In a piece from ACC Docket, Roel Staes, Senior VP and General Counsel of FedEx Express, does a nifty job of laying out his 8 golden rules for effective communication by telling a story about how he broke the first rule: “Do not speak unless you have something to say.” He was a newly minted senior executive — “proud to be around the big kids without adult supervision,” as he puts it — when the most senior executive at a meeting dropped a bomb in his lap.