Category: culture

Messages that spread and stick

Fabrizio1 Comment

Few days back, I was skimming through a book I found at work (Lencioni’s The Advantage), and I found a very appropriate metaphor for how communication works in the workplace. According to the author, it’s like in the old sketch where the wife is mad at her husband since he never says that he loves her.

“I told you once when we got married”, he retorts. “I’ll let you know if things change!”.

Very often, this is how people communicate in a professional setting. There is a meeting in which something is announced and it is expected for everyone to be on the same page and working toward the same goal. An email is sent to inform of a major change, and employees are supposed to know of the change, of what it implies for their work, of what repercussions it will have on their department, and so on. In more informal settings, it is not unusual to hear of a manager informing a team member in the office kitchen that the project the team was working on has been postponed, and then imagine that they would know exactly how to react to that and what to focus their attention on next.

Interpersonal communication is complex and fragile. Even more so when multiple people are involved. If we have a message that touches many and needs to spread and stick, we should follow few generic rules.

First of all, be ready to repeat. Nobody likes to be repetitive, and yet that is the best way to have a message stick. Neither does anybody like to be boring, and that is why we should avoid a “copy-pasting” effect and find different ways to deliver the core message we want to share. The core message – it could be summarised with “what” and “why” – needs to be very clear to the messenger. It might sound trivial, yet think about the difficulties many experienced people have in elaborating on the reasoning behind their decisions.

Then, be ready to experiment, with different channels and different formats. People have variegated ways to absorb information. Some like to read, some prefer a face-to-face interaction, some like meetings, some informal conversations, some need a visual representation of what is being discussed. Be bold, do not stick to what is usually done in the organisation. It’s worth it if you believe your message is really important. And try to put some video in the mix, particularly if you want to reach wide.

Finally, be ready to ask. Any type of communication is usually accompanied by the assumption that we have been understood and action will follow. That is almost never true. Ask if people have got it, if they are clear on the different implications of your message, touch base with them after one, three, six months and see if they still remember the “what” and the “why”. And if you have a doubt, go back to repeat and experiment until you are more than sure.

I know it sounds like a lot of job, yet we all need to embrace our role as Chief Reminding Officer when we have something we deeply care about to share within our organisation. If we do not do that, we risk to be rowing the boat by ourselves, and that is much tougher in the long term.

Details matter

Fabrizio1 Comment

Details matter. Nowadays more than ever.

Particularly in marketing, in content marketing, details are a big part of the story your brand wishes to tell. It is difficult to fake details, and so they end up being the best representation of what an organisation stands for. They are what you do when nobody is watching.

Details set the tone for the conversation with your audience, they are how others look at you and remember you. And equally important, they are what makes you feel better about the work you do.

This is why I stop in awe when I see examples such as these.

Velocity-Partners-Email-Subscribtion
Velocity Partners – Mailing List Subscription
Medium-App-Store-Release-Notes
Medium.com – App Store Release Notes

Leave some empty space

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We used to have three hangers on the wall of our hallway, mainly to hang the kids’ outdoor clothes. We soon realized they were not enough, as some of the clothes inevitably ended up on the floor. We added two, and yet a jacket or some outdoor trousers were still continuosly out of place. We now have seven (and a wicker basket), and you can imagine it is still tricky to walk in our hallway without stepping on a hat, a pair of gloves or a reflective vest (very much needed during the dark winters in Finland).

The fact is, we tend to fill the space we are given. In an unusual application of Parkinson’s law, if we have an additional room, we end up buying more stuff to put into it. Similarly, if we are given more and unexpected time, we probably end up wasting it with activities we would not have done otherwise (social media, anyone?); and if an organization is gifted with growth, it most likely invests it in achieving even more growth (more personnel, more offices, more complexity).

What if, instead, we would leave some empty spaces in our lives? What if the next time we have five extra minutes before the following appointment, we just sit down and think? What if we say no to that customer, or to expanding to a new market, or to launching yet another product line, so that the people that are already in can actually enjoy the moment of success?

Would that be so dramatic? Or would we be more rested, prepared and galvanized for what comes next?

The practice of empathy

Fabrizio7 Comments

A while back, I have written about empathy and about how it is not something that comes natural to most people (me included).

But what does empathy look like in practice?

It is certainly not to feel sorrow for someone’s issues. When we do, we tend to approach the relationship from a position of strength, it is kind of a top-down feeling. We do not really empathize with the other person, as we are not in the same “frame of reference”. Feeling sorry is more sympathy or compassion, and as Brené Brown brilliantly puts it, it is not something someone who is in trouble wants to receive.

Empathy is also not giving people a free pass for their problems. Again, this is an approach that assumes a position of power, and it is not fundamentally different from sympathy: we feel sorry for our colleague, and therefore we close an eye to the fact they are making a poor job.

Empathy is acknowledging the other person’s situation from a neutral, non judgemental position. In Ed Batista’s words, “we comprehend their perspective and emotions, and we are able to envision ourselves experiencing that perspective and those emotions under similar circumstances”.

And then, it is suspending our natural inclination to suggest a course of action, or give an advice to “fix” the situation based on our own experience. We stay there in their world, and we acknowledge it as it is. And if the time comes when it is expected of us to say something, paraphrasing a beautiful thought by Seth Godin, we do that from their own place.

When you have to do with somebody, you have no idea how many times this person has been kicked in the teeth. All you know is that they act in ways you would not. If you care about the outcome, the question is not ‘What would I do?’. The question is ‘If I had been exposed to what you have been exposed to, what story would resonate with me?’

It is possible to get better at empathy, and by doing that you will find you can establish more meaningful and stable connections. It is an investment worth doing.

 

 

 

Time

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Time is limited and it is one of the most critical resources.

Contrary to money, that can be spent on multiple different things (when you have it), time is a trade-off matter. And for this reason, how it is invested is extremely important.

I do not have time to develop my team members. I am overworked and overwhelmed, there’s absolutely no chance I can dedicate time to that.

This is a perfectly possible and understable scenario. In the short-term, there might be more important things than a meaningful conversation, a career development discussion, a training to organise or a coaching session.

Or might they?

Consider the following:

  • Do you have time to answer all the questions?
  • Do you have time to take all the decisions?

If your people is not empowered and developed, most likely they will continue to come to you every time they have a doubt, a concern, a request. Every time there is a decision to make, important or not.

Of course, this is the best case scenario. The alternative would be that they’d simply ignore their questions and the needs for new decisions, and carry on with whatever it is that they are doing. Good or bad. Until they’ll leave, that will be rather sooner than later. And then:

  • Do you have time to keep hiring continuosly?

An apparently intelligible decision (I am now focusing on everything but developing my team) can lead to a counter-intuitive consequence (I only have time to answer to my team’s short-term needs).

What we spend time on, not only determines our priorities today, but will also determine our priorities tomorrow. To take control of both, it is worth spending some more time figuring out how our decisions are going to play out in the long-term. This is something worth making some space in your calendar for.