How to Keep Your HR Communications from Turning Into a Playtpus

[Photo credit: Tasmanian Government]

Paul Byron of the NYT called the platypus a classic animal design by committee. Look at that thing. He cites a poem about the composite animal:

I like the duck-billed platypus
Because it is anomalous.
I like the way it raises its family,
Partly birdly, partly mammaly.
I like its independent attitude.
Let no one call it a duck-billed platitude.

The Duck-Billed Platypus, Ogden Nash

Sure, the platypus looks “cute.” But I’m afraid a lot of your HR communication ends up looking like it, too. You start out with a good idea, then it morphs into something else, then there’s a committee that makes edits. Etc, etc, etc. You know the story. What started out as something great turns into a HR version of a platypus.

How to Keep Your HR Communications from Turning Into a Platypus

Listen to the experts. Just because you took a “graphics design” class in high school doesn’t mean that you’re a designer.
Get an executive editor. One person has to make decisions. None of us is as stupid as all of us.
Choose good words, but don’t obsess about single words. Great communication isn’t about picking the “perfect” word in paragraph 11, line 3.
Take a step back. Groupthink is a surefire way to create an HR platypus.
Have some guts. Great communication requires hard decisions and some nerve. “Yes men” build platypi (I just wanted to write that word).

Check out this movie that’ll give you a good idea how it goes. This group wants a designer to create a stop sign. Here’s what happens when a committee gets involved to do creative writing and design. [via Vincent Ferrari.]

Posted on July 24, 2008 by Frank Roche
Filed Under Communication

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Ron Ulrici 2 months ago 1 point
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Frank,

My take on HR "platypused communication" is that the message is frequently hard to understand by the average employee because of the legaleze and/or the use of jargon coined by Human Resources.

The other problem is our tendency to candy-coat a negative message. Somewhere buried in that communique from HR is the information that the employee now has a copay that has doubled.

Then we wonder why our PR is not so hot!

I always tried to look at our HR communication from the employees' eyeballs.

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