A Rant about Rants

Inspired by Kenneth Davis, who chose The Cluetrain Manifesto as his favorite business book in my group project, I finally got around to reading the book that’s been on everybody’s lips since before it was published.

Cluetrain is full of fantastic insights about why we need more conversation in business. If you can get past the incendiary rhetoric, you can learn something. But I have a real problem with the rhetoric. In many ways, Cluetrain is its own worst enemy. If the authors are trying to persuade Corporate America to change its stripes, they’re going about it in exactly the wrong way.

Cluetrain’s rambling, ranting style reeks of smugness. “Fort Business” (one of their disparaging terms for executive leadership) is a bunch of blockheads and manipulative bastards, whereas the rest of us are smart, real, and several steps ahead of the corporate con game. Some Cluetrain observations -

Managed businesses have taken our voices. We want to struggle against this. We wear a snarky expression behind our boss’s back, place ironic distance between our company and ourselves, and we don’t want to think we have become our parents. But we have. And we’ve done so willingly.

By comparison, corporate messaging is pathetic. It’s not funny. It’s not interesting. It doesn’t know who we are, or care. It only wants us to buy. If we wanted more of that, we’d turn on the tube. But we don’t and we won’t. We’re too busy. We’re too wrapped up in some fascinating conversation.

Here’s some advice on entering the conversation: Loosen up. Lighten up. And shut up for awhile. Listen for a change. Marketing-as-usual used to be able to insert its messages into the mind of the masses with one swing of its mighty axe. Now messages get exploded within minutes. “Spin” gets noticed and scorned. Parodies spread ad campaigns faster than any multimillion-dollar advertising blitz. In short: the Internet routes around a-holes.

There’s Plenty of Blame to Go Around

Can you imagine the uproar if a group of C-level execs wrote a book blasting the stupidity, dullness, and insincerity of the working class? Yet, such a book would contain just as much truth as Cluetrain, and just as much distortion.

Having experienced all sides of the corporate world, I heartily agree that boardrooms can be full of blockheads, but so can loading docks. There’s no question that vice presidents can be disingenuous, manipulative creeps, but so can programmers. The fact that Fort Business is dysfunctional is not exactly news. Any organization comprised of people is going to be, including the company you work for, the Catholic Church, United States Congress, The Salvation Army, your local PTO, and the lemonade stand around the corner.

Organizations are dysfunctional because people are imperfect. When we start pointing fingers, when we start blaming an organizational problem on a particular group of humans, we’re not moving toward a solution. (Furthermore, to suggest as the authors do that organizations are relics to be discarded is an enormous blunder, but we can take that up at another time.)

Fact is, corporate leaders have plenty of good reasons for being cautious about dipping company toes into “authentic” online conversation. Here are three big ones -

Legal complexities and the threat of litigation can cause straight talk to blow up in a company’s face. Sure, companies can abuse their employees. But employees can also abuse their employers. If you’re a small or midsize company, one frivolous lawsuit that goes the wrong way can wipe out a year’s profit, or worse. In fact, you don’t even have to lose the case to have it ruin you. Corporations face disaster if they run afoul of federal, state, and local tax law, HIPAA regulations, EPA regulations, and a host of other legal land mines. Not exactly an environment that would lead a responsible executive to favor letting the staff run wild “expressing themselves”. An innocent and well intended “This product sucks!” published on a blog from the bowels of the IT department could become evidence in a class action lawsuit. A stab at humor stating that “our new perfume was tested on pet cats” could put PETA in your pocket, and my how that would bite.

The authors give passing attention to such problems, but brush them aside, believing that common sense will prevail. That would be true, if everyone the the marketplace operated under the influence of common sense. Unfortunately, our courtrooms are clogged with frivolous lawsuits because for every person out there who craves authentic conversation, there’s one who is motivated by greed, revenge, or fanatical attachment to a cause.

(Despite these unpleasant realities, the authors like to contend that corporations are “fictions”. I don’t know. Two weeks ago when the market tanked, one of my “fictions” lost about a thousand incredibly real dollars. When the fictitious Arthur Anderson folded in the wake of the Enron scandal, a few families in our community lost their real homes.)

Pressure for short term results from stockholders and boards creates a mighty big temptation for communicative quick fixes. Business leaders are enormously frustrated that their vision and plans are continually undermined by earnings pressure. I can tell you from experience – when you have people coming at you from all directions demanding to hear something different, it’s easier than you think to forget what you actually believe in. Corporate pronouncements that are cavalierly dismissed as shallow and stupid may in reality be a sincere attempt by leadership to keep frenzied factions inside and outside the company from tearing each other apart. A reluctance to speak, and a reluctance to speak frankly, are to some degree a conditioned response to being in the hot seat. These tendencies spill over into the world of sales and marketing, which may not be wise, but is definitely understandable.

A permanent, written record of everything that’s said, which is what you get on the Web, makes private conversation public. That is certainly a valid concern for execs who are mindful of potential litigation and other problems that might arise months in the future from words written today. And we should be just as concerned as the folks on the top floor. The authors are exactly right in pointing out that informal, real conversations have been taking place in and out of the company corridors since the Industrial Revolution. But there’s a big difference between blowing off steam around a water cooler and ripping the Finance Department a new one on your blog. Believe it or not, some execs are concerned that open, written communication could damage employees just as much as the company. Look at the problems kids are having landing a job because of indiscreet information laid wide open for the world to see on their MySpace or Facebook pages.

In short, when employees engage in conversation, there are few perceived consequences. When top level execs engage in conversation, there are big consequences, and execs are smart enough to perceive them. If your words or the words of your employees affect the survival of a company and those who work for it, well, you have to behave like a parent. Too bad.

But I’m not telling you anything the authors of Cluetrain don’t already know. These guys are way too smart and savvy to believe that Fort Business is as monolithic and moronic as they suggest. Which begs the question, why did they cast their brilliant observations in the form of a tirade against the establishment? To sell books? To pander to the faithful? As shock therapy? To provoke conversation? As a nostalgic return to the halcyon days of Power to the People? I have no idea.

What’s So Funny ’bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?

But I know this. The trend in Web conversation toward hostility, this eagerness to call people incompetent and stupid, this quickness to pass judgment and ridicule, is a much bigger problem than hamfisted corporate communication and marketing campaigns.

Some people – including the authors of this book – seem to regard the sarcastic rant as an art form. But I think that the beginning of real conversation is respect.

None of us has a monopoly on virtue or vice. The way to open up communication in business is not through intimidation tactics. It’s not the clued-in versus the clueless. If business is a mess, it’s a mess we’ve created together, and one we’ll have to fix together.

Enough of spitting on returning Viet Nam veterans, spitting on umpires, screaming at the adversary on FOXNews, court room TV, and Larry Springer, and throwing editorial tantrums. Communicating with civility is not being phony, it’s simply an acknowledgment that all people have value, no matter how misguided or unfamiliar their ideas or actions may be. Being polite is not the road to conformity, it’s the path to understanding.

A Practical Problem and Plea

The Cluetrain authors have forgotten more about the Web than I’ll ever know. But since I’m a foot soldier in the movement they’re leading, I wish they’d give me ammunition instead of demolition.

Though there are real challenges to transforming an old school company into a conversational company, I think they can and must be overcome. I work hard to persuade clients that open, interactive communication is the healthiest change they can make in their business. I believe it. But it can be a tough sell. When execs read high profile, rant-style marketing commentary, they get spooked. And it’s not because they’re afraid of the truth, at least not completely. They figure, quite reasonably, “Gee, if people are this irresponsible and uninformed and ill mannered when they’re talking to me, what are they going to say to our customers?”

It’s a good question.

The Cluetrain Manifesto, by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, David Weinberger.