Tag Archives: communications

Government Relations, public relations

Etiquette – Things You Learned in Kindergarten

Leave a comment

Over the years, I have  helped many clients prepare for their first meeting with a legislator. I have seen presidents of national and multinational corporations, men with billion dollar budgets and thousands of employees break out in a sweat at the thought of presenting their organization’s perspective to a Minister.  I have also had clients whose complete lack of regard for the time and opportunity afforded to them by a meeting with a Minister come close to derailing their corporate objectives before they had even presented them.

In one particularly memorable case, my client who had been out at meetings with members of parliament (MPs) all morning called a minister’s office and asked the assistant to organize a lunch in time for their arrival since they were falling behind schedule. Given that the assistant in question worked for the Minister of Finance it’s fair to say that she had other things too attend to that morning, not the least of which were all of the other visitors waiting to meet the minister. She didn’t call a caterer, she called me.

When people told me government relations was exciting, I was skeptical. I had worked in politics for years and met plenty of lobbyists. While the issues were interesting and the policy solutions often ingenious, the hours were long and moving regulations or legislation is often tedious. Unless it was an election night, exciting is not how I would have described most political action. However, when my day was unexpectedly interrupted by a an outraged assistant previously known for her patience under fire, my heart rate might have picked up. There is definitely a certain amount of drama associated with trying to soothe an angry assistant, while madly pantomiming to your own assistant to call the florist and send a massive bouquet of flowers BEFORE your oblivious client gets there.

Although the client in question headed up a multi-national who could make the nation’s GDP drop when they had a strike, they were still people dealing with people. The cost of the flowers and my time while I sorted out their faux pas was negligible, but that little moment cost them a good deal of credibility. For a large corporation if you perform enough small blunders the cost to your reputation starts to take a tremendous financial toll. Whether you’re annoying a minister’s assistant or frustrating a customer, bad news spreads quickly. Social media means it spreads at the speed of a key stroke.The customer/stakeholder/follower is not always right, but they always deserve to be treated with respect.

Some Simple Tips To Keep In Mind

  • Consider how you might feel if positions were reversed.
  • Treat people the way you want your favorite human treated.
  • Respect the time of the people you are meeting with, including the time of their staff.
  • If you are going to be late, give them a heads up.
  • If you are going to be early, try to avoid their office unless you have no choice and then stay out of their way.
  • Most importantly, play nice.
Enhanced by Zemanta
Share
Communications, Internal Communications

E-MAIL Versus Communications

Leave a comment

It lurks, waiting for the unsuspecting communicator.  Its disguise, the quick and easy transition of words or documents from one place to another. Yet it has an insidious power that can transform grown men into small-minded bullies or professional women into petty tyrants. Yes, I’m talking about e-mail.  If we’re totally honest with ourselves, we would see email for what it really is, a supervillain.  I’ve seen the horror it can do.

I’ve run down a hallway shouting to colleagues to, “STOP SENDING E-MAILS” when a chain of emails with some of our stakeholders across the country escalated into war. It’s not that I don’t enjoy a good joke and really, email fights are always funny in retrospect. It is just that when you make your living building relationships, you don’t have much humour about watching years of cultivation, goodwill and hard work go up in flames because of a few poorly worded emails. It’s not just your external stakeholders who can be affected by it either. Internal emails are probably among the most prolific contributors to poor morale.

A poorly worded or too widely sent email can spiral a team into chaos. I’ve coached managers on what to say to chronic email abusers and I’ve had to soothe frustrated team members when someone showed disrespect to them in an email. There is also the abusive reply all function. Imagine the chain of events that unfolds when thousands of people receive a shrill email questioning management on a decision that impacted the whole organization. I still wake up screaming.

Or there is the unjustified anger that follows when someone sends an email with directions and subsequently does not get the behaviour they want. If I hear one more time, “But I sent them an email!” I may get dangerous. For the record:

  • Sending does not mean people received it.
  • Receiving it doesn’t mean they read it.
  • Reading it doesn’t mean they understood it.

There are protocols associated with email use that is a Google search away, so I won’t belabour the point here, but keep these lessons in mind.

Lessons Learned

  • Read it out loud, if it sounds obnoxious, it is. Don’t send it.
  • A smiley face after being obnoxious doesn’t make the email less obnoxious.
  • How many people really need to see your message? Do the math and don’t add anyone else.
  • If you’re getting angry, stop emailing, pick up the phone or walk down the hall.
  • If it’s urgent, important or a risk issue, don’t email, pick up the phone or walk down the hall.
  • E-mail is a temporary short-cut for sharing information, not a substitute for good communications or good relationship management.

Have any e-mail nightmares to share? Do you LOVE email or are you a careful user?

Enhanced by Zemanta
Share
Communications, public relations

Random Acts Of Branding

Leave a comment

 Random Acts of Branding

What happens if everyone in an organization decides to engage in branding activities without first engaging in an internal conversation? This question prompted an extended conversation with my friend Janet MacLeod, who like me, is a communications professional. This post is the consequence of that discussion and so our joint offering.

So what happens when an organization starts to perform random acts of branding? A commercial in one area, a public relations program somewhere else.  Essentially, a variety of initiatives delivered over time that are unrelated but intended to improve profile or set a tone for services? Even if the initiatives aren’t identical, they would at least get attention right? Raise the profile of the organization and if luck is with the organization, it might even result in a viral moment.  It’s possible that many of those individuals will have a brilliant idea…right.  Who are we kidding? First of all, there aren’t that many geniuses and second, if you have different people doing their own “thing” with a brand, then that probably means that they have no communications experience.  Even a mediocre communicator understands the benefit of being consistent.  A good communicator would say that inconsistencies in branding eventually result in diminishing the brand and yet so many organizations allow their brand to be shuttled about with little regard. Despite what you might think, it isn’t just the little organizations who do this either. Unless you are an organization that sells products like soda or toilet paper, items that live and die based on brand, you may not fully understand the strength and impact of brand.

Too often the description of a corporate brand can sound like little more than jargon to employees. And really, it’s often treated as a descriptive phrase that illustrates what corporate leaders would like employees, clients or customers to think and feel about a company. The thing is, brand is a pretty loaded word. It represents a concept that seems to mean a multitude of things to people and can also mean next to nothing. Brand is color, it’s a logo, it’s a font, it’s how you are perceived, how you deliver service and how your products perform.  It’s the feeling the public gets when your name is mentioned. It’s the choices that people make to use or not use your offering.

Brand is the unique features that distinguish one organization from another – it may be the words used, the procedures you follow and most likely it is a combination of all these things.  Brand becomes the things people see, hear, feel, and touch so that a perception or idea develops about what can (and should) be expected of the organization. The authentic feelings and emotions that are triggered by brand – whether factual or not – become the reality. In effect, the brand is the organization.

Since internal activities drive the brand exhibited and understood outwardly, it is concerning (to say the least) when those activities lack cohesion. Unfortunately, even with the best intentions, companies sometimes “run with scissors” and become susceptible to brand breakdown. Change is often the trigger. Whether it comes as a result of shifts in culture, technology, finances, staff turn- over or simply poor strategy, changes that are poorly executed or poorly communicated, can lead to dysfunction and can put a huge dent in what had been a perfectly fine brand.

A living example is BlackBerry. It used to be RIM or Research in Motion. It was Canada’s technology darling. People loved it, trusted it, and expected good things from it. Then it changed. It went into the consumer marketplace (and grew itself accordingly). But soon it went from being the industry leader, to being perceived as the industry follower. In truth, it was still making reliable, secure devices, but because it didn’t do what the iPhone did, it was perceived as being a poorer product. BlackBerry lost momentum. Investors stopped coming, people stopped buying the product. Layoffs ensued.

So although the quality of the actual product had not altered the perception of the product had to the point that the brand was seen as waning.  The changes that impacted BlackBerry happened in the market, yet organizations often inflict negative shifts in perception on themselves by ignoring or poorly attending to their brand. Brand is a powerful device. It needs care and attention and there should be nothing random about it.

What do you think about branding?  Do you have favorite products you buy because of their brand?  Do you have a favorite beer, pop or paper towel? Do you know what your own brand is? 

Share
Communications, public relations

Ask for the Order

49 Comments

Just Ask - Commstorm

Guest Post by Diana Marinova

Ask for the order or what lessons about communication the lady in the supermarket taught me. Honoring Debra’s one year anniversary of blogging, I decided to share a little story from few months ago. It’s a very ordinary every day story but put in the right context and perspective, we can learn a lot about communication from it.

The story

One cloudy morning, I went to the supermarket because I ran out of coffee. Maybe it’s good to know (in advance) that I am not a morning person and I definitely hate going to the supermarket. So, I entered the supermarket. I looked around (I was on a vacation so I didn’t quite know that particular supermarket). I found the coffee, took my brand and went to the cash register.

The lady looked at me, saw the coffee, ran it through the bar code reader and said to me: “We have a new brand of biscuits in the store. I tried them this morning and they are delicious! And at a promotional rate, too! Would you like to try them?”

I stood there for a moment thinking – well, yeah, who doesn’t like a nice chocolate treat with their coffee – so I nodded affirmatively. She ran the biscuits through the bar code reader, too. Then she just took out from a little fridge beside her a small cartoon of milk and said: “And you gotta try both the coffee and the biscuits with this milk! It’s not at a discounted rate but it sure will make your day if you have your morning coffee and biscuits with it!” – and she winked at me – LOL

I laughed and I felt good – it’s not every day that someone winks at you the old fashion way, eh? Besides, she did make me smile although I hadn’t had my coffee yet… So I ended up buying both the milk and the biscuits along with the coffee that I went for in the first place… and an ice-cream – because I was feeling good 😉

Ask for the order, always: The customer may or may not buy something. But if you ask them to, politely and with a hint of humor, they are more likely to!

Don’t be shy. Don’t be rude. Don’t be arrogant. Don’t be pushy. Be yourself and ask for   the order genuinely – as if you are talking to a friend and making a personal recommendation regardless what the answer might be.

Share the information you have: Being a non-morning hating-the-supermarket customer, no way could I have noticed there are cookies at a discounted rate; or a small carton of milk beside the cashier. And I definitely had no way of knowing the brand of biscuits is new in that particular store. So, unless the lady at the cash register told me all that, there was no way for me to make a decision to purchase anything beside the coffee I went there for.

Don’t assume the customer knows something. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t want something. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t care. Don’t assume the customer doesn’t want to be bothered. Well, basically – don’t assume anything. Assumptions are your enemy when it comes to communication (and sales). Just share the information you have and deem important. I will cite here Debra – “information shared is power squared” 😉

Connect on a personal level: As hard as it may sound, it really isn’t. In my story – the lady in the supermarket winked at me! It was unexpected; it was funny; it was personal – it definitely helped me like her and purchase all she had to offer.

Connecting on a personal level doesn’t mean you have to know the person you are dealing with. It means being human; being yourself; being honest and forthcoming; being creative; being funny sometimes. Connecting on a personal level has a lot to do with being genuinely interested in what’s going around you. More importantly, it means helping the other party, even if they don’t know they need help – and just because you can!

Thank you, Debra, for hosting my story on your blog! And to all of you, dear readers – tell us in the comments –

What else did you learn about communications from my story?

Diana Marinova is a freelance marketing consultant and writes a wonderful bog providing smart and practical advice for freelancers and anyone in the business world who has clients or is a client.

Cafe con galleta (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Share
Communications

Everyone Loves A Good Story

Leave a comment

Everyone Loves A Good Story

When I first thought about starting a blog I had some pretty grand ideas.  I thought I’d pontificate on government relations.  Dazzle readers with my vast experience in communications and of course, my dynamic background in relations…hmmm; I got pretty bored, real fast too.

Clearly more thought was required…or less. What did I enjoy? What made me giggle, what fascinated me that was also worth sharing?  An idea came to me because of a dinner party I had. After dinner I was sitting with my friends and exchanging stories about our experiences with constituents and clients. We laughed and groaned depending on the story and generally had a wonderful time.

I love a good story. They come in all shapes and sizes, some are short little gems others are long and winding tales of intrigue. Often they are funny, but they can also make you cry.  That’s what makes communications interesting, the stories. Communications in the real world  isn’t about the smooth transfer of knowledge from point “A” to point “B”. No, what makes communications interesting is all the messy ways that it can go disastrously wrong or unimaginably right. What communications reveal more than anything is our core perspectives as human beings.  What we see, what we believe, what we know, what we do and what we intend are all rolled together. Good communications is about psychology and sociology as well as,understanding language and images. Communications, is as much science as it is art and anyone silly/brave enough to call themselves a communications professional, clearly has a sense of humour. I know I do – I laugh at myself and the world around me all the time.

As my one year anniversary as a blogger approaches (November), I’d like to celebrate by hearing from you. I’d like to invite you to share your stories in guest posts. The stories should be about communications. It doesn’t matter if things went just right or horribly wrong. All that matters is that the story struck you as one worth telling. Like the time I showed up for a birthday party late…by about a week, didn’t quite read the invitation. I look forward to hearing your stories and as always, your comments!

I will collect stories over the coming month and share them in December.

Share
Communications, public relations

8 Tips On What To Do In A Communications Crisis And 9 Tips On What Not To Do

Leave a comment
Last updated August 2017

17 tips for managing crisis communications

Every year I watch in amazement as a few organizations and a few celebrities stumble into a communications crisis in the media.  My amazement isn’t over the incidents that triggered the crisis’, though many of them would certainly give you pause, but rather over the way the crisis’ is managed.

The reaction from the train company, Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Canada Co. (MMA) after their runaway train caused a massive explosion that devastated the town of Lac-Megantic in 2013 was shocking in its ineptitude. As everyone from the Canadian Prime Minister to Quebec’s Premier rushed to the scene to express their condolences, the CEO from MMA was notably absent. Almost off the bat, the company started to point fingers of blame, particularly at the local fire department and although they softened their tone in subsequent communications, perceptions were set.  They followed through by being slow in providing financial support and to cap their self-destructive public relations campaign, the CEO suggested that he too was a victim of the disaster.

Right around the same time MMA was self-destructing, Paula Deen, a popular television chef, was accused of racism. She did an amazing job of illustrating why saying you’re sorry is easier and smarter than saying, “I am what I am.”

In a similar vein,  Anthony Weiner demonstrated how not to engage the press. At the risk of stating the obvious, if you’re in politics and your name is Weiner, don’t tweet pictures of your wiener. It’s like gold to the late night hosts and catnip to the press. If you do share your pictures of your wiener and you are later asked to identify it, be prepared to identify it or don’t, but be prepared to be asked.

These are just three stories, but the airlines, politicians and celebrities supply us with more on a regular basis. Given the number of stories that play out every year, it might be useful to share what to do, as well as, what not to do in a communications crisis. True crises have several elements in common, any one of which, if handled poorly, can disrupt or even destroy your best attempts at managing the situation effectively, not to mention the lasting damage that can be done to your reputation.

What to do

  1. Be Honest: If you are at fault, there needs to be an outward acknowledgement of the error. Excuses and self-serving messages will only further undermine public confidence.
  2. Be Coordinated: You need to be well organized during a crisis.  This means planning and identifying whom you want on your crisis team in advance. The bigger the crisis, the more senior the spokesperson.
  3. Provide Explanation: Explain what happened and why it happened, even if what happened is embarrassing. If you’re not sure, share what you can.
  4. Give Support: Everything said should be spoken from the perspective of those injured.  Language should be plain and easily understood.
  5. Be Apologetic: Don’t stop being apologetic for what happened.  This is the last place ego needs to show up. If you are not personally involved in the incident, act as though you are or that someone you know has been affected. This is not the time to introduce “but” to your language.
  6. Consult: Engage experts, victims and relevant stakeholders to help you resolve the problem.  Make sure there is no possibility of bias in the choices you have made. Make sure that victims are given a voice.
  7. Promise: Promise not to have the same or similar incidents happen in the future. Make sure that the public understands that you have set a zero tolerance policy internally.
  8. Restitution:  This is probably the most difficult to commit to because of economic restraints, nevertheless the cost of not putting victim’s needs first and foremost will be by far more costly.

What not to do

  1. Show condescension or arrogance.
  2. Demonstrate a lack of concern or consideration.
  3. Ignore or minimize the impact on victims or their needs.
  4. Blame others or not take responsibility.
  5. Use inconsiderate or thoughtless language.
  6. Be inconsistent.
  7. Be unprepared.
  8. Miss opportunities to communicate with victims or other stakeholders.
  9. Create victim confusion.

Have you ever had to manage through a crisis?  Do you think you would be good in one?

Share
Communications, public relations

Personal Paradigms, The Good, The Bad & The Impact

44 Comments
Paradigms, Good, Bad
Imagine operating with no point of reference.

They say that goldfish have a memory that’s about 10 seconds long, no doubt a gross exaggeration but for argument’s sake, let’s say that’s true. With a memory that short, they would be forever rediscovering the world around them. They would have no operating principle to help them navigate. Without personal paradigms we’d be very much like that goldfish.  Though his bowl of water is small he is forever shouting, “Hey, there’s a castle! Hey, there’s a castle!”

How Personal Paradigms Serve Us: Paradigms help us to interpret, define and engage in the world around us. Without our paradigms we would constantly be struggling to determine and define what we see, what we hear and what we should do about it. Our paradigms help us to move through our lives seamlessly.

When I was in college, I made a friend who often shared stories about her family and their activities. She spoke of the antiques her mother collected and the beautiful old apartment they lived in. She shared stories of their travels and generally painted an amazing picture of her life.  As I got to know her better it became clear her stories didn’t quite reflect reality. There were no antiques, no beautiful apartment and certainly no travels.

Young or old?
Young or old?

Flash forward a few years and I’m on Parliament Hill and the office across the hall has brought in a summer student. One day the student tells us about her adventures. She has met Sting, spent a few weeks on the streets for a research project, her grandmother has left all her money to her cats and she has written for a popular soap opera. As you can imagine, because of my history, my paradigm would not allow me to believe the stories she told unless I had evidence. It was simple, when people start telling fantastical stories about their lives you need to look more carefully.

Later, I quietly mentioned to my colleague that I had some suspicions about the truth of the stories shared. Well my colleague’s paradigm was different from mine, so she got more than a little annoyed at my suspicions and few uncomfortable days followed. After a short period, the summer student… disappeared from the office across the way. It eventually came out that she had made up all of her stories, including her skills. People were shocked and angry, but not me. My paradigm had stepped in and said, this is bull. Once that happened, all I could see were flaws and inconsistencies. Our paradigms save us a lot of grief and can generally help us to interpret the world.

How Personal Paradigms Make Us Blind to the World: So your thinking, so what? You’ve heard all this stuff before. But what if despite knowing this, the most experienced and in some cases the most powerful people in our respective worlds persisted in behaving as if their paradigm was the only paradigm?

Is the black diamond the top or bottom of the square?
Is the black diamond the top or bottom of the square?

People get used to power and after a while they can start to think that no matter what they do or say, they are somehow removed from consequences. They can build a personal paradigm around themselves that is so airtight that they become incapable of seeing pitfalls. They lose the ability to judge good from bad. They can divorce themselves from seeing the errors in  their own behavior.

Over the last several weeks I have watched a series of stories emerge in the news that simply begged the question, what were they thinking? Did Canadian Senator Mike Duffy really think it’d would be OK to claim $90,000 in illegitimate expenses?  Did he and the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Nigel S. Wright, get so used to managing big sums that it simply seemed… irrelevant?

Why didn’t Paula Deen just apologize and disappear for a while? Had she gotten so used to popularity that being accused of using racists language seemed like the kinda thing that would be a headline grabber one day but just go away the next? Did Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, stay silent after being accused of getting caught on video doing drugs with known dealers because he thought the public would just get bored with the story?

When our paradigms blind us, they don’t just make us blind to opportunity, they make us blind to threats, blind to ethical considerations, blind to the harm we are doing.

Whatever Your Perspective, Understand That You Have One: Although you may have heard it countless times, don’t forget that your truth is not necessarily THE  truth.  Your version of reality may not even be based in reality. If  this was an easy thing to remember, then the examples above would be a lot harder to find.

Has your paradigm ever helped or hindered you? Have you ever seen someone else struggle because they just couldn’t see the “truth” of a situation?

Related articles:
Share
Communications, Management, public relations, Uncategorized

You Online, The Forever Footprint

Leave a comment

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu1C-oBdsMM]

When I wrote, “That Awkward Personal Branding”, I referenced the bright side of an online persona.  The way it can work to your advantage if you are honest and polite. Being present online can get you a new job, an informal or formal education, a new profession; it can introduce you to interesting and bright people.  What was not explored was that sometimes there is a downside to being online or at least that some caution is required. I had a different post lined up for this week, but then I had some interesting conversations and when I ran across the video above, I decided to write this post instead. The TED video provides some brilliant insight on the reality of our online lives and I thought I should share it and some of my own perceptions.

I grew up in a large and extended West Indian family and it always struck me as uncanny how my aunts in Montreal could know what my cousins in Barbados were doing at any given time and vice versa. The family grapevine was fast, effective and efficient.  You couldn’t blink without it being recorded, shared and discussed. It was therefore always a bit of a challenge to me to try to operate under the radar. Doing something, anything, and keeping it a secret was an accomplishment. It’s not that I was doing anything nefarious, questionable or even interesting.  It’s simply that when it seems as if every waking moment of your life is constantly being transmitted through the world’s most well-organized grapevine, you learn to appreciate privacy.

Given that background, you can imagine that when Facebook first emerged, it gave me nothing less than the creeps.  It felt very much like a self-inflicted Big Brother scenario. Why would anyone want everyone  knowing their activities? I watched with some amazement as people I knew and respected posted pictures and particulars about things that would have been better kept discreet or at least offline.  In a professional capacity, I have quietly scooped up and destroyed compromising photos of colleagues that would have devastated even the best careers. I have cringed when friends have posted highly political commentary and have blasted my son on more than one occasion for inappropriate posts from him and his friends.

So having said that, why would I ever encourage anyone to be online or promote themselves online?  The answer is that social media is a reality.  It’s not going to fade away and become a distant memory.  For good or bad, it’s part of our culture and imbedded in the way we communicate, so use it. Engage but be strategic about it.  If you were remembered for one thing, would you want that comment you recently made on Facebook or LinkedIn to be it? Would you be all right sharing your online comments with your boss, your mother or religious leader?  If the answer is no, then you may want to rethink what you post. Your digital trail is forever, so make each forever footprint with care.

Generational differences mean that my children and even those ten or fifteen years younger than me are comfortable posting things I wouldn’t dream of sharing.  When you grow up in the shadow of Facebook and the internet, your perception of what is private is very narrow, but it shouldn’t be taken for granted. Provocative language, heavily loaded double entendres and sexually suggestive witticisms are brilliant repartee at the dinner party table, but not necessarily, what you want to put out there for potential employers or clients. Most of the cues that are present in real life exchanges are missing online.  The sarcastic tone, the raised eyebrow or the knowing smirk that put a different meaning on words are all absent in online exchanges. You never assume in communications.  You always act with the expectation that your audience will need specificity, transparency and information.  If you know that the majority of messages are delivered through non-verbal cues, then you understand that when you engage online you are always communicating at a disadvantage.  In this setting clarity becomes king.

A very smart businessperson recently asked me, “Would you rather be on record online as a new Plato, Cicero or Voltaire or a Dr. Ruth or Pamela Anderson?”

While I don’t expect to reach the intellectual heights of the first three, reason, if not experience, would have me avoid the pitfalls of the last two. Dr. Ruth for the focus of her conversation and Pamela for her illustration of the same. I have other ideas to explore. To that end, I would encourage caution when managing your online persona. Engage and be present, post and share your ideas.  Take advantage of the benefits that online life has to offer, and there are many, but always ask yourself, would I be comfortable with everyone in my life seeing what I wrote and is this how I want to be remembered?

Related articles
Share
Internal Communications, Management, public relations

Rather Have a Conversation or a Meeting?

47 Comments

Ever had a project introduced in a meeting and thought, “What are these guys smoking? That will never work.” Did you stay silent and subsequently watch the same project move forward with disastrous results? Did you ever have a great idea but thought no one would listen so stayed quiet?  Did you later learn that your idea was tried somewhere else to great success? What about attending a meeting where nothing useful happens or following a process where nothing of value is accomplished? These kinds of scenarios are played out all the time in organizations and sadly, we’ve come to take them for granted. We often accept them as part of the cost of doing business, but what if we changed the dynamic, what if we stopped having meetings and started having real conversations?  It’s not as difficult as it sounds and it doesn’t require special training. Getting into that right groove is a question of trial and error and will reflect the will and makeup of the group but there are some basic interpersonal communication skills that can help.

  • Know Your Audience: As a speaker take the time to consider the audience, their state of mind and experience. Have you prepared them for the presentation? Ask yourself if what you are presenting is truly engaging. Would it capture your attention? Look at their body language, are you reaching them? If it’s two in the afternoon, do they need to stand and stretch for a minute?
  •  Actively Listen: As an audience member you have a role to play and sitting passively isn’t it. Think about the last really fantastic conversation you had. An exchange of ideas where you felt heard and where you could really connect with what was being said. What did it feel like? What was happening was that you were actively listening.  You were hearing what the person meant without contemplating blame, accusation or what you were going to say next. You listened without prejudice and the same was being done for you.  Try it the next time you’re in a meeting. Do not distract yourself with e-mail or other things that will take away from your ability to listen. Do not multitask.
  •  Say It If You Mean It: Speak with honesty and from your personal perspective. Speak because you have something of value to contribute. Do not speak defensively or to blame, speak about how something makes you feel. In business settings, we are often told to suspend emotion and speak “professionally”. While screaming fits and temper tantrums are not helpful, you can only have an emotionless workplace if it’s devoid of humans.
  •  Don’t let dogma distract you: We all have ideas or beliefs we hold to be true, things we are “certain” of. Those ideas shape and inform how we see, hear and understand people and ideas. These paradigms help us to navigate the world around us so they are very important, but they can also act like blinders, blocking our ability to see facts.  It’s important to step back periodically and try to see the world through different eyes.  This doesn’t mean live in perpetual self-doubt, but stay open to new concepts. The same principle holds true when talking to colleagues. Suspend your beliefs, listen with an open mind to what they are saying, you might be surprised by what you learn. Notably, you may gain a better understanding of yourself and why you have the beliefs you do.
  •  Accept Conflict: If you work with people who care about what they do then inevitably there will be moments of conflict. This does not have to be a bad thing. In fact, the absence of dissenting voices can be disastrous for an organization. It could mean that you’re all stuck in the same paradigm.  This means you all see the same way and are also all blind to the same things. Anticipate that you will not always have the same perceptions as those around you and embrace the differences.  Take the time to listen to alternative ideas. Give yourself a chance to learn something new or see something old in a new way.
  •  Slow Down and Smell the Coffee: Sometimes after someone delivers a presentation or proposes an idea we ask, any questions? Generally, we give listeners an entire ten seconds to form their thoughts. Imagine, talking to a group for anywhere from ten to thirty minutes about an idea or project and then giving them ten seconds to digest, integrate and develop questions. Is it any wonder so many meetings and teleconference calls are packed with awkward silence? The real question is, is that silence really awkward? Consider slowing the conversation and giving people the opportunity to ask and engage during presentations.  Consider having a conversation rather than a presentation. Pause and ask people what they think. Ask specific people to feedback what they heard. Let people get back to you later. Allow ideas to percolate.

What was the last great conversation you had at home or at work?  What made it great for you?

Suggested Readings

Updated in July 2017

Share
Communications, Internal Communications, Management

Silence is Deadly

Leave a comment
Challenger Explosion: Image from NASA,/Wikipedia Commons
Challenger Explosion: Image from NASA/Wikipedia Commons

In 1986 the Challenger Space Shuttle lifted off the ground with millions of onlookers from the world over watching in awe. When it exploded 73 seconds later, those same viewers stared in shocked disbelief. Those who witnessed this horrifying incident can still recall where they were as they watched  it unfold.

What followed were 32 months of investigation and millions of questions. Why, how, when did things start to go wrong and what had caused the explosion were prevalent among them. Perhaps even more amazing were the answers that followed. Every engineer on the project had felt the flight should not happen.  They all had misgivings, hesitations, reasons why they thought it should be rescheduled, yet it was scheduled anyway. When asked why they had remained silent, they said, they felt pressured not to speak up. So they coached their concern in the language of hints and abstractions.  They wrote messages that were lengthy, used convoluted language that so distilled the essence of what needed to be said plainly that the style of writing effectively obscured the message.

Their management, under tremendous pressure to produce results or lose funding was reluctant to acknowledge failure, so reluctant that they eventually evolved and encouraged an atmosphere of false optimism. This structure discouraged anyone who expressed hesitation or doubt about the mission’s success from speaking up. They built a structure of silence and it ended up costing lives.

Over the years numerous people have cited the explosion of the Challenger as a sign post to warn us against the danger of silencing employees.  Plain language specialists use it to demonstrate how organizations can not only lose money but lives by not speaking in simple terms and short sentences. Organizational facilitators use it to illustrate the costs of not having a culture that supports open dialogue.  Any organization, collective or group that is focused on outcomes needs to consider the lesson. Ineffective communications is not just inconvenient, slow or frustrating; it can be disastrous.

The stories associated with the cost of miscommunication are almost countless.  The thing is, we don’t need to add to their ranks. Miscommunications isn’t inevitable, unavoidable or inescapable, it’s a choice. We can choose to communicate effectively by making an effort to understand and pursue clarity in our exchanges. We can take the time to ensure that messages are delivered accurately or we can pretend that we don’t have time to communicate and then spend much more time later correcting our miscommunication.  That is, we can spend more time later if we are lucky.

In our personal relationships, we can address miscommunications by taking the time to know what inspires the people around us and then listening with care.  By understanding what motivates a person we create a window into understanding why they say and do the things they do. By eliminating distractions and focusing on what they are saying, we are more likely to have meaningful exchanges. Coincidentally, the same is true of our work relationships.

Share