movie. But even Jason, Freddy and Chucky are terrified when they encounter communication--about topics like benefits, pay or performance management--that's . . . well, scary. You know the problem: Messages are boring, irrelevant, repetitive and pointless.

My firm just surveyed 1,000 employees across the United States, and those employees told us how bone-chilling communication can be. To avoid sending shivers up workers' spines, avoid these common mistakes:

1. Too many details
2. Everything's an acronym
3. Bad news (about increasing costs, for example) is disguised as good news
4. Legalese followed by more legalese
5. After you read a message, you're left with more questions than answers.
6. But it's not clear where to go to get questions answered.
7. You ask your manager, but he/she doesn't know.
8. And it seems that HR has undergone a Zombie Apocalypse; no humans are left to help you.
9. You call the Service Center, but the phone just rings and rings and rings.
10. When you finally get through, you're put on hold. The hold music? 
11. The theme from Jaws.
12. Three days later, you finally get a rep who just laughs maniacally.
13. Messages as dark and murky as swamp water
14. 183 emails about open enrollment
15. An email so long you have to keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling...
16. 500-word intranet content
17. It takes 12 clicks to link to the page you need on the intranet.
18. Big words, long sentences, even longer paragraphs
19. 80-page summary plan descriptions
20. One PowerPoint slide with 47 data points
21. 95 PowerPoint slides presented in a 30-minute meeting
22. HR people don't talk to one another; you get multiple messages at the same time.
23. HR's new uniform: scary clowns
24. When it's time to take action, it's not clear what to do
25. You took the survey but never heard about the results.
26. Haunted house of search (can't find information and there's no way out)
27. Content written at the 13th grade level
28. Infographics that are neither visual nor informative
29. A "short" eight-minute video (that seems like 80)
30. Type so tiny you instantly need glasses
31. Talking head videos--but the heads don't have bodies!
32. Scariest of all: communication that doesn't answer the question, "What does this mean to me?

About I.C. Collins

I.C. Collins is grateful that he can pursue something that is both interesting and has value on several levels. For over three decades in the Automotive Sales Industry a bottom-line guy Collins doesn't shy away from telling the truth in ways that cut through the noise to deliver streetwise and corporate knowledge from someone who's been there and done that, many times over.

He aims to create “a long-lasting major brand that for generations is a company that is business-critical to the leading brands in the world. We are focused every day on creating something that’s valuable and has permanence.”

P. S. Urgent if you’re looking to optimize your interpersonal skills for success get your copy of " How to Succeed in the Automotive Sales Industry " today @TechAutoCareers.com. Then settle in for a satisfying read that will surely enhance your interpersonal skills for success this year, it is not just a book we are a service.

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