Watching the volcanic outrage over the AIG bonus money playing out in the media I wondered how the company would respond.

Many companies make the mistake of ducking for cover thinking they can wait out the storm.

While AIG is hardly the poster child for business communications, it made the right move with an op-ed from the CEO Edward Liddy in today’s Washington Post.

He frames the op-ed with classic storytelling; i.e., the disaster, hero to the rescue, corrective actions and finally the promise that everyone in Gotham City will eventually live happily after.

Let’s take a closer look.

The power of empathy championed by Oprah and her ilk is not lost on Mr. Liddy. His piece kicks off:

The government rescue of American International Group (AIG) and other financial firms has produced a palpable wave of anger on the part of Americans and a rising public demand for accountability from corporate and government leaders. The anger is understandable, and I share it.

Is he saying that he shares our anger or he shares an understanding that we’re angry? I’m not sure. Still, right move to jump on the anger bandwagon.

Next comes the mea cupa:

Mistakes were made at AIG, and on a scale that few could have imagined possible. The most egregious of those began in 1987, when the company strayed from its core insurance competencies …

Good word “egregious.” 

With the stage setting in place, our hero arrives on the scene. Here, Liddy makes it very clear that those “egregious” acts did not happen on his watch since “I answered the call for help and joined AIG in September 2008 …”

How has Liddy changed the behavior at AIG?

He makes a case with hard numbers that prudent fiscal management has been established highlighting that the top 47 execs made 56 percent less in 2008 than 2007. The sparseness in his language — “My annual salary is $1. My only stake is my reputation” — closes this section with a bit of drama.

In other words, other execs might have pigged out at the trough, but that’s not me. In fact, my financial stake is a single buck, and again, that bad stuff happened before I took the reins.

Finally, we get to the core issue.

Liddy refuses to use the B word, acknowledging that AIG made a “set of retention payments to employees based on a compensation system that prior management put in place.”

This is the one segment where I take issue with word choice. Everyone knows about the bonuses. Call them bonuses.

As we come down the home stretch, good conversational language follows that unfortunately derails at the critical junction:

Make no mistake, had I been chief executive at the time, I would never have approved the retention contracts that were put in place more than a year ago. It was distasteful to have to make these payments. But we concluded that the risks to the company and therefore the financial system and the economy, were unacceptable.

What does that last sentence mean? He was doing so well up to this point.

The piece closes with the happily-ever-after message.

I give AIG credit for recognizing the value of making its voice heard even in a hostile environment.

The op-ed is well crafted with elements of storytelling.

But the question on everyone’s mind still isn’t answered.

What are you going to do about all that bonus dough paid out?

There’s something about the shadow of business that causes people to actually strive for a rigid and vanilla tone in their communications.

That’s why the following automated note from Twitter (forgot my password) caught my attention:

Hey there.

Can’t remember your password, huh?

It happens to the best of us.

Please open this link in your browser…

The mere act of being conversational actually causes a basic note on resetting my password to stand out.

Because “corporate speak” has become the de fault for this type of communications.

Dick Costolo wrote a wonderful post over a year ago called “Have a Company Voice.” The following words absolutely nail the issue:

People like it when companies have personalities. It makes us feel like there are actual people on the other side of the communication. It’s fun to be the customer of a company with a personality. This seems totally obvious, and yet you too rarely see companies with distinct personalities really grab your attention in the marketplace. Why is this? It’s actually hard to remove personality and character from communications. So, instead of saying that companies don’t take the time to have personalities, it’s probably more accurate to state that companies don’t allow themselves to show their personalities.