Too Many Leaders Just Do Not Know How to Communicate Right
The Sharpest Tool in the Box
As a management trainer, one has to travel a lot, and only just recently, I climbed into a taxi at Frankfurt airport and asked the driver to take me to the hotel where I was to be delivering a leadership workshop for the next three days. Now, some taxi drivers leave you to yourself in the back seat. They concentrate on the road and the route, and you do not hear much else out of them other than the ubiquitous “where to?” at the beginning and the concise “do you need a receipt?” toward the end of the trip. Some taxi drivers, on the other hand, just love to talk. On this particular day, I had snagged a chatty cabby (as they call them in London). He seemed to want to squeeze in anecdotes of every interesting passenger he had ever had sit in his car together with asking me to regale him of my life story, all in the paltry 12 minutes we shared together.
Upon discovering what I do as my profession, he duly asked me the question. The question, which, in my experience, is the one single question I have had to answer the most, in my career:
“So, what is the most important thing you need, to make you a good manager?,” my taxi driver enquired.
I gave my friendly driver that day the same answer I will give you here. After having worked with tens of thousands of leaders and leaders-in-the-making in my career and deconstructed their skills, strengths, and weaknesses together with them, in my opinion, the single most important tool for a leader is: communication.
If you cannot communicate, you cannot delegate.
If you cannot communicate, you cannot work strengths-oriented.
If you cannot communicate, you cannot motivate.
If you cannot communicate, you cannot inspire….
And, the list goes on and on. Of all the gifts granted to us by the magic of evolution, no other separates us from our animal cousins more than our ability for detailed, applied, subjective, and objective communication, be it ad hoc or planned. What is more, we all seem to know just how important communication is, and yet time and time again, I am surprised to hear of leaders who struggle to have found their voices. I regularly hear incandescence, gratitude, shock, or amazement (or sometimes all of these) from leader coaches of mine who—after having asked my advice on how they should deal with this conflict or that staff appraisal, with this unmotivated associate or that unfocused team member—hear my response:
“Have you spoken to the person(s) concerned about that, yet?,” I invariably ask.
“Oh, what a good idea!”
“No, not yet, I was meaning to get around to it.”
“No, but I will definitely arrange to do so, right away.”
“No. I didn’t know what to say.” Coachees inevitably respond.
It astonishes me how few young leaders reach for candid, open, transparent communication when faced with leadership challenges. In one executive coaching session on the phone recently, the coach from a global player tool manufacturer; Matt from Australia, fell silent when I asked him if he had yet spoken to the parties involved. There was no answer. After several seconds of nothing, I feared we had been cut off and so asked: “Matt, are you still there?” “Yes!,” he replied immediately. “You can hear me thinking!”
Matt, like so many, had not thought of communicating with his associates to address his issue or he at least had not yet developed the appropriate arguments or created the right setting. In this chapter, I would like to take you on a crash course of communication fundamentals, and hope there is something there that will give you the tools to find the right words for your team in the future.
What You Say
Think of a tree.
Go on. Think of a tree. Build a picture of it in your head and save that picture.
Ok. What does your tree look like? Does it have a full, green crown, and does fruit hang from its branches? Or, is it maybe a tree in winter, all its leaves shed, standing tall and strong, but with no greenery? Can you maybe see its roots? Or is it a different shape altogether? A palm, Christmas, or even family tree?
If we asked everyone currently reading this book to draw the trees, chances are we would have a variety of different trees. Indeed, I often ask participants to sketch their trees, and we get the works; all types of different tree manifestations. Carl Wieman (2007) refers to this as “the curse of knowledge” and describes it as “the idea that when you know something, it is extremely difficult to think about it from the perspective of someone who does not know it” (2007). A classic laboratory example of this is the 1990 study by Elisabeth Newton, which showed that only one out of 40 listeners could identify a song being tapped out onto a table, but that those doing the tapping had predicted that half would be able to name the tune. We often forget that our audience does not share our knowledge. The curse of knowledge is apparent when we give our colleagues instructions and are confused, when they do not fulfill them to your expectations.
Why did I ask you to think of a tree, and why should we care that there are multiple renditions of the word, or that some people cannot identify tapped songs, as well as the tapper expects? Because it is important for us as considered communicators to appreciate that even the simplest of words or concepts in our mind (for example tree) can construe different images in the heads of different interlocutors. Just because we, as the speaker, know what we mean or expect, when we say a word, does not mean that our listeners will immediately have the same picture in their minds. Why should they? They may not know what I know.
As a leader, choose your words very carefully. Choose them not based on whether you feel they may be the new buzz words, sound impressive or for any other reason. Choose your words in such a way that your audience will best understand.
When we find our vocabulary, what to say? The Heath brothers in their book on catchy communication: Make it Stick (2008) classify three simple yet powerful ways of making what we say, stick in the minds of those listening to us.
- Make it mysterious. I call this the Batman effect. Remember the cliffhangers at the end of each episode of the Batman series in the 1960s? (Created by Lorenzo Semple Jr.). Batman was trapped, strapped to a bench while the Joker aimed a laser between his legs. Frustratingly, we had to wait in those days for a week to find out, whether Batman lived or died. Invariably, Robin would save Batman, but our attention was held and the narrative stuck (even for seven days between shows).
- Make it unexpected. Ask yourself: What is my audience expecting to hear? Can I offer them something unexpected that they will not forget in a hurry?
- Make it personal. Generic language flies over us like a migrating bird on its way to more clement weather. We barely notice it go. We pay it only the briefest of attention and then think nothing more of it until we see birds returning months later. Keep your language specific and individualized. Involve your listener and stress how things affect him or her.
Red-hot trends in communication inhibition in recent years include:
- The use of business buzzwords;
- Borrowing words from other vocabularies; and
- My personal favorite communication hindrance: the acronym.
Liz Ryan (2018) at Forbes magazine notes her 10 most cringe-worthy buzzwords of 2018:
- Paradigm (or paradigm shift)
- At the end of the day
- Deliverables
- Core competency
- Best practice
- Deep dive or drill down or 10,000-foot view
- Synergy
- Game-changer or disrupter
- Blue-sky thinking
- Right-sizing
Do you find yourself using words like these or similar jargon or phraseology? If so, I would like to invite you to reflect on how sure you are that your discourse partner understands. I am not telling you to banish such words from your vocabulary; metaphoric language can be very powerful and productive. I am suggesting you consider the chances that such words might be misconstrued, when even the word tree can paint a hundred mental pictures.
Translation blogger Manny Echevarria (2008) cites some common loanwords, pawned from other tongues, regularly heard in English, including:
Schadenfreude
[German] The pleasure one takes from someone else’s misfortune.
Modus operandi
[Latin] Someone’s habits or method of operating (often used by police investigators to describe someone’s criminal profile, or MO)
Faux pas
[French] The violation of a commonly accepted social rule, a blunder like a gaffe.
Aficionado
[Spanish] An ardent admirer or fan of something.
Doppelgänger
[German] A double, or look-alike person, often with negative connotations because some people believe that seeing your own doppelgänger is an omen of impending death.
L’enfant terrible
[French] A child who says or does really embarrassing things, or a successful adult whose achievements were executed in an unorthodox way.
Prima donna
[Italian] Literally, first lady as in the principal female singer in an opera, but usually used to refer to a spoiled, ill-tempered person.
Mea culpa
[Latin] Literally, my own fault. Usually used by a person who is admitting guilt for some wrong-doing.
Quid pro quo
[Latin] Literally, something for something. Often used in place of you scratch my back and I will scratch yours or during negotiations to ask, what is in it for me?
Zeitgeist
[German] The spirit of the times. Used to describe things in the socio-cultural air, like trends or ideas that describe an era.
How many of those do you know or use?
Once again, my message here is not to eliminate loanwords from your arsenal or that they are bad in any way. Language changes (Betz 1959). A language’s lexicon (the words at its speakers’ disposal) grows, swells, moves, develops. Words are lost, and words are assimilated all the time (Vilar 2007). And, that is fine. My only invitation to you is to have a long hard think about whether or not the word or words that you have chosen to borrow to make your point, actually ended up being faux amis, because your speaking partner does not follow your leitmotiv.
And finally, in this section: my pet bugbear: the acronym. The character Chandler from the hugely successful 1990’s comedy series F•R•I•E•N•D•S had a job, which his buddies did not understand. As part of his dull, on-the-job duties, he and his work colleagues referred to office concepts with funny acronyms: “wenus” (weekly estimated net usage systems), and “ANUS” (annual net usage statistics) (Myerson 1995). These play-on-word business acronyms have, of course, been created for comic effect by the series’ creators, but just about every company that I have worked together with over the years has used its own industry acronyms, corporation acronyms and some even use their own departmental or team-specific abbreviations. My issues with this are twofold.
- Acronyms can, potentially, stand for distinct concepts and carry multiple connotations (compare: South Lake Union Trolley and the Wisconsin Tourism Federation) and
- Newer members of teams often have not yet added such acronyms to their vocabulary, and so are being left behind by their usage.
Educate your team. Provide glossaries. Be transparent and choose your words very, very carefully.
How You Say It
Now, compare the following sentences:
It does not matter that you did that.
It does not matter that you did that.
It does not matter that you did that.
It doesn’t matter that you did that.
It doesn’t matter that you did that.
It doesn’t matter that you did that.
It doesn’t matter that you did that.
When the word in italics is stressed the most, the seeming synonymous sentences take on distinct meanings. Here we can see the importance not only of what one says but also how one says it. The emphasis on words can change the implied or inferred missive, but to the same extent, the manner with which I communicate also affects how my message arrives at the receiver (Shannon and Weaver 1949; Schramm 1954). Volume, timbre, body posture, gesticulation facial mimic, and even our frame of mind can dramatically influence how what we say comes across.
With regards to body language, there are a lot of great treatise out there, and I would recommend Ekman et al.’s (1987) work on reading facial micro expressions as a useful leadership tool to add to your stock, but unfortunately both would be too much for the scope of this book. Suffice to say that how I say something is often more important than what I veritably say. It is for this reason that call-center telephonists are trained to smile as they answer the phone. The smile, even on the unseen speaker’s face, positively affects how their communication on the phone comes across.
An exemplary case of the how in communication topping the what is when then President Kennedy stood in front of the Brandenburg Town Hall in West Germany in 1963 and erroneously declared to the over 400,000 stood in the square, listening: “ich bin ein Berliner!” (Provan 2013). Those words have gone down in history as one of the great speeches on the subject of freedom, and the crowd that day cheered excitedly to Kennedy’s words, but what he actually said was grammatically incorrect and carries a very different meaning in German. (Daum 2008). “Ich bin Berliner” would have meant “I am a Berlin native” or “I am one of you” (surely his intention), but unfortunately “Ich bin ein Berliner” actually means “I am a donut” (the Berliner is a type of butter donut, often filled with jam). What is noteworthy is that neither the predominantly German-speaking audience that day, nor most watching at home, noticed Kennedy’s slip. The attractive man with an existing, strong reputation for public speaking, the huge flag fluttering behind him, the impeccable suit he had on with his perfectly bound tie, the careful gesticulation, the way he held his head high and annunciated his words clearly, and with purpose was what the audience actually recorded. According to Mehrabian (1967, 1967b), only 7 percent of the message and personal feelings I send to you originate from the words that come out of my mouth. The tone of my voice (38 percent) and my body language (55 percent) account for the vast majority of influence on you as to how much you will like what I say.
For the Toolbox
Hands up. Who has taken part in a meeting that resembled any of the following descriptions.
- Boring
- Unfocused, there seems to be little connection between statements
- A waste of time
- Just a chance for people to make their case or defend their agenda
- Not relevant for me. Why was I invited?
- People talking over each other
- Too long
- People are getting distracted, sidetracked
And, what format did the vast majority of those meetings take? Probably, a small group of invited people, sitting around a table, talking. There is probably or maybe an agenda, minutes are often taken by someone or other, and the meeting is usually chaired by someone, but discussion bounces back and forth, and all the phenomena listed may occur.
It does not have to be that way, all the time. If you are driving the bus, if it is your meeting, then why not try out some different ways of communicating? Here is a selection of a few communication tools to help improve your transformational communication:
Talking Stick
One of the oldest communication tools. Our forefathers realized too that communication can sometimes lose focus, and so, many people when meeting with tribe or group members would use a simple stick, stone, or other object to try to control communication flow. The rule is simple: whoever is holding the talking stick talks, whoever is not holding it listens. It is incredible how powerful such a simple tool can be. People really do listen and it hones speakers’ rhetoric too, so we get productivity on both sides. The stick-holder, when finished, can then invite someone else to talk by offering him or her the stick or others can express their desire to talk next with a simple open hand gesture (asking for the stick) or with a nod or with eye contact.
Poker Chips
A variation on the talking stick is to work with poker chips, matchsticks, coins, or something similarly small and collectable. If you feel that discussion in a particular meeting could slip off point, then assign each meeting attendee with, say, three chips, and inform them that each time they would like to contribute (for example 45 seconds per speech), they will have to pay with one of their chips. In this case, each person would be limited to three inputs. This comms tool focuses people’s thoughts and trains them to keep to their point. Such structure can help meetings to be much more productive.
Peer Consultation
This communication setting originates from the social sciences, but is popping up in a business context more and more. It works particularly well for meeting participants, who have a specific challenge or problem and would like input and opinion from their peers to hopefully help them consider new alternatives to a given professional situation. It works perfectly with 5- to 8-person groups. Get the group together and then invite anyone or everyone to suggest cases that they would like to discuss. Explanations should be short. Two to three minutes max. The group then chooses one case (others can be discussed at later sessions), and the peer consultation begins.
Five minutes: The case bringer explains her situation and poses one specific question to the group that she would like help with.
10 minutes: The group asks concept-checking questions of the case bringer to assure comprehension. Mrs. X you talk about - how long has she been working here? The product you mention, is it on budget? The colleague you are in a conflict with - how well do you know them?’ and so on.
20 minutes: The case bringer turns her chair round 180 degrees (so that she has her back to the group). She takes a pen and paper to take notes, but takes no part in this part of the consultation. The rest of the group talk about or her and the case as if she was not there. I think she should do the following…, I feel that her mistake was when she…, and so on.
Five minutes: Feedback. The case bringer turns back to the group, thanks them for their engagement, and feeds back on what she has heard. Maybe some of the suggestions or ideas were new, maybe she has tried or considered some before. Either way, she shares that with the group, showing that she might have gotten some new impulses (positive) or received confirmation that the already tried tactics were recommended (positive).
Interestingly, with this setting, the participants do not necessarily have to know or understand the case bringer’s industry or field. Sometimes, a lay brainstorm can stray out-of-the-box and inspire new thought and reflection. Some people like to try this setting with the case bringer leaving the room altogether for the 20-minute discussion period. This might add a greater level of freedom of expression to the peers, but summary and convergence of findings might be more effortful. Try both and see which one works for you and your team.
6 Hats
De Bono (2017) suggests six ways in which the brain can be challenged to judge a situation through a different perspective, and so release potentially different cognitive thought. In this brainstorming setting, each of the six directions is represented by a certain colored hat. When metaphorically wearing each hat, the speaker should be inspired to think about the issue at hand only as that type of character would think. The hats represent the following thought classes:
Blue: The manager, facilitator, moderator. Sticking to the goal, sticking to the subject, sees the big picture.
White: The wearer of the white hat focuses only on numbers, data, facts, and objective information.
Red: Emotions and instinctive gut reactions, but without loading the statements with any kind of judgment.
Black: The cautious, practical hat. Exercises realism and expresses conservative prudence.
Yellow: Optimism. Sees the potential bright side of situations and uses logic to sniff out harmony and accord.
Green: Provocative, out-of-the-box, creative thinking. Takes an idea and runs with it in a flow of inventive consciousness.
Individuals and organizations have used the brainstorm tool for years in order to attempt to approach an issue from multiple angles, to explore myriad options. A communicative, team variation of this process is to designate each member of a six-strong team a hat (either metaphorically or literally), and then review a matter together, with each hat owner only contributing in the assigned manner to which his or her hat allows, that is, the red hat wearer only comments with shoot-from-the-hip emotion, while the one with the yellow hat only makes positive contributions.
Simulations
Simulations can be particularly helpful for empowering team members to have confidence to deal with high-pressure communication situations such as sales pitches, negotiations, interviews, staff appraisals, and so forth. Days before the real-world discourse at hand is due to take place, arrange for those involved to gather with some volunteers to simulate or role-play the talk. Give heaps of feedback after each role play and do not be afraid to press the pause button, give immediate, specific input on a particular turn of phrase, then rewind the talk and have the speaker instantaneously practice the new suggestion. Experiment with using video cameras to allow for the speaker to appreciate how they are perceived by others, and if you get the chance, try working with professional seminar actors who can ingeniously reproduce speaker styles, based on just a few bits of information about the character they are portraying.
Fishbowl
Better for larger groups, the bowl setting can bring fluidity into a communication environment, where, without it, chaos or stagnation could ensue. In the fishbowl, a handful of speakers are chosen (perhaps based on their expert knowledge of a particular issue) or volunteer to join the moderator in a small, inner circle of chairs. The rest of the attendees close a larger circle of chairs around the smaller circle, enclosing them like fish in a fishbowl. The size of the whole fishbowl can be anything from 15 to 20 people up to hundreds (the largest fishbowl I have been involved in had 20 podium speakers in the middle and 350 in concentric outer circles), and the dynamism comes from the size.
It is highly recommended that a fishbowl has a content-neutral chair or facilitator whose job is to steer the discussion from item to item with well-timed questions aimed at always-changing podium speakers. But, the real magic begins when members of the outer circles decide to contribute. Unlike podium discussions, where the speakers remain the same, fishbowl outer-circle members can stand, enter the inner circle, tap any inner-circle speaker on the shoulder, and then take their place in the inner circle and immediately begin augmenting the discussion. This fluency brings fresh input and arguments to a discussion while allowing an audience to remain large. Without the swapping proffered by the fishbowl, large groups could suffer from chaotic noise and cross-speaking or be impaired by only a few, blinkered views. The fishbowl provides an alternative to both these disadvantages.
Chapter Leadership Challenge
Next time you have to chair a meeting, try one of the settings. Be transparent with your team and tell them if you find some of the meetings stagnant, and that you would like to try some different settings to try to improve productivity. Get some feedback (ask for it in the EECC format) on how your colleagues found the methods.
Before the next big presentation or discourse, take a few minutes to plan what you would like to say and how you would like to say it. Put thought into what order you would like to deliver the information, with what levels of pathos, ethos, and logos and packaged with what kind of body language. When I first started work, I would make myself little notes to remind me to stand for this argument, sit for that, lean forward at that moment, and so on. Preplanning the delivery method can help you to develop a more natural and convincing communication style.