A leadership awards story gone wrong and how to fix it

Before:

“John Quincy Adams once said: ‘If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.’”

If you go to Bartlett’s Quotations, get something with more pizzazz than this. Better, don’t lead off a story with a platitude lifted from a book of quotations—ever. It’s weak.

“The leadership philosophy of the nation’s sixth president rings true in the minds of Megalithic Monopoly’s customer service employees.”

Time’s a-wasting. Megalithic Monopoly’s customer service employees have never given one second’s thought to Adam’s leadership philosophy.

“They believe Joe Blow exhibits a similar leadership style, and Together Employees Advising Management (TEAM) couldn’t agree more.”

More time wasting. It took three paragraphs to come up with Joe Blow’s name as the winner of the leadership award. What an awkward acronym!

“Blow, manager of customer service, was this year’s recipient of the annual TEAM Leadership Award, and John Doe, manager of gas transmission, storage engineering and project management, received an honorable mention.”