Do you know how much work it is to write a 10-page report? Granted, it would be easy if I could just make up 10 pages worth of material out of thin air and write it down. Like how I write these columns. That would be a breeze.
But a report for business purposes is different. You actually have to do research, organize facts, put pieces of paper on your desk and look at them. This is a pain in the neck, and I don’t do it without being pretty well convinced it’ll cost me money—be that money I have or money I’d like to have—if I don’t.
So the last thing I need, after toiling on such a report, is to get a phone call like this:
“How’s the report coming, D.F.?”
“It’s done,” I say. “Just finished writing the last page, and I’m getting ready to send it to him now.”
“Great. What did you come up with in terms of images, graphs and charts?”
“Excuse me?” I say. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“D.F., you know Phil. He’s a very visual person. He likes images. Pretty pictures. That’s what he responds to. The worst thing you can do with Phil is write out 10 pages full of words. He’ll never read that.”
“#$%@&!!!!!!”
If I can just offer a brief aside here: Phil is an idiot.
I’m not preparing a travel brochure for Phil. I’m preparing a discussion of a business issue. It involves challenges, obstacles, strategies for traversing said obstacles and ultimately solutions to succeed. How, exactly, does one draw a pretty picture of that?
I know! I’ll draw a road. Then I’ll put some construction barrels in the middle of the road. The construction barrels will represent the obstacles to Phil’s success. Then I’ll draw myself driving down the road in an M1 tank. (I would suggest word bubbles to describe the action, but I’m told Phil disdains words. That’s why I have no trepidation about writing this column. He’ll never read it!) The M1 tank blows the construction barrels to smithereens. When the dust clears, there’s Phil, sitting in his overstuffed CEO chair with money falling from the heavens and landing all around him.
Now that I think about it, I could just make the whole thing a comic book. I could invent super villains to represent Phil’s competitors. I could draw giant spiders to represent Phil’s creditors.
Phil is tied to the 94th floor of a skyscraper in downtown Santa Rosa. He’s screaming! A giant spider is climbing the skyscraper and is going to eat Phil. Leaning out the windows on the aforementioned 94th floor are Fiend Man, Captain Competitor and the Crap Pants Kid.
“Buwahahahahahahaha! Buwahahahahaha!”
Phil struggles.
“My wingtips! Don’t eat my wingtips! Please! I’ll give anything! My briefcase! My laptop! My BlackBerry! Actually not that. I saw on ‘Gilligan’s Island’ that spiders like fruit punch. I could run to the grocery store…”
But it’s no use. The spider is getting closer. His eyes are bright red and his hairy legs are about to grasp Phil in their evil clutches.
Just then, I swoop down in the flying D.F. Destroyer! This super flying vehicle is ready to handle the situation. First, it pops out a giant paper towel, grabs the giant spider, smushes it and throws it in the trash can (just like I do at home at 2 a.m. when Mrs. Krause spots a mini version). Then it unveils its precise synchro spear shooters and punctures the hearts of Fiend Man, Captain Competitor and the Crap Pants Kid before they even have time to duck inside the window.
Finally, I’m lowered in a harness to where Phil is dangling. I free him and get him safely aboard, then bring him back to his office where his shareholders have voted to forego their dividends and pay the entire amount in a bonus to Phil.
Who needs words?
These pretty picture guys apparently got into the business world hoping they could experience the sort of visual stimulation that excites them, I imagine, in other parts of their life. I understand that many Americans have the attention span of a gnat, so perhaps this explains the propensity of so many fine business professionals to prefer “pretty pictures” to words.
The problem with visual stimulation as a prompt for business strategizing, though, is you won’t be looking at pretty pictures when you’re executing the business strategy. You’ll be thinking. If you can’t handle complex thoughts when you’re devising strategies, how are you going to keep on top of the details when you get to the execution phase?
If your problem is that your competitors are taking market share away from you by offering products that work better and sell for less than yours, I suppose I could draw you a picture of a big, attractive package with a little dollar sign, swallowing up your little, ugly package with a big dollar sign.
But wouldn’t you understand the problem better if I just told you about it?
I guess not. At least not if you’re Phil. So I’m saving my brilliantly worded 10-page document, and maybe some day I’ll enter it into a business-report-writing contest. Instead, I’m off to find some pretty pictures Phil will understand.
It’s a start.
