Category Archives: Internal Communications

How do you know if you are on a good work team?

How do you know if you’re part of a good work team? I’ve been having lots of wonderful and intriguing discussions with friends of mine about teams. With my soccer team, about why we like each other enough to hang out when we don’t have to.  With my friend Ann Max, who coaches corporate teams towards productivity. I also chatted at length with my friend Jen Hunter, who works with leadership teams to build on their collective strengths. The question is harder to answer than you might think. For one, sometimes people don’t know that they’re in a team.

I once had a colleague who regularly and without fail tried to ambush his team members.  He saw us as competition. Was he a bright and capable guy?  Absolutely, he is one of the smartest people I’ve worked with. He just couldn’t imagine us as being on a team and so saw us as chasing the same scarce resources, whatever he imagined them to be. Did the rest of us think he was competition?  Nope, we thought we were on a team.  Therefore, we were regularly surprised at his negative response to simple initiatives. If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know I think surprises at work are terrible things with disastrous results.

Of course, there are those times when a team comes together and does amazing things.  When this happens, it creates synergy, energy and amazing outcomes. My soccer team does one thing consistently, we laugh. If we don’t laugh, then what’s the point of getting together? We also know what roles we play. 

I’ve been fortunate enough to have some fantastic work teams, those times when a group of individuals transcends their independent parts to produce results well beyond their scope. One of the tricks of success is that we didn’t allow ourselves to get too insular. Not only is navel-gazing boring, but it epitomizes counter-productivity.

Good teams also know that effective communication is central to success.  Good teams have frank conversations, respectful consideration of ideas and the freedom to laugh at each other and ourselves when things get goofy. They are patient.  Good ideas take time to share and understand and they can’t come to fruition without a team patient enough to listen. If you’re on a good work team you’ll know it because you not only like your colleagues, you respect them.  You certainly won’t be afraid to speak your mind to them.

Quick Tips

  • Good team members give each other time, patience and fun. 
  • They respect and can anticipate each other.
  • Good teams happen when you realize that you are collectively better than your individual parts.
  • Good teams are self-aware, everyone knows what their role is and how that role connects to and supports others.
  • Most importantly, good teams communicate.

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5 Great Programs That Add Pop To Presentations

PowerPoint is a great presentation tool.  It’s flexible, powerful and easy to use. It’s also one of the most maligned presentation tools. Its biggest flaw, however, is its users. Some of the regular culprits are poorly constructed slides filled with tiny font. Complex graphs meant to confound instead of inform viewers and then there is the challenge of presenting information. This post isn’t offering alternatives to PowerPoint because I think it’s bad, I’m sharing tools that can shake things up and possibly improve presentations (some can even be used with PowerPoint).

Adobe Spark

  • Adobe Spark offers a great variety of easy to use options for social posting, blog images, ads and more. It’s one of my favourite tools.
  • There are a number of templates and different layouts you can choose.
  • The templates allow you to choose the right size for your projects and you can start from scratch or with one of the choices from their gallery.
  • In addition to templates, Spark gives you access to free images from sites like Pexels and Pixabay from within the program.
  • It also allows you to make videos, an important feature when there is so much importance placed on video in order to be seen on social media.
  • The video option comes with the ability to upload your own images or your own video clips.
  • You can choose silence, a piece from their music selection or add a voice-over or both.
  • You can store your projects online and/or download them.
  • Projects download as jpegs or MP4s
  • On an “easy to use” rating scale, I would give Spark an 8 out of 10. The only reason the mark isn’t higher is that even if you start from scratch there are limits on the customization options within the program (at least at the free level).

Take a look at the video below to get a better look.

Canva

  • One of the best parts of Canva is the ability to create great infographics.
  • Canva also allows you to create awesome social posts, presentations, ads, detailed reports that pop and much more.
  • It also allows you to create logos, though the template selection of options is limited.
  • With Canva you can import the images you want or choose from their selection. Some of the images are free, while others are a cheap (one dollar).
  • Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow you to make videos.

 

Prezi

  • If you have complex information to deliver, particularly if you are trying to illustrate the relationship of things, Prezi is a great choice.  It has many of the same attributes as PowerPoint, but its delivery style means that you have something that feels more like a movie.
  • Prezi also allows you to deliver messages in a nonlinear way.  Prezi is like telling a story on a huge canvas. You can zoom in to show details and easily illustrate complexity or you can zoom out so that your audience sees the big picture.
  • A word of warning though, the movements that make Prezi such a fun can actually make some people feel seasick. Getting nauseous during a presentation is definitely a con.
  • While Prezi has some beautiful design formats, they are much more limited than PowerPoint and while PowerPoint comes with a host of tools, using Prezi means that you have to import many of the graphs you’re used to having automatically with PowerPoint.
  • On the upside, just as you can import your graph, you can also embed Prezi into PowerPoint, making for a great combined outcome.
  • Prezi is a web-based product available for free if you don’t mind your presentation being made public. Otherwise, you can buy a desktop version that is more pricey than PowerPoint.
  • On an “easy to use” rating scale, I would give Prezi a 7 out of 10.  You can achieve a lot with Prezi, but the more specific the desired outcome the more challenging it can be to work with.

For a peek at how Prezi works, take a look below.

Visme

  • Visme allows you to build infographics, presentations, reports, and all kinds of graphics.
  • It comes with a great selection of templates or you can start from scratch.
  • Unlike some of the other tools, it comes with 100s of font choices and customizable icons.
  • You can use their images, paid and free or upload your own.
  • You can create interactive maps and include your own content.
  • You can edit, crop or use your own colour schemes and you can animate just about anything.
  • You can keep your files online, make them private or download them as an image, PDF or HTML5.
  • There are a number of colour palettes available on Visme, but unfortunately, you need to buy their premium package if you want to include your own brand colours.
  • On an “easy to use” rating scale, I would give Visme a 7 out of 10. The challenge with Visme is that with all of its flexibility also comes some complexity. If you are not used to graphics software it can get confusing.

Take a look at the explainer video below to get a better understanding of Visme’s scope.

If you are looking for a way to bring it all together then you will like the next offering on the list, SlideDog.

SlideDog

  • SlideDog allows you to pull together all the best parts of the tools you like working with into one seamless presentation.
  • Essentially whether you want to showcase web pages, video clips, Prezi presentations or PDFs, you can pull them all together for one experience.
  • SlideDog allows you to retain all of the functionality of the original file.
  • The challenge, of course, is that you can’t really create within SlideDog and if you want to make a change in the presentation then you have to go back to the original… that can get tiresome.

There are many other tools out there to be considered, such as Haiku Deck or Google Slides both are free, and they are very similar to PowerPoint, but not quite as good. Haiku Deck makes things pretty and can provide the user with various options for display, but has less functionality than PowerPoint. Google Slides allows you to collaborate on slide creation and being free is a big advantage but the desktop version isn’t as awesome as PowerPoint and the template options for PowerPoint make it an easy choice.

Google Slides allows you to collaborate on slide creation and the fact that its free is a big advantage but the desktop version isn’t as awesome as PowerPoint and the many template options available for PowerPoint make it an easy choice.

I haven’t forgotten about KeyNote. Keynote makes beautiful presentations. If you have a MAC, the price is also right as it comes for free. One of the biggest challenges with Keynote is that it was built for Apple users and although you can now access it with a PC if you use iWork, it seems like a lot of effort to access a program that does very similar things to PowerPoint.  Keynote is also not as intuitive if you are used to PowerPoint.

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How to decide

Imagine polling your colleagues to determine what you personally will have for lunch. What about dictating to your neighbours how they should vote? Seems ridiculous right? Yet as silly as that sounds we can get into a decision making rut. Using the same approach for all decisions. When you consider the range of decisions we have to make on any given day this is not only ineffective, it can create challenges in your business and personal relationships.

The most generous person can become a dictator and the most opinionated can become indecisive by applying the same decision-making style for every eventuality. Consider that there are generally three ways to reach a decision.

Consensus: This is when you gather everyone and take a vote. A true consensus is a rare occurrence, so assume that there will be some outliers, but them aside, consensus decisions are a reflection of most people’s opinion. This is a great approach when choosing government or determining strategic priorities with a board for an organization. In a family setting, it might be how you decide where you stop for lunch during a road trip.

Consensus is great but as you can imagine it takes time. People have to be informed, ideas explained and people will need time to think. Then come the debates and the vote. Not all decisions can afford to wait for the process to unfold and frankly, not all decisions require a group or are even appropriate for a group. Some decisions will impact only a few people and in those instances, the opinion of many and varied voices are not only overkill, it’s disrespectful to those who have to live with the consequences.

Consultative: Consultative decisions are more tightly focused on those who have to take action, those with specific knowledge and those impacted by the decision. Although one person may have final say, this approach allows the decision maker to hear from the relevant players. This approach takes time but is not as time-consuming as consensus. In most healthy organizations, familial and corporate, the majority of decisions reside in this area. It allows participants to own decisions and therefore consequences.

Command: With command, one person is in charge and what they say goes. Long live the king! This approach has it’s uses and is particularly effective in crisis situations. Command decisions allow for fast turn around and are prefaced on the assumption that the decision maker has expert knowledge. Unfortunately, some leaders find the command approach so appealing that they employ it for all decisions. The challenge, of course, is that no one person has perfect knowledge of all issues. It can also slow processes down by creating bottlenecks. With one person making all of the decisions,  projects can begin to pile up.

The thing is, no matter what approach you use, it’s good to keep in mind that others are also available and no one approach works perfectly all the time. Unfortunately, even if you employ the right decision style at the right time, you can still make silly decisions. If this weren’t the case, we’d all be healthy, active, careful savers who never drink too much coffee or wine.

For tips on hacking decision making, check out 5 Hacks for Decision Making.

How do you decide how to decide? Do you know someone who only has one approach to deciding? Ever get caught in a situation where the decision-making approach didn’t fit the issue?

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5 Hacks for Decision Making

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11 Dangerous Misconceptions about Communications

Communications is as necessary to our survival as breathing. It’s how we engage and interpret our world. We label and reference what we see hear and smell and then use that information to share ideas, solve problems and fire imaginations. Despite the integral role it plays in helping us to navigate our lives we often take effective communication for granted. We assume that everyone is seeing the world through our eyes and experiences. This can lead to misinterpretations, disagreements, and confusion.

Misconceptions can shape how we see and understand messages. They can inform decisions and drive objectives. While errors in understanding can sometimes be funny, too often the results are far from humorous. If you are in business then you are in the field of communications. Without the proper care, you and your brand can be felled by misinterpretation.

The following are some of the most common misperceptions I have encountered working in business communications.

  1. Communication happens when messages are sent. Sometimes people assume that because they have sent a message, that it has been received or that receiving a message is the same as understanding it.  Consider how many messages are sitting in your inbox unopened or all of the promotional mail that goes directly into recycling. Most messages never get to their intended audience. Assume communications has happened when you hear an answer or see an outcome that confirms it. This is especially true when it comes to social media. Thousands of posts don’t mean thousands of views, much less that people have understood or engaged with your content.
  2. Fluency means comprehension. This misconception is related to the idea that your proficiency in a language is somehow a measure of your effectiveness in communicating.  If that were true, then someone with a large vocabulary need not listen, ensure that messages were actually heard, understood or retained. If you have ever read an academic paper you know that a deep understanding of a topic is no assurance of the ability to communicate about it effectively. Unfortunately, having a deep understanding of a particular topic can actually result in lowering your ability to communicate about it well. One reason this happens is that you can get into the habit of using the jargon or abbreviations that are well known to those in the field but become a barrier to those outside of it.
  3. If people don’t agree with you, then they misunderstood.  Overconfidence in the truth or righteousness of your message can sometimes result in an assumption that everyone will agree with you. The belief that your message is the only message can be a reflection of your commitment to an idea or your passion for a cause. Think about how often political convictions can result in disputes amongst friends. Sometimes people hear your message just fine but they simply don’t agree with you.  This is not necessarily a prompt to restate, repeat or say it louder.  It can be a prompt to rethink.
  4. You can’t plan for crisis communications. As a business, not having a crisis communications plan is a strategic blind spot that can result in a hard and fast fall. Consider conducting a vulnerability audit. If you are a small business or operating on your own, ask yourself questions related to worst-case scenarios. What would need to be in place if you got sick? What do you need to do if your regular suppliers are unavailable? Who do you need to train if they need to take over? Are there processes you should be documenting? Do you have an emergency contact list? If you have a larger business, ask people responsible for various departments to consider potential weak spots and plan for worst-case scenarios. Do you have a communication tree set up so that messages can quickly reach multiple people? Make sure that your response process is efficient. Slow responses in times of crisis can grow the crisis.
  5. Always stay positive. Optimism is awesome, its good for you and practising optimism is important to success. However, while having a positive and happy brand has become the default for many organizations, sometimes you have to disagree with people or take a stand on a topic that affects or offends a large segment of your market. Avoiding conflict or negative conversations can actually result in tarnishing your brand or hindering innovation. Innovation often requires taking risks and risks can result in negative outcomes. Employees need to feel comfortable enough to take chances. Risk can be the difference between making the mediocre good and the good great.
  6. One message fits all. If all humans had identical needs, experiences, and aspirations, perhaps one type of communication would be feasible. Since we have unique needs or at least groups of people have unique needs, then we have to tailor communications to match our various audiences. Not only do people learn and understand things in different ways, they have different expectations and priorities. By keeping communication styles responsive and flexible you will be better at getting your message delivered.
  7. Any problem can be resolved with effective communications. Communications is not magic.  There are some challenges that communications simply will not overcome. In some situations, the best that communications can do is facilitate interpersonal exchanges and help to make the position of both sides clear. 
  8. The more communications the better. Whether you are talking about interpersonal communications or the media more is not necessarily better.  If you want press coverage sending countless press releases may only result in reporters learning to ignore your messages. Being stingy with knowledge is rarely a good idea if you are trying to influence an outcome, but as with most things, balance is important. Measure your responses, take the temperature of your audience to determine if your message is getting through.
  9. Good logic makes for good communications. This misconception assumes that emotions play no role in communications. The reality is that you can get different reactions to the identical message depending on how it’s delivered when it’s delivered, and how you and the recipient are feeling at the time of delivery. Think about how effective it is sending a “get to work” message late Friday afternoon in the summer.
  10. Ignore social media in a crisis. It’s hard to believe that anyone still thinks they can ignore social media during a crisis, but every year organizations that should know better do. Not only do you have to engage on social media during a crisis, you have to do so quickly or risk having your brand negatively affected. Being responsive means having a clear policy in place letting employees know what they can and cannot respond to in case of a crisis. It also means being available to respond after hours.
  11. Communications is easy. Just because everyone does it doesn’t mean they do it well. While most people can learn to be better communicators with time and practice, good communications take work. Communicating effectively with broad and diverse audiences requires research, skill, and knowledge.

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Personal Paradigms, The Good, The Bad & The Impact

 

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What Do Work Nightmares Tell Us?

Since today is  Halloween, I couldn’t resist taking a look at nightmares.  Work nightmares in particular.  These night terrors fall into two categories for me, waking horrors, things that happen at work that embarrass or freak you out, such as calling your boss by your spouse’s name during a meeting, (I won’t touch the Freudian implications of that one). Then there are the nightmares where you suddenly realize that you have to give a presentation in 15 minutes on a topic you know nothing about.  In this post, I’ll explore the sleeping nightmares and what they are trying to tell us.

Our dreams are messages that we send to ourselves. They tell us what we really think about a person, issue or activity. They are also one of the ways our subconscious tries to solve problems that have been presented to us during the waking hours.  Our dreams, even the awkward ones, give us some insight into our own minds.  

I once had a dream in which I was in a huge auditorium with thousands of people. My boss was standing on stage with a microphone when he announced that I would be leading the next part of the presentation. Presenting didn’t faze me, nor did being called upon to do the work unexpectedly, the nightmarish bit was that I had no microphone, no slides and no way of being seen or heard. I couldn’t get to the stage and I couldn’t get my boss’ attention to tell him. When I recalled the dream the following morning, it made me laugh…at myself.  I’d been worried about my budget and the tools I had for my job. My concern was that I would not be able to deliver on objectives because I didn’t have the right resources.  I thought I had resigned myself to working with what I had, but apparently, my subconscious had other ideas and wanted to demonstrate the outcome of working without the right tools.

Looking at your dreams is an opportunity to get to know yourself better, but you can’t be too literal. Just because work shows up in a dream, doesn’t mean the dream is about work.  We spend so much time at work that it makes it easy for our minds to call on those elements to send us messages. The opposite is also true. You could have elements of your personal life in a dream that’s really about work.

If you dream about sharpening a million pencils it doesn’t necessarily mean you are worried about dull pencils. You could be frustrated about menial work you have been doing or a repetitive task. The point is, dreams and their interpretation is a very personal thing.  The same item appearing in the dreams of two people can have dramatically different meanings for the dreamers. What we see, feel and hear in our dreams is all about us. Remember, everyone in your dream is you.

There is also some research that suggests that the flow of a dream is a reflection of your subconsciousness trying to make sense of the random images flowing through. Have you ever woken up to the sound of a radio?  If there is a news broadcast playing, then elements of the news can filter into your sub-conscience before you are fully awake and create interesting and random dreams.  This is true for any external stimuli that might leak into your dream.

Interpreting Your Dreams

What’s important to note is that if you have repetitive, stressful or particularly vivid dreams that feel associated with work, you could be sending yourself an important message. Your challenge is to interpret what that message means for you.

One of the simplest ways of analysing your dreams is to start with what is happening around you. Your waking life will be full of clues about what’s causing the dreams, its generally something that has happened in the immediate past, the last day or week.  Our subconscious doesn’t usually store things for later review. Something in your immediate world has to act as a trigger.

The biggest indicator of what a dream means for you is how you feel in the dream. Although scary things may be happening all around you, if the dominant emotion you are feeling is NOT fear, then the dream’s intent isn’t to frighten, believe me, your subconscious knows what buttons to push to frighten you. If you’d like a little help interpreting dreams, check out Susan P. Cooper and Cheryl Therrien’s, “Dream Catchers“.

Have you ever had a nightmare about work?  Ever come to a realization or a solution based on a dream? What do you do to get rid of scary dreams?

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Problem Solving 101 – How to Solve Problems

English: Mimi & Eunice, “Problems”. Categories...
Mimi & Eunice, “Problems”(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ever notice how easy it is to solve other people’s problems? When presented with someone else’s conundrum it can be easy to assess the possibilities, look at what might work and develop solutions. To the person who owns the challenge, our proposed solutions may seem innovative, creative, and perhaps even ingenious. “How did you come up with that solution so fast and make it look easy!?”

When our personal paradigms, perspectives or biases do not weigh us down, problem-solving is relatively easy. We can get a handle on the problem; look at each possible solution and determine next steps. The challenge, of course, is that we don’t get to ignore our own difficulties and focus exclusively on other people’s problems. The biggest hurdle to resolving our own problems is that there are two kinds of solutions, the ones that work and the ones we like.

If your emotions, ego or attitude are all wrapped up in the outcomes, how do you avoid distracting yourself? How do we harness our own inventiveness and objectivity, while avoiding natural biases to solve problems? Start by taking a deliberate approach.

8 Tips For Problem Solving

  1. Figure out what the problem is. This may seem obvious, but unfortunately, problems can stretch out longer than they need to because we assume what the problems are rather than taking the time to analyze them and make sure.
  2. Once you know what the problem is, refine and define it as clearly as possible. Develop a laundry list of elements that make the problem completely transparent. If there are elements that you cannot define, make a note of them too. Make sure that you list the barriers to resolution.
  3. Consider possible approaches to reach solutions. Do you need to ask for help? Do you need to do some research, interview experts or contemplate the problem more?
  4. Once you have gathered all of your information, put it in one place and organize it so that it makes sense and it is easy to identify individual elements. What do you need to do first? What parts hinge on others in order to be successful?
  5. Determine what represents low hanging fruit or easy fixes. Quick wins are not only easy but are valuable because they boost morale and build momentum.
  6. What will take more time, money and resources to resolve? All solutions should be either easy or matter. What are the mini projects you need to do in order to get your big projects accomplished?
  7. Keep track of what you are doing as you do it. Make sure you are moving in the right direction by monitoring progress. Team and the communication within the team are critical. Getting the right people in place and making sure that communications are effective will go a long way towards avoiding unnecessary roadblocks along the way.
  8. When the process is complete, make sure that the results you have achieved are the ones you wanted. Sometimes we achieve the right outcome but create other problems along the way.

What do you think? How do you resolve challenges?  Ever solve a problem that had someone else in knots? Have you had a problem easily resolved by someone else?

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The Importance of Research in Business

Risk is a part of most business equations, but making assumptions without first doing your research is just bad planning. Several years ago as a consultant, I worked with the Executive Director (ED) of an association on a government relations campaign. He had attended many government meetings over the years but I had gotten him an important meeting an Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM).

Since the association had wanted to meet with the ADM for some time, they had lots of information to share. The ED was eager to communicate as much information as possible. He glanced at his notes again and again but he hardly needed them. He knew his issues inside and out.  The trick would be to make sure that the message was being delivered with all the necessary information following a logical pattern.  The ADM was relatively new to the portfolio and was an unknown to the organization. The Executive Director wanted to make sure that he captured all the nuances of the message and left a good impression. I had suggested starting the meeting with a brief description of the association, followed by an overview of the profession, but the Executive Director was concerned about inadvertently insulting the ADM by addressing things that he could easily have learned prior to the meeting.

The Executive Director was about 45 minutes into the hour-long meeting when the ADM asked a question that revealed he had absolutely no knowledge of the profession, never mind an understanding of the association. It was at this point that the Executive Director decided that he would have to do three things,  1) abandon his presentation 2) start the discussion over again with a description of the profession and 3) not make eye contact with me for the rest of the meeting.

Fortunately, we subsequently built a strong rapport with the ADM, but the story stays with me because it so beautifully illustrates what happens when you make assumptions about your audience in business.

Tips on engaging your audience:

  • Assume nothing about what people know
  • Do your research, learn as much as you can about the person you are meeting with before you meet. Look them up on LinkedIn, search the internet for their bio.
  • Send a briefing note in advance of the meeting if your time is limited.
  • Bring material that you can leave behind in case your audience has questions after you leave.
  • Complex messages require multiple meetings or messages.
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We Are Built For Change

When you work in the health sector, you know that something new is always around the corner.  When you do communications in the health sector, you’d be lucky to get to the corner without something changing. Change is not just inevitable, it happens faster all the time, we do not walk forward, we leap. At times it can feel overwhelming, yet once it’s complete you may wonder what all the fuss was about, but then, we’re built for change. We are designed to shift, bend and flow in new directions. We are never the same person twice. It’s important to understand that our bodies anticipate change even if our minds shy away.

Consider brain plasticity, it’s a fascinating subject.  What it tells us is that even in the face of traumatic physical impact, our brains learn to reroute and work in different ways to accomplish the goals we set out to achieve. When we learn new things, our brains physically change, we forge new neural networks to accommodate our new skills. Conversely, when we don’t think about something for long periods of time, those networks may begin to decline and in some instances may even break.  Our brains are a use it or lose it proposition. Our grey matter can thicken or thin depending on what we do. In fact, our brains can change functionally, chemically and physically. We are literally creatures of transition.

When we shy from change or fight it we are fighting our very nature.  This does not mean that all change is good or good for us, but that our instincts should be to understand why the change is happening as opposed to fighting it simply because it’s happening.  What our body’s reaction to change also tells us is that we should learn to embrace new opportunities as they are presented. We should at least take the time to learn more about the options that are available to us rather than always playing it safe, which is sometimes just another word for stagnant.

I’ve worked with and in many different organizations as they moved through change. Some changes seemed impossible when we started, almost monolithic in scope.  Others were more subtle but still required a shift at a fundamental level. I have managed through professional transformations, new service delivery models, technology changes, policy changes and political changes. Although they all held their unique challenges, what stayed consistent were the reactions of people. There were those who keenly embraced the coming transformation, the majority who moved along at a slower rate of change and those who fought it until the very end. When I see broad scale resistance to change I know that there has been a failure to communicate the need for change effectively.

The single most important feature of change management is communications. By that, I don’t mean leadership telling people what they need to change, but involving them in the process of change.  This means informing them early and keeping them appraised of change all along the way with persistence and consistency.  It involves listening to their input and allowing them to adjust. We are built for change, but we still need to adjust to new tasks.  Imposed change does not allow that process to take place in a healthy or efficient way. If we wake up one morning and can’t use our right arm, our brain isn’t going to suddenly reroute and make it useful again. We will need to take time and consistently practice the use of that right arm until the brain redirects messages and finds new pathways or we will need to learn to rely on our left arm, either way, change isn’t instantaneous. When change happens in our personal or work environments it is no different, we need time to adapt.  Even when we decide to embrace change ourselves, we still need to take the time to adjust to that decision or we will become overwhelmed.

John P Kotter, former Harvard Business School professor, the founder of Kotter International and well-known author on organizational change management, identifies eight steps for successful change management:

Step 1: Establish a Sense of Urgency: Help others see the need for change and they will be convinced of the importance of acting immediately.

Step 2: Create the Guiding Coalition: Assemble a group with enough power to lead the change effort, and encourage the group to work as a team.

Step 3: Develop a Change Vision: Create a vision to help direct the change effort, and develop strategies for achieving that vision.

Step 4: Communicate the Vision for Buy-in: Make sure as many as possible understand and accept the vision and the strategy.

Step 5: Empower Broad-based Action: Remove obstacles to change, change systems or structures that seriously undermine the vision, and encourage risk-taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions.

Step 6: Generate Short-term Wins: Plan for achievements that can easily be made visible, follow-through with those achievements and recognize and reward employees who were involved.

Step 7: Never Let Up: Use increased credibility to change systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit the vision, also hire, promote, and develop employees who can implement the vision, and finally reinvigorate the process with new projects, themes, and change agents

Step 8: Incorporate Changes into the Culture: Articulate the connections between the new behaviours and organizational success, and develop the means to ensure leadership development and succession.

 What do you do to manage change in your life? Do you race towards change? Do you need time to accommodate change?

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The beauty of plain

Plain language isn’t about how smart your reader is. It’s about how smart you are. It’s about how important your message is. If it matters, it should be plain.

Plain language writing is not what you think. It is not for the slow. It is not for those who cannot read. It is not a tool for others. Well, it is all of those things and more. Plain language helps you to share the complex. It puts your audience first and makes sure you reach the busy. Think about that for a moment. Who has time to untangle complex language so that they can get to the meaning? How often do we simply skim ideas because they will take too much time to understand?

“Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge. Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words when short are best of all.” Winston Churchill

Did you know that the general public has low literacy levels? The exceptions are Japan and Finland. If most of your readers are in North America, this means you need to keep things plain. Plain does not mean creative stays home and boring takes flight. You’re probably using plain language techniques now. It’s about using words that are better known, more familiar and more clearly understood. Take a look below. To make language plain you would replace the words on the left with the words on the right.

 

  1. Accomplish        =        Do
  2. Ascertain            =        Find out
  3. Disseminate       =        Distribute
  4. Endeavor            =        Try
  5. Optimum            =       Best
  6. Strategize              =     Plan
  7. With regards to    =     About

 

Plain language is about being approachable. Using a conversational tone instead of formal language. It’s about using logic when you present. That can be a challenge for me at times, but with a little patience, I generally get there. It’s really about using common sense and a little patience.

Plain language is also about the length of sentences and the space around them. White space is your friend. Do not bury words in complex patterns. Give words room to breath and be seen. Plain language is about the fonts you choose. Are they complex? Do you have to look twice to identify letters? It’s about the use of examples, charts and images to illustrate ideas. Images are popular on social media because people can understand them quickly. They make the text come alive. They go long ways towards making ideas clearer. The same goes for bullets and bold type to make ideas pop.

 

“Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in a few words.”

Apocrypha

 

When I work on an annual report, I work with the writer and designer to ensure that readers can easily see the most important ideas. Those ideas are repeated in the text. They become images, graphs, headlines and call-outs. We make sure that they have enough space around them to be seen. The objective is to make sure that if the reader just skims the report t still walk away with all of the right messages.

 

Here are some tips for planning your next document.

  • Use titles & subtitles that are informative and summarize text
  • Cut out non-essential information (cover only 3-5 points)
  • Prioritize information and put the most important at the beginning
  • Use a formal table of contents or introductory paragraph
  • Keep sentences under 35 words
  • Use the active voice where possible

 

It’s also useful to use verbs instead of nouns for your action. Sometimes this is as easy as removing “ion” from words. For example, which of the two sentences below sounds simpler?

 

Could you provide an explanation for suggesting I should make modifications to the way I present information?

Could you explain why I should change the way I share information?

 

Using plain language commitment and perhaps more than anything, it takes practice. It is worth doing. It allows you to move from good to great and the best part is, you’re probably already doing a lot of it.

 

Do you use plain language principles in your work? What kinds of everyday items do you think use plain language? Can you think of things that could benefit from the of plain language?

Embraced by Words (Photo credit: Robbert van der Steeg)

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Leading from Behind, Shepherd or Sheep?

'Shepherd_and_Sheep'_by_Anton_Mauve,_Cincinnati_Art_Museum

The concept of leading from behind used to frustrate me. It struck me as a cop out, as a way to avoid doing what was necessary. Generally, in my mind, it used to be about a would-be leader not performing and everyone else having to step up to fill the gap. It meant the commander lacked vision, so they simply hung back to see where others might take them. Or worst still, in their cowardice, they would just let their team go out ahead and if something bad happened, they could blame others and remain safe –effectively becoming the Pierson Puppeteer of the business world.

Of course my first introduction to the concept came after complaining to someone about a past boss’ inability to lead. They suggested that rather than focus on the boss’ weakness, I should look to how my own strengths could support organizational objectives – how I could fill in the gaps. Although I was somewhat dubious in obliging this request, the result, for a time anyway, was better morale and better productivity for my team and me.

Since then I have changed my perspective – from assuming it meant weak leadership – to recognizing that leading from behind can mean vastly different things, some of which are positive. Nelson Mandela is often quoted when speaking to this leadership style because he popularized the idea in his writings and through the following quote, “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”

Its important to note that he mentions that the leader moves to the front in times of danger and that there is an intended direction.

In organizations focused on innovation and breakthrough technology, the idea of leading from behind is particularly effective. In this sense leading from behind means giving employees the space they need to think and act creatively about desired outcomes. Individuals are encouraged to engage, to argue, to express differences of opinion and to act collaboratively. Tightly regimented activities or overbearing processes will not stimulate the discovery of new and more efficient ways of doing things.  It’s hard to foster originality when autonomy is missing in action. Using a more traditional leadership style, creating a vision and then inspiring others to implement it, may simply bring the organization down to one person’s limited vision.

Implicit in a leading from behind approach to leadership is also that employees feel safe. Leading from behind means that when actions are taken they are treated as exploratory rather than a verification or test of being correct.  To paraphrase Harvard professor Linda Hill, “In environments where leading comes from behind, you have experiments, not pilots.”

Experiments allow you to learn and explore.  Even when they fail, you learn. From an employee engagement perspective, leading from behind means creating environments that employees want to be in. Spaces that are collegial and that support independent thought, creativity, and the exchange of ideas effectively become strong communities. These are always appealing to employees. We all like to be paid well, but we will stay in environments that are comfortable and inspire our creativity.  They are also essential to productivity.

In many respects leading from behind is really about tapping the strengths of the collective.

This takes me back to where I started; leading from behind should not be about supporting a weak boss. It can be about being open, inspiring, supportive and having a strong enough ego to allow employees to show their strength. It is about embracing an environment of innovation.

What’s your your preferred leadership style? Do you believe in leading from behind?  Have you ever worked in an environment where the leadership led from behind? Would you like to be in an environment where the leader works from behind?

Interesting Articles for Those Who Want to Know More:

Image by Anton Mauve [Public domain or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

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