Corporate Communicator Pillows

"I need an interpreter. Send in someone who speaks jargon."

'Let's begin our meeting. . . everybody talk, nobody listen.'

"Despite years of management training john still found it difficult to give negative feedback."

'Could we finish these negotiations via e-mail? That will allow me to think before I respond to your proposals.'

'That's it, in a nutshell.'

'We need to update our employee recognition program.'

'We had a group think about implementing paradigm shifting re-prioritisations of our inward facing media strategy in order to enhance our communication with the average man on the street.'

"Take this mission statement and rewrite it so that it sounds like we care about our customers."

'I'm feeling a sense of conclusion here, so let's draw things to a close.'

"Can you do another draft of this? There's still a couple of sentences people might understand..."

"Then we have an unspoken agreement?"

'I have some specific, unknown objectives for you to achieve.'

Stakeholder Engagement

Business executive on phone: 'Oh!...Your people are my people? Well, that should make things a lot simpler.'

"Good, we're all agreed. I like it when we're all agreed."

"Happy Mother's Day, Mom. And ditto for Thanksgiving and Christmas."

'Enough small talk. It's time for big talk.'

'Jack, I'm on a conference call right now.'

"At least with me, when you screw up, you know where you stand."

'I believe, working together, we can turn this organization around a full 360 degrees.'

"Gentlemen, let's do lunch."

"Using worst case scenario as a baseline, I consider this data quite encouraging."

"You should've spoken up sooner. You're paid to mind my business – not your own business."

'Of course you can trust me, Larry. We've been frenemies for years!'

'Our strategy is to begin the meeting with an ironclad no-negotiation policy - and negotiate from there.'

'I said all those in favour of improving communication, turn off your iPods.'

We all know the negotiation table, but how about the negotiation chair?

Pro-Active Yogurt

"I can talk for hours without saying anything substantial in a completely incomprehensible way. That's why I'm called an expert."

Shareholders Meeting - I don't like the look of this year's annual shindig.

'Sorensen will put a positive spin on it, Nissen will issue a denial and Sims will flat out lie about it.'

'Anything looming on the horizon?'

'Now remember, he's ambidextrous, he's good at talking out of both sides of his mouth.'

'Good work, I doubt whether any of the shareholders will understand it.'

'Boss, it seems like a friendly text, but you've got to learn to read between the emoticons.'