Let’s leave for another post the issue of Death By PowerPoint. Today, let’s talk about mastering the dumb stuff.

For our most recent Forum, we produced four video vignettes, prepped 13 presenters, including the CEO, the Medical Director and the Labor chief, coached 25 facilitators and lined up technology to videoconference the program to 37 locations. The slides were finalized less than 30 minutes before show time.

Next time, we use a checklist. Not just any checklist. A checklist like pilots and surgeons use.

Atul Gawande, the Boston rock star surgeon, says checklists ensure you don’t miss the dumb stuff — like making sure the cargo door is closed or the patient has had antibiotics within 60 minutes of incision. They help rule out the common mistakes so that we reserve our gray matter and adrenalin for the work we are meant to do.

Fact is, we had a checklist for Leadership Forum. One person tracked it and helplessly watched as more and more people got into the act, last-minute changes were made and the unexpected happened.

Our new checklist will be in front of all planners. It won’t be detailed like a recipe, but instead list those things that commonly foul us up: Has the topic been vetted by the right people? Have key presenters confirmed their availability? Have reminders gone out? Have the darn slides been submitted for review at least a week in advance?

There will be pause points: All planners stop, review the checklist and agree that it’s safe to continue on to the next phase.

These are the best practices described by Gawande in his book The Checklist Manifesto. Military pilots began to develop checklists after test pilots “augered in” with a bit too much regularity. Gawande led a World Health Organization project to try checklists in operating rooms large and small, rich and poor. Every single hospital saw dramatic reductions in infections and other post-op complications.

Mistakes may be rare in the OR, but the number of individual actions is so large that even a 1 percent error rate translates to a high probability that a patient will experience one.

“Checklists seem to provide protection against such failures. They remind us of the minimum necessary steps and make them explicit. They not only offer the possibility of verification but also instill a kind of discipline of higher performance.”

A skyscraper is built by hundreds of engineers, craftsmen, accountants and laborers. They use a checklist, one that has periodic pauses at which the different disciplines get together to talk about variances and the adjustments to be made.

Gawande described the “submittal schedule” he saw posted in a construction trailer:

“It was also a checklist, but it didn’t specify construction tasks; it specified communication tasks. For the way the project managers dealt with the unexpected and the uncertain was by making sure the experts spoke to one another—on X date regarding Y process. The experts could make their individual judgments, but they had to do so as part of a team that took one another’s concerns into account, discussed unplanned developments, and agreed on the way forward. While no one could anticipate all the problems, they could foresee where and when they might occur. The checklist therefore detailed who had to talk to whom, by which date, and about what aspect of construction—who had to share (or “submit”) particular kinds of information before the next steps could proceed.

The submittal schedule specified, for instance, that by the end of the month the contractors, installers, and elevator engineers had to review the condition of the elevator cars traveling up to the tenth floor. The elevator cars were factory constructed and tested. They were installed by experts. But it was not assumed that they would work perfectly. Quite the opposite. The assumption was that anything could go wrong, anything could get missed. What? Who knows? That’s the nature of complexity. But it was also assumed that, if you got the right people together and had them take a moment to talk things over as a team rather than as individuals, serious problems could be identified and averted.

So the submittal schedule made them talk. The contractors had to talk with the installers and elevator engineers by the thirty-first. They had to talk about fire protection with the fireproofers by the twenty-fifth.”

Gawande learned that checklists need to be tested in the real world. So that’s what we’ll do with our Leadership Forum checklist. I suspect it will evolve and improve as we go. And while we won’t prevent infections or building collapses, we’ll get the dang slides done on time!

Frank Luntz helps Republicans choose words that resonate with Independents. I held my nose and bought his book, Words That Work, hoping to learn the devil’s secrets so I could twist them to good use. I did learn a lot, including that I share many of Luntz’ opinions on words — especially his belief that the word “imagine” is the most powerful. “The word imagine … allows individuals to picture whatever personal vision is in their hearts and minds.”

Luntz’ most important point is contained in the book’s subtitle: “It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.”

“Once the words leave your lips, they no longer belong to you. … When we open our mouths, we are sharing with the world—and the world inevitably interprets, indeed sometimes shifts and distorts, our original meaning.”

I was fascinated by the “dial sessions” Luntz uses in his research. Subjects hold dials that they turn to reflect their positive and negative reactions to speeches or ads. The result is wavy lines that help ferret out the precise words and phrases that work.

His research leads him to a few points that struck me:

When we in organizational communication construct an internal message, we routinely check off the “what,” the “so what” and “now what.” Luntz recommends we put the “so what” — the context and relevance — first. “You have to give people the “why” of a message before you tell them the “therefore” and the “so that.’”

When trying to demonstrate the concept of “value,” focus on the result rather than the process. For example, Luntz’ research shows taxpayers are moved to “reduce crime” (result) more than to support “law enforcement” (process). Additionally, “VALUE” = price + convenience + reliability.

Women respond more to stories and men more to facts. Men want to speak and women want to be heard.

“Respect is “the most important word related to how employees perceive their treatment and what they think of their employer.”

“In my research into the effectiveness of direct mail, the single most-read portion after the opening paragraph is the postscript.”

Luntz includes “patient-centered” among his words that work — validation for a term we use a lot at Kaiser Permanente. In fact, Luntz uses the Kaiser Permanente website as an exemplar of patient-centered language and imagery.

There isn’t much that separates what Luntz does and what I do. We both use language to advocate for a cause. And despite my headline and lead-in to this post, I don’t think he is evil. To me, his “death tax” is not so much inaccurate as maddeningly brilliant. I would call it the “Paris Hilton tax” and would be equally accurate (though less brilliant).

I think he crosses the line, though, when he dispassionately compares John Kerry’s weak words to the Swiftboat Veterans’ powerful ones. “Betrayal” is an appropriate attack word if the veteran is quarreling with Kerry’s opposition to the war he fought in, but not if the veteran is lying about Kerry’s war record.

I’m all for making words work. I’m against making them lie.

Some of Luntz’ words that work:

Imagine”
“Hassle-free”
“Lifestyle”
“Accountability”
“Results” and the “Can-do-spirit”
“Innovation”
“Renew, Revitalize, Rejuvenate, Restore, Rekindle, Reinvent”
“Efficient” and “Efficiency”
“Investment”
“Casual Elegance”
“Independent”
“Peace of Mind”
“Certified”

Here’s the Colbert Report bit with Luntz that lured me into buying his book.

The main point: Fear, facts and force are the favored approach for those who want to facilitate change, but they never work. Doctors know that even the threat of death is not enough to influence eight out of nine heart attack patients to change their lifestyles. Instead, successful change agents rely on a mixture of:

• Relate – Establish a new, emotional connection with a person or community that fosters hope.
• Repeat – Use this new relationship to learn and practice the new skills and behaviors you need to sustain change.
• Reframe – Allow this new relationship to help you see your situation and the world in a new light.

Good doctors have the first one down. To reframe, they need to help patients see the benefits of healthy changes today – healthy food can be delicious, exercise can give them more energy, meditation can reduce their stress symptoms. And they need to help them savor short-term wins so that they will repeat the behavior over and over until it becomes their new habit.

Best part about this book: The writing. Deutschman is a magazine writer (Fortune, GQ, Fast Company) and book author (The Second Coming of Steve Jobs) who has a raft of stories at his disposal. He never tells, he shows. He has spent quality time with the change leaders he profiles — so much so that you find out, for example, that 35 years into her successful program to rehabilitate criminals at San Francisco’s Delancy Street, Mimi Silbert still has days when she doesn’t have that fire in the belly. Her solution: act “as if” she does, and eventually the fire comes back.

Favorite quote:

I don’t think a leader can accomplish major change without being willing to slice yourself open and become part of the change. I say, ‘You guys force me to be my best self because I live in a glass house.’ — Mimi Silbert

Bits that stuck:

• Quick wins reward the hard work of change, nourish the faith and keep critics at bay.
• When stuck with a problem I haven’t been able to solve myself, the first step is to seek out a new relationship with someone or some group that has had success in this area.
• When the spirit flags, “fake it until you make it.” Act “as if” you have the spirit and it will come to you.

Katharine, who writes my favorite blog on applied storytelling, interviewed job seekers and studied reams of resumes while earning her doctorate. She supplies step-by-step story construction tips and illustrates her points with actual resumes and cover letters gathered in her research.

She clearly did an exhaustive literature search to gather a wide range of expert opinion on the subject. My only criticism is that Katharine could have synthesized the academic literature a bit more and taken a few risks by providing her own opinion.

Katherine puts the issue well for all of us, whether we are in the job market or are building our careers where we are: We should carefully nurture our own personal brand. And we know the best brands are those that evoke intrigue and emotion through the story that they tell.

When you stop to think of the resources an organization invests in meetings, you realize what a tremendous return is needed to justify them. Unfortunately, very little attention is paid to the conduct of a meeting and this valuable tool is largely wasted. Lencioni’s fictional leadership team wrestles with meetings that run too long and fail to address important matters. A new team member watches for awhile and offers observations that put the team on track for more efficient use of meeting time.

The solutions achieved by this fictional team provide excellent tactics from which a leader may pick and choose. There should be different kinds of meetings for different purposes, Lencioni argues. There are meetings in which short-term, tactical issues are handled, and there are meetings in which quality time is devoted to strategic issues. Participants are more engaged and the follow-through is more likely when meetings follow a routine familiar to the group.

As a knowledge management leader at the World Bank, Denning gained influence by gathering and using the organization’s success stories. He went on to study the historical and anthropological roots of storytelling and he joined a storyteller group. The result is a scholarly analysis of the use of storytelling in organizational communication. He suggests that  storytelling may fit Senge’s definition of another “discipline.”

Denning’s is a practical guide for selecting and performing stories and using them in specific strategic instances. Of course, he uses anecdotes to illustrate his points.

Denning deconstructs the elements of well-told story. One detailed chapter is devoted to the elements of practicing and performing the story. The second half of the book describes several instances in which stories can be used strategically: to build trust, to convey values, to impart knowledge, and to encourage collaboration, for example.

During his career as a theoretical physicist, David Bohm’s writings and lectures took side trips into dialogue and collective thought. In this book, editor Lee Nichol compiles Bohm’s ideas to suggest a coherent theory of co-creation of meaning.

There is a flavor of quantum physics in Bohm’s take on dialogue. He sees dialogue as the antithesis of debate and discussion in that it is organic, chaotic, and evolving. The process of dialogue is itself the whole meaning, while debate and discussion breaks topics down to constituent parts that in themselves have no meaning. Dialogue is the ticking clock and all that it portends; discussion and debate is the clock smashed to pieces.

The ideas in this book invite a leader to view the rituals of organizational communication in light of co-creation of meaning. He or she will notice the vast amount of energy spent talking without achieving a shared meaning. He or she also will notice that dialogue often happens in spite of the organizational rituals. A leader who witnesses such flashes also will notice the leaps in understanding that accompany them. The leader may discover ways to encourage more dialogue, and also may notice that the organizational culture and the path it takes is itself a process of dialogue that encompasses individuals, work groups, group interactions, and the organization’s interface with its environment.

Clampitt suggests that effective communication is like dance, with partners passing messages back and forth, learning about each other and co-creating meaning. It is an ongoing process, rather than definitive episodes of message transmission and receiving. If a leader understands communication in this way, performance feedback becomes something that is mutually constructed. Culture grows organically and can be influenced by what managers allow and disallow by word or deed. Leaders foster value systems that guide members’ actions.

Clampitt provides engaging case studies and analyzes them in light of scholarly research. He covers fundamental organizational communication situations and problems, including change management, culture, and knowledge management. He sets out his basic framework in the first few chapters. Subsequent chapters may be selected as needed to address topics of particular interest.