Honesty and The Toilet Truth
The outhouse at Aunt Nora’s house
H Squared Communications Value #4 – Honesty
Good communication is straightforward and concise. It also requires the recipient to trust the source of the information. We will always be honest with you, and with your audience.
In my senior year of college, I was asked to write a regular column for our campus newspaper. What a compliment. But like many things in life, this gift had a catch. The editor asked me to review public bathrooms and write a column about what I learned. While someone else had the fine job of reviewing local restaurants and telling the student body how good the food was, I went to places like Walmart and wrote about what I found inside its restroom.
My column became a place for me to share my thoughts on a variety of topics, all starting out with a review of a particular bathroom. We titled it “The Toilet Truth.” You see, the most honest place on the earth is any public restroom. There are no secrets in a communal bathroom. No way to disguise the sounds and smells. Each person in a public restroom is at their most vulnerable state, and from the stalls, we accept each other as we are.
Honesty is one of my highest values, and honesty also is a big deal in the communications world. Especially when the public needs to trust the information you are providing for their safety, honesty is important. The highest priority of any professional communicator, or just human in general, should be to tell the truth. Whether it’s conveying your personal story or sharing critical information during a public emergency, to tell the truth is to potentially save people.
As I began to organize my thoughts around what I wanted my business to feel like, I decided I needed to be clear about my personal values, and how those values could be integrated into my work at H Squared Communications. I previously have written blog posts on our values of authenticity, gratitude, and passion. Honesty is our final value, and the four together offer a glimpse at how our clients can expect us to work with them.
Honesty is defined as adherence to the facts, fairness and straightforwardness of conduct, truthfulness, sincerity, frankness, and freedom from deceit or fraud. But honesty is more than just telling the truth each chance you get. It’s knowing when the truth is important and when the true thing doesn’t need to be said at all.
How does honesty translate into action at H Squared Communications?
Honest communications are simple and concise. If you need to use a lot of big words to say something, it likely isn’t coming from a true place. We work to craft communications that are easy to understand, frank, and maybe even blunt, especially when public safety or personal reputations are on the line.
Trust is imperative for effective communication, and trust is earned through honest exchanges. If a person is caught in an untruth, nothing more of what they say can be trusted, and subsequent communications are worthless. We will work to earn your trust, and we create communications that can be trusted as well.
We tell our clients the truth, and we expect our clients to tell us the truth, too. We value honesty so much it’s written into our contracts. If we learn our client hasn’t been truthful about the situation on which we are consulting, we have the option to end the contract, and our clients can do the same.
We will always be honest with your audience. In other words, we will never lie on your behalf. If you are in such a public relations pickle that you think you need to hire someone to lie for you, hire someone else. That’s not something we will ever do, and we would strongly advise against it if given the opportunity.
Honest communications can feel vulnerable, and vulnerability by definition is not a comfortable feeling. But honest, vulnerable communications also are authentic, and authenticity is exactly what the world craves today. The deliverables we create for you will convey your honest, authentic brand. While that can sometimes make you feel exposed, it also can be tremendously freeing.
I am grateful for the truth tellers in my life. The two people I can always count on to give me the honest truth are my husband and my best friend. When I need a reality check, they are my resources. When I need the even toilety truth, they never disappoint.
H Squared Communications can be the truth tellers for you and your organization. If honest, accurate, and timely information is your goal, we are your resource to help. Our best advice? Just tell the truth. Even if it’s from a bathroom stall.