Category: Points of Interest
Recently, a client asked me, “So, what’s the scuttlebutt (word origin here) about us?” The question made me think about gossip and its role in organizations. Why do we gossip? Because it just plain feels good to have and share information.
Social scientists believe that gossip serves the same purpose for humans that reciprocal grooming does among primates—anthropologists call it “social grooming.” Research shows that both types of grooming stimulate endorphin production, which relieves stress and boosts the immune system.
I was surprised to learn just how much time we devote to water cooler, back-fence talk—we spend two thirds (!) of our conversations gossiping. With that in mind, we advise clients to divvy their communication attentions between formal and informal channels.
What really communicates? While formal communications—memos, financial reports, staff meetings, newsletters, town halls—are not going anywhere, neither are informal exchanges in the workplace. Quite the opposite. Widespread adoption of social media (a recent post by Meredith speaks to the value in virtual networks) means new types of informal channels are on the rise, and so is the ease with which we send messages informally. Not only does information travel faster through informal channels than through formal means, but it is malleable along the way.
In other words, messages sent through informal channels are undocumented, and open to change and interpretation as they rush through the grapevine (word origin here). Informal messages are unbound by the org chart and thus, move in every direction: up, down, and diagonally, between workers and managers, and even inside and outside the company.
The best organizations manage the grapevine as simply another channel for information, and equip managers with the tools they need to share information—proactively—with their teams. Not only are managers trusted sources of information, but they directly link leadership and the front line.
Though strategically handling the grapevine can be a challenge, it’s one that leaders should embrace. Those who grasp the power of the grapevine will be better prepared to utilize it to achieve organizational goals.
I posted some PowerPoint advice a couple of months ago, but then just last week I found the chart below that might help to bring the point home even more.
Look here for additional information about how you can avert death by PowerPoint and here for more reasons why you should rely on yourself as the message and not the tool as your message.
Who hasn’t mourned the bright idea that was never heard? Or fully understood? It’s cause for lament because you know if nobody listens, then your idea won’t be adopted, advocated for or acted on, and that means your idea is doomed to distinction. Aside from selecting the right audience, equip your message with tools it needs to dodge competing messages and cut through life-ending clutter—make it sticky.
Brothers Chip (psychologist) and Dan (education expert) Heath count five components of all sticky messages in their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Mounds of social science research support their claim that sticky messages are presented as:
- Simple
- Unexpected
- Concrete
- Credible
- Emotional Story
Time Magazine explains more here.
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).
Companies look for certain qualities for job promotion and a recent Wall Street Journal article (registration may be required) explains how living abroad helps clear that path. It’s presumed that those with international experience are curious, risk-taking, and adaptable people, who undoubtedly add value to any organization. Well, those are the same qualities necessary for effective communication.
When we build new business relationships, we do so by exploring new territory, which shows our curiosity about people. When we undertake projects in unfamiliar industries, we’re tapping our reservoir of wisdom, which dovetails with our ability to take calculated risks. And when we’re successful at nurturing these relationships and producing results, we’ve done that by “living” their culture, which demonstrates our adaptability.
So, learning to leverage curiosity, adaptability, and risk-taking – whether or not you travel – can make you promotable. Plus, as the WSJ article also points out, people can always enhance their credentials in other ways, such as managing a project in another a country while still based Stateside.
Whether the goal is elevating employee performance, SOX compliance, strategic alignment, spurring innovation, or something else, leaders earn their keep by creating the conditions of accountability in their organization.
What conditions lead to accountability? Our research has shown time and again that most people in organizations will be accountable—that is, they will do what’s needed and expected—to the extent to which…
- Expectations are clear to employees.
- Employees perceive that those expectations are credible and reasonable.
- Employees anticipate that positive consequences will follow performance.
- Employees anticipate that negative consequences will follow poor performance.
Strategy & Leadership has just published an article that elaborates our Accountability Model, highlights from our research the factors that most frequently promote and inhibit accountability, and provides a case study of how we helped one organization assess and address its accountability problems.
You can download the complete article, “How to combat a culture of excuses and promote accountability,” here.
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The current issue of Fortune profiles 10 Top Leaders And Their Secrets. It’s an interesting read, made even more so by the repeated references to the importance of leadership communication.
These leaders echoe the counsel we give our clients everyday. Things like … Spend 85 percent of your time on the road talking to people (not emailing them). Coach 100 to 200 employees in a given month (it’s worth the time). Listen more (we mean really listen). And, my personal favorite, be relentlessly on message (until you can’t stomach saying it one more time).
“Benchmarking” is being used widely across businesses today. And if companies aren’t using it, they want to be, or perhaps, feel they ought to be. But do you have appropriate standards in place to implement benchmarking? Let’s say you conduct a “benchmarking survey” to compare the “numbers” in your company to the “numbers” of other companies. You find your company has more favorable numbers in all areas but one. Sounds good, right? So you report these findings back to management. Sighs of relief that “everything is just fine” may give leadership that warm, fuzzy feeling, while in reality these findings mean little more than you’re the best of a mediocre group. If mediocrity is in fact what you are striving for, congratulations, you’ve achieved it. Is this what you’re trying to accomplish?
If your answer is no, and your benchmarking agenda entails discovering and incorporating best practices, you may want to dig a little deeper. Benchmarking should not be a comparison check. Benchmarking should be used as an improvement process. You should be searching for best practices, what the standards are, and who sets them. But you should also be interested in how those people meet the standards and why those practices are “best.”
Remember to think before you leap. Here’s a link that may help to guide you along your benchmarking way.
Ten Benchmarking Mistakes to Avoid
Is there really such thing as a dumb question? Sure, according to Fortune magazine, when used wisely“dumb questions” have potential to get to the heart of the matter.
…a powerful insight into business success, one that applies to every industry on every continent in every era: Dumb questions lead to smart decisions.
A great source of cheap, hi-resolution, royalty-free presentation graphics: iStockphoto.com. Great images for just a buck or two a piece. Replace your clipart with these kinds of images and do yourself (and your audience) a favor …
