Seth Godin on the power of being genuine and transparent

Godin's latest book

In his most recent book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? published by Portfolio/The Penguin Group, Seth Godin has this to say about “honest signals in everyday life.”

Virtually all of us make our living engaging directly with other people. When the interactions are genuine and transparent, they usually work. When they are artificial or manipulative, they fail.

The linchin is coming from a posture of generosity; she’s there to give a gift [no-strings support of your efforts to succeed]. If that’s your intent, the words almost don’t matter. What we’ll perceive are your wishes, not the script.

This is why telemarketing has such a ridiculously low conversion rate. Why corporate blogs are so lame. Why frontline workers in the service business have such stress. We can sense it when you read the script because we’re so good at finding the honest signals.