Who said loose lips sink ships

By Albinko Hasic. Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter But were the posters simple paranoia on the part of the U.

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We become fixated on our explanation and therefore dance circles around our ultimate objective. In the workplace, teaching a team to write in a clear and concise manner can help everyone communicate more effectively. Carefully thinking through the ultimate objective and desired outcome of any internal communications initiative is invaluable to a team. Haphazardly firing off emails consisting of blocks of rambled text is ineffective. In startups, time is never on your side. Some things, though, are worth the extra effort.

This witty quote can be attributed to the playwright George Bernard Shaw. Many people falsely assume that communication occurs when they deliver information to another person. In reality, communication only occurs when the person or people on the receiving end receive the information and comprehend it.

With the advent of new tools intended to speed up collaboration in the workplace, thoughtful communication has become more complicated. Email, Google Docs, Messengers, Skype, and Slack can help us connect and communicate, especially when a team is not located under one roof.

Yet, when a company lacks establishing ground rules for the various tools the opportunities for miscommunication skyrockets. The reason is simple. With so many options, people choose their favorite form of communicating and neglect to think about how the receiver of the message actually wants to have it delivered.

Many of them were military officers around the time of World War I. Both Germany and France must have believed some of those officers would have loose lips around this beautiful woman, because the two countries sought to get secret information from her.

But when French officials suspected she was spying for Germany, they arrested her. She was tried and found guilty of supplying Germany with information. She was shot by firing squad on October 15, It is unlikely that Mata Hari was responsible for sinking any ships. And she may not have been a spy. Some documents reportedly prove her innocence. Although her relatives may find that evidence to be cold comfort -- after all, her reputation remains damaged.

Keep in mind that you do not have to be in the middle of a war to use that idiom. Until you are ready to launch the secret product it is best that no one else knows. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor.

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