Category: Coaching Points
We work very hard to teach leaders that human beings are sense-making creatures: We try, at every opportunity, to make sense of what we see, hear, and experience. A consequence is that when a vacuum of information exists, we try to fill it by creating meaning of our own, which may or may not be close to the reality a leader is trying to convey.
Thanks to an email forward by my wife Kate, this morning I saw a wonderful example of this: Over two hundred people deciding to freeze in place, simultaneously, on the main concourse of Grand Central Station in New York. Watch the video, and watch folks try to create meaning out of the event. Acting class? Protest? What in the world IS this? Everybody there has a different interpretation, but they all HAVE an interpretation, and it’s one they’ve crafted out of their past experiences and the overall context at hand. They fill the vacuum.
So the question is: What vacuums of information are your employees filling with meaning? You may not know, but you can count on the people you lead to create meaning for your every decision and action. Your job as a leader is to frame those decisions and actions, adding context so their interpretation is as close as possible to your intention. In times of uncertainty or change, when what you can communicate may be limited, this can be difficult. But there are things you can do to help:
- Refuse to allow vacuums. If there is information you’re not able to share because the facts aren’t settled or HR, your superior, or legal won’t permit it, frame the context by communicating probabilities: What’s certain, likely, unknown (or what you can’t say), unlikely, and impossible. Doing so at the very least contextualizes and constrains the meaning employees (or your peers, or your kids) can create.
- Refuse to let silence be a message. NOT communicating when employees know something is afoot sends a message, and it’s a relational one that employees will interpret as ranging from “I don’t care” to “I don’t respect you.” The act of communicating in the face of uncertainty, be it by sharing probabilities, or even saying “I don’t know” or “I can’t tell you and here’s why,” sends a message about your identity and the relationship. It says “I care” and “I respect you,” both of which are essential to maintaining relational capital during uncertain times.
- Aggressively challenge incorrect conclusions. If you find that employees (or the Board, or your kids) have filled the vacuum with incorrect meaning, challenge and correct those assumptions. Provide the facts, or if you can’t, the probabilities or even the “I can’t say,” but don’t allow the wrong meaning to exist. Not only does it keep bad information in the system, it can brand a leader as passive. In the face of very disruptive change or very bad news, an audience can easily interpret this passivity as cowardice.
Managing meaning during difficult or changing times isn’t easy, but it’s a leader’s burden. The point is to get folks through it with as much relational capital and loyalty as possible–and silence is antithetical to both.
For those of you who struggle to create unique, interesting presentations, we’ve talked a lot about presentation design (see here and here). The basics: each presentation’s content should be inherently interesting or important to your audience. Also, your audience’s information needs should dictate your presentation’s content.However, engaging audiences with your presentations often requires one more element: an interesting visual data display. Here’s the rub: you’ll likely think your data sets, by virtue of findings, are meaningful. But consider your audience’s understanding of complex ideas or messages. For example, many business-oriented presentations endlessly cite statistics, ROI, growth, and more to prove the value of projects or initiatives. But to most audience members, even basic percentages, currencies (foreign or domestic), and raw numbers aren’t meaningful without bases for comparison.
That’s where visual data becomes important. And I’m not talking about PowerPoint’s extensive selection of clipart. Pretty pictures simply aren’t valuable if they don’t speak 1,000 words—at least. You have a limited amount of time to make your points, and visuals should help you make them. Consider this: if your visuals are meaningless to your audience, you might as well put together a 12-page position paper and post it to your Intranet.
Also, your audience should have no questions about why you choose any single example or illustration in a presentation. Visuals should make difficult points clear, and illustrate your strategic messages in ways words simply can’t.
We’ve extolled Edward Tufte for his data design genius, but a number of great resources are available. One in particular, IBM’s Many Eyes, provides a website where you can load nearly any kind of data, choose a format for display, and the result? A simple, visually appealing way to display numbers, percentages, ratios, etc. The site will help you to add texture to simple, bivariate data, as well as lengthy spreadsheets’ worth. Granted, you may need to understand data analysis to use this site effectively, but it’s worth a look when you’re building presentations… Check out some examples here.
No matter what kind of resource you choose, be sure to think through your visual presentations. Treat them as what they are: crucial opportunities to reach your most important stakeholders. Done well, these assemblies will help build awareness of your strategic messages, while intelligently-presented data will drive critical messages home.
It’s everywhere you turn. Fortune names General Electric the most admired company, citing GE’s Ecomagination campaign. Arnold Schwarzenegger graces a recent Newsweek cover, touting California’s leadership in new environmental policy. And lest we forget Al Gore’s star turn in An Inconvenient Truth—the film that may have started it all—seeking to dispel misconceptions about global warming while chronicling the former vice president’s crusade for the environment.
More and more companies are getting on the greenwagon and the emerging discourse goes beyond corporate responsibility and box checking. No longer is “going green” just the right thing to do—some are saying it’s the smart thing to do, too. Thomas Friedman argues in a recent New York Times article that going green should be the centerpiece of U.S. foreign and economic policy, and GE says their efforts are “as economically advantageous as they are ecologically sound.”
Your firm could be next. We offer a few guidelines to consider as you contemplate your company’s efforts to go green and your approach to communication:
- Don’t call your company’s efforts a “program” or “project.” Programs and projects tend to have ends. Green is “in” and some might say it will be “out” before we know it. To avoid the “flavor of 2007” label, communicate permanence, not temporality.
- On that note, have a simple message that explains what your company is doing and why, and situate the message in a pre-existing, larger strategic context. Why and how will going green help your company achieve its strategic objectives? A compelling why will persuade the skeptics and eliminate any lingering “tree hugger” associations.
- Don’t spend an enormous amount of time with branding and flashy promotion. We can’t tell you how many efforts we’ve seen make a name for themselves, only to fail as a result of heightened employee expectations about the new thing from corporate that’s taking up so much space (and so many resources).
- Show that your efforts are real in leadership decisions and behavior. Is your CEO “serious about this,” yet still driving a gas guzzler? What investments can your company make in cleaning up operations or exploring environmentally friendly innovation? If there’s nothing that symbolically communicates leadership’s commitment other than the newly formed employee committee, then it’s all just talk.
- Hold employees accountable for their greenability. Yes, we’re serious. And if you’re serious, too, you’ll align your environmental strategy with your performance management and reward and recognition systems. Our experience tells us that most people will do what’s expected when they know what’s expected and the right type of consequences are following their performance (or non-performance).
Around Valentine’s Day, we hear more about relationships than any other time of year. Interestingly, the Wall Street Journal provides two interesting articles on relationships and technology. One story, its not u, focuses on ending relationships electronically– primarily through email or text messages. Its author calls the technology-arbited breakups, “techno brush-offs.”
Each article makes the point that our interpersonal relationships are changing for the worse. Tough conversations once reserved for face time are absorbed by people’s familiarity with—and inappropriate use of—technology. One woman, the recipient of a combination-text/email breakup, considers such a message “a product of our times.” “‘I hate what this has become,’ she says. ‘Every computer and cellular phone needs a little instruction manual to let people know what can be sent in a text, what can be sent in an email, what can be said on the phone, and what must be said in person.’”
Yet the appreciation for interpersonal interactions conflicts with our everyday tendencies. We check and respond to email constantly and depend on the web for to-the-minute information on both personal and professional topics. The WSJ article, Deleting the Habit, talks about the similarities between technology reliance and drug addiction. “Addicts” have a hard time unplugging during once-sacred quality time– on vacations, during family time, and even while honeymooning.
Global Ideas Bank, a London think tank, holds an annual “International Internet-Free Day” to encourage people to participate in face-to-face interactions. The Bank’s director said to WSJ, “It’s good to speak to people.” But getting off the Web grid encourages people to do things that seem archaic to techno-junkies, like reading newspapers, having face-to-face conversation, or making phone calls from (gasp!) land lines while sitting still.
Though the content of these articles isn’t groundbreaking, few of us relate these key learnings to our professional lives, like unplugging during meetings and conferences, and having phone or face-to-face conversations rather than instant or email messaging. Using one-way communication technologies, like the latter, cuts valuable interpersonal cues from our interactions. And like breaking off love relationships via email, breaking tough or sensitive news to colleagues is more difficult for recipients when they can’t hear your voice, ask immediate questions, or see your facial expressions.
We advise clients to consider the type of medium through which they send messages. The concept of media richness relates to the amount of feedback a medium affords to a sender or receiver of a message. Lean media are best suited to deliver specific, tactical, or historical information; while rich media are better suited to deliver strategic, persuasive, or emotion-invoking messages. And conversations with your colleagues, direct reports, clients, or leaders often fall into one of these three categories. Highly charged topics simply require face-to-face discussion, or at least a phone call. (Read more about CRA’s take on media richness here.)
So let this time of year remind you to move away from the computer, put down the cell phone, and take time to talk to your colleagues, friends, and family. Communicating this way may take more time (and sometimes gumption) on your part, but your relationships will more likely thrive and endure as a result.
(Read here about techno brush-offs and here about technology junkies. WSJ.com registration is required.)
When two clocks tell different times, people don’t know which time is correct. In organizations, when two clocks are set to different times, you’ll get an à la carte approach to punctuality. Similarly, when leaders operate with the equivalent of two different clocks—when their words send one message and their actions another—they risk that employees will pick and choose behaviors when they’re convenient. Dual clocks is a useful metaphor; it explains why eliminating ambiguity is the best way to ensure accuracy. In the same way that employees tardy to a meeting or late on a deadline may use the slow clock to their advantage, unclear expectations almost sanction employees’ breach in policy. While a laidback observance of hours and minutes may not land you in the slammer, negligent adherence to a code of conduct can.
The finest way you can ensure strict devotion to policy is to be explicit and transparent. Direct reports look to their managers to translate the barrage of messages that come down the pike. We advise leaders to “walk the talk” because it sends the clearest message. Sending explicit, transparent and consistent messages means you never give anyone a reason to question where you stand, which is exactly what you want when it comes to your company’s policy on ethical conduct.
Blogs are one area where companies are taking measures to provide employees with clear expectations about what is and isn’t acceptable. Here’s what Dell is doing to establish straightforward standards for online communication between representatives and customers.
By making expectations explicit and transparent, Dell is closer to guaranteeing that its company, customers, and shareholders are safe. Its online communications policy makes known what is acceptable; even better, it links with other company policies, which builds in redundancy and gives employees more context for policies in the larger organization.
What’s the best way to ensure everyone is on time? Use one clock. And the best way to guarantee ethical conduct? Be explicit and transparent.
Today’s Wall Street Journal (registration may be required) features an article on the ills of PowerPoint presentations. Although we understand the allure of using PowerPoint, we counsel clients to avoid being seduced by the software’s charms. Some time ago, we posted a handy one-page document that is worth reviewing, because it provides a potent antidote to the PPT spell.
Many newly promoted managers complain of having two jobs—juggling the roles of performer and team leader. However, employees should manage others throughout their careers—and “managing up” is as important as down. Though it’s challenging, and particularly so in large or travel-heavy organizations, learning to manage one’s superiors is an essential part of any upward-bound career path.
Inspired by a recent Wall Street Journal article (registration may be required), I’ve come up with a few points to keep in mind as you manage inaccessible or difficult-to-reach superiors:
- Create access. Your boss’s hectic travel schedule shouldn’t separate you for long periods of time, so to avoid separation—and subsequent anxiety—be creative in your communication methods. Get to know his or her schedule; try to find out when your boss will be in the office or anywhere “in town” if most of his or her time is spent on airplanes. And don’t forget, an executive assistant holds the key to your boss’s schedule, and can help you to schedule phone or face time with a hard-to-reach boss.
- Adapt and persist. Figure out your leader’s preferred style and method of communication, and adapt your messages to these preferences. Be sure to update your leader’s preferences regularly—no less than annually, and more often for attention-deficient leaders.
- Self-promote. Your supervisor should know your achievements, and you’re responsible to provide those updates. To help you keep track of them among your responsibilities (and all those accomplishments!), schedule updates like appointments. Maybe you’ll send the managing partner an email every Friday at 5, or maybe you’ll leave your director a voice message on Sunday evenings so he or she hears from you as the workweek begins. However you choose to update your boss, be sure to describe your achievements and planned actions, and make your requests for feedback or input at those times.
- Top-of-mind equals top of list. When you’ve let others know about your significant achievement, you increase your visibility… and without much extra effort, you provide reasons why you should remain in your position during layoffs and economic downturns. Leaders will begin to prefer your help when problems arise or work needs completion. Better yet, if you are never far from your leader’s thoughts, you become extremely promotable.
- Face time is essential. Though email is often the easiest way to get a message to your boss, face time creates engagement. This is particularly true when your superior manages a large number of people, or has few opportunities for informal meetings with staff. Be sure your boss can connect your name with your face… and the achievements your name carries.
From: “How to Work Around Your Boss’s Habit of Not Being Available” by Joann Lublin. WSJ.com (9/5/06).
A recent New York Times article (password needed) profiled an interesting book by Amy Sutherland on Life and Lessons at the World’s Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers. She suggested that the same techniques may work on your spouse and children. I suggest that you try some with your direct reports. Rather than allowing negative behaviors from those around you to produce “occasional sarcasm” and “slow boil resentment” in yourself, she shares some of these common sense leadership lessons from the best exotic animal trainers in the country:
- Reward good behavior and ignore bad—as managers, parents, and spouses know, it’s the simplest and hardest thing to do.
- Use “approximations” by rewarding small steps in learning—you can’t expect a dolphin to flip with one command, just as you can’t expect a subordinate to be concise after one conversation.
- Create incompatible behaviors to substitute for annoying ones—if your direct (or child) is hovering before an important meeting (dinner), give him or her something to do to help prepare.
- And L.R.S. or the “least reinforcing syndrome” which means that any response—positive or negative—fuels a behavior, and if a behavior provokes no response, it will go away.
A few weeks ago a client asked that I look at a list of activities they currently perform for internal clients across their company. It was a long list, and included everything from strategic counsel to message design to campaign management to event production. The question was: “From your perspective, in which of these activities should we be involved and which should we avoid?”
It was an opportunity to email them the gist of what I’ve come to call “The Service Level Speech,” and I thought it might be of interest to communication professionals, and really, any person who serves in an internal support or shared services function (save IT, which tends to have very specific service level agreements). Here’s the body of my email:
Thanks for including me in this. For what it’s worth, I think scope will likely vary by role, and that specific roles and their requisite scopes are worth defining across the department.That being said, my reaction to this list is to consider turning the question of scope on its side: Rather than saying “what things do we choose to get involved in,” I’d suggest that the real question is “To whom should we offer our skills, and how?” I look at it this way: Technical writing, web stuff, email protocols, speech writing, planning events, strategic counsel, change management — they’re all things you are able to do as a department, and as a result, are all in scope. But you shouldn’t do them for everyone, or in all conditions. I’d suggest thinking of it in terms of service levels, and I’d offer four of them:
Level 1: “We don’t do that, and you probably shouldn’t either.” This is when somebody calls and says they’d really like a newsletter for their small project, and are interested in you producing it. That’s not a wise investment of your time or expertise, and you shouldn’t get involved. What’s more, the last thing [company] needs is another newsletter, so we should dissuade them of the idea.
Level 2: “You create it, and we’ll review it.” Lots of the [vehicle] messages, [intranet] messages, and some executive comments or events could fall into this category. You won’t do any of the primary work, but you’re happy to look at what they produce for (1) editorial standards, (2) message consistency and fit, and (3) just to generally ensure they’re not making any big mistakes. The ability to provide internal folks with good style guides, message agendas, etc. helps with this service level because you can say “I’ll send you some standards, you put it together, and then check in with me and I’ll look at it for you.”
Level 3: “I’ll consult to you, you create it, and we’ll review it.” The same as Level 2, but you up the service you provide to include giving them counsel and being their consultant. You might have an initial meeting, outline goals, do a creative brief, etc., in addition to reviewing what they produce, etc. Lots of your [technology project] support could fit in here (as well as support of other large projects where you’re not the primary producer of the communication work).
Level 4: “We’re going to do this ourselves from soup to nuts.” This might include the full scope of change management communication work (like you did when working with [name]), or it might including something as simple as writing comments for a lunch with [President] or [VP of HR]. But because of the importance of the issue, project, event, or client, [your department] will take full responsibility and accountability for the communication work. Crisis management and stuff for [CEO] or [President] might be examples of Level 4 work. To this day, I’ll write an email that a client will send to his or her company — very tactical work — if the issue or client is important enough.
If you look at the question of scope through this lens I think the question changes a bit from “What do we do” to “Who do we serve and how.” You might take the list below and re-order it into the four categories. You might also take all the key stakeholders the department has and do the same.
Then it’s easy to go to the stakeholders and say “We’re trying get more effective in how we add value, and we’ve created some service levels to help us do so. Here’s what they are, and here’s how I see the work we do together fitting into them …”
Then you know, and your stakeholders and clients know, how you’ll help, and more important, why.
The bottom line is that the amount of internal work you do and the level of support you provide are much more a function of framing expectations than they are of responding to requests. The requests are made within the context of expectations; change the frame of expectations and changes in the requests will follow. The problem is that most folks — regardless of role — don’t actively frame their expectations with colleagues or clients. As a result they tend to inherit the levels of support they provide over time … which ultimately leads to poorly aligned expectations, frustrated staff, and disappointed internal clients.
As I waited in line this afternoon to pick up my dry cleaning, I was reminded of a leadership lesson we often share with clients: What matters most is how you treat those who matter least. You see, I was standing there at the dry cleaners observing the well dressed man in front of me complain about his service. He was clearly a very important person (or so he thought) who could not control his temper. He was berating the poor gentleman who had accidentally starched his shirts. I thought to myself …. frustrating, but hardly a major crisis. Would he treat his boss this way? And what does it say about his leadership character? A lot.
In a recent USA Today article, CEOs talk about how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about your character. It’s true. We constantly remind leaders that they are always on stage. And the lens to your character is how you treat people whom you don’t know or people you don’t have to treat well. So, next time you go to lunch with colleagues, notice how they treat the waiter or how they grab a cab—it will tell you a lot about them as leaders.
