Avoiding the ‘blah, blah, blah’

Given that February is the shortest month of the year, there is a gorgeous symmetry between this fact and the focus for my conversations this month; namely how to say less; but have more impact.

The reality of business today is simply this - all too often I hear messages, answers, contributions and pitches that go on... and on... and on. There’s confusion and complication in answers and we’ve all stopped listening a long time ago; but that doesn’t mean that others have stopped talking - unfortunately.

Avoiding what I call the ‘blah, blah, blah’ in our communication has been the focus of conversations this month with managers who are at, what I call, a ‘pivot point’ in their leadership growth. By that I mean that they are making the switch from focusing on developing their technical skills to focusing on developing their skills of influence and compelling communication.

Not a bad shift to make because interestingly LinkedIn Learning published some research in January 2019 which reinforced the top two soft skills needed for professionals to succeed at work - creativity and persuasion. That’s what sits at the heart of avoiding the ‘blah, blah, blah’ as I call it and being a crisp, concise and compelling communicator.

So the question is: where to start?

The first and most important concept to embrace is the narrative structure. This is the over arching ‘chapter headings’ of our message or story. All great authors write this first, and then get into the detail. Narrative structures are simple, logical and divided into 3 parts. Much like any story with a ‘beginning, middle and end’, this is what we need to decide and be clear on before we get into the detail of the message. Narrative structures set us free. If we get this right first, filling in the rest is then so much easier, crystal clear for our audience and encourages more precise, concise messages.

The other beautiful thing about narrative structures is the sheer number that we can create to support our story. I offer only three:

Situation, Complication, Resolution
What It Is, What It Does, Why It Matters
What We Want, What We Don’t Want, So Where To Go From Here

…and yet there are simply too many to list here. An easy, conversational language style is my approach and always remember that we should embrace narrative structures and start here first if we are to avoid the ‘blah, blah, blah’.

Making Change Stick

This time of year is one for reflection and planning. Often by now, we’ve already forgotten our successes from the past 12 months, and when it comes to making personal goals for 2019, all of our new year resolutions (at the time of writing, January 14th) are usually thrown out of the window. We then berate the stupidity of having them, dust ourselves down and carry on. In the world of business, if we are to deliver on expectations for 2019 then we need to drive change, and so we are faced with the huge challenge of how to make change stick.

So why is it so hard?

When driving results through others, all change is about managing the most difficult, complicated and unpredictable raw material there is - human emotion. Our default reaction to change is ‘what will I lose?’ and emotionally - not rationally - we need to help our people work through the fear of loss that any change we’re looking to make is perceived to bring.So, as we look to what we want to achieve this year, my energies with clients this month have focused on how we engage, communicate and connect with our teams to make change work. These include:

1. As Simon Sinek said ’Start With Why’. Make clear the rationale for change because even if we don’t agree with the change itself, we can believe and ‘buy’ the reason for making it. 
2. Be specific about what is expected. What should our people now know, say and do as a result of this change? 
3. Identify measurables that demonstrate progress. Change doesn’t happen overnight and our team need to know that we’re making meaningful progress. 
4. Keep talking about behaviour. Change in results only come from changes in behaviour and we can never over explain what needs to be different. 
5. Make time for people. By far the most valuable use of our time is where we stop being a keyboard warrior and talk to others. Easy to say; harder to do. We must make and defend time to do it regularly. 
6. Listen and coach rather than tell and talk. 
7. Celebrate early wins. 
8. Heighten curiosity around failure. All too easily we move to fixing problems rather than getting to root cause. 
9. Stay optimistic and work out the resources that help us to remain authentically and genuinely so. 
10. Steal with pride. Driving change isn’t new and all leaders need to do it constantly. So how often are we connecting with others to learn best practices, avoid oft-repeated mistakes and steal some great ideas. 

Communicating The Message Around The Numbers

As the year draws to a close, much of my time this month has been absorbed with helping clients to create and communicate the right message around the numbers which reflect business performance in 2018. This past month I have been working with leadership teams creating the message that represents an overview of their ‘wins’ and ‘learns’ for 2018, and all too often there is an incomplete, sometimes underwhelming, sometimes inaccurate, sometimes unclear tale of woe being told.

Now - just to be explicit - I’m not talking about making it up. Many businesses I work with have an eye watering amount of data at their disposal from which to tell some great stories – but all too easily this gets lost.

There is an art and a skill to making ’the number’ have meaning and the intent is never to mislead or confuse. Our numbers are our numbers. However, it’s the message around the numbers that we need to get right if we want to reflect the past year accurately and kick off 2019 in a way that engages, enthuses and delights our people.

And it’s not easy.

As leaders, our role is to be phenomenal communicators, so here are my top 10 tips for communicating the message around the number with impact:

1. Be clear on the goal for the message: do I want a decision, an action or a commitment as a result of sharing these numbers? 
2. Beware of information overload – detail can be shared in pre/post meeting reading. 
3. Manage key stakeholders in advance and after the meeting so that there are no ’nasty surprises’ in a group setting. 
4. Always craft concise, clean decks – if we use visuals they need to be easy to read with a ’so what’ for any data shown. 
5. Avoid the ’showing all the workings in the margin’ mentality. Less is always more. 
6. Beware over explaining when scrutinised – answer the question and nothing else. 
7. Grab the audience’s attention at the start – we have a tiny amount of time before people stop listening, so make it count. 
8. Don’t sugar coat bad performance; admit mistakes; highlight learning and be honest about commitments to change. 
9. Always have a narrative structure in 3 parts to the message (just like the ‘beginning, middle and end’ of a story). 
10. End on a high. 

There Is No Such Thing As A Boring Story; Only A Boring Angle

I have been working with clients this month around the issue of communicating a ‘dry' or 'dull’ message to their teams. A classic example might be a health and safety update, or the need to communicate detailed, technical information on a topic to an audience who are not experts in the area. Now to be clear - I’m not saying health and safety isn’t important - it’s essential. However, I’m struck this month by how often I hear leaders talk about the fact that what they need to communicate is dull, boring, dry - whilst at the same time expressing that there is a clear need to communicate it. Our challenge as leaders is to engage those listening in the topic, otherwise there’s no point in trying to convey it. If we don’t look and sound like we care; neither will our team.

So, I’ve been talking a lot about two powerful and extremely effective concepts in communication.

The first is that of the ’social curiosity driver’. All this means is that if we show interest, passion, enthusiasm for something in front of others, then they will get curious too. An oft quoted and simple demonstration of this phenomenon is this: imagine you are walking down the street, and you see a crowd of people looking up at the sky. Would that make you curious? Undoubtedly. What are you most likely to do? Look up and see what all the fuss is about. That’s the ‘social curiosity driver’ in action. So, my point is this - if we do the opposite of enthusiasm when we are communicating - in other words show that we are bored/disinterested in our topic, then let’s not be surprised our audience reacts in kind.

The second concept is also straightforward: there is no such thing as a boring story; only a boring angle. I often quote Malcolm Gladwell, who once posed an interesting question to create an interesting angle for a video. The question was: ‘why do brands sell so many styles of spaghetti sauce, when they used to sell only one?’ As a result, he got over two million people to watch a video on the topic. The point is that he found an interesting angle to what might otherwise be a fairly tedious subject. How can we do the same? By posing the right question. Think ‘ who, what, where, when, why, how’ as the basis to create an angle for our story that entices, intrigues and engages the listener, reader or viewer to want to listen, learn and connect with our message.

Leaders with ‘executive presence’ can ‘reach’ their audience through their communication, even if the content is traditionally perceived as dry, dull or boring. And they make it look easy. The rest of us need to learn the skills.

TMI - Too Much Information

I have had the pleasure and the privilege of working with a number of clients this month in Europe, the Middle East and the USCAN region and my mind has been exercised by the topic of ‘TMI’. In other words: 'Too Much Information.' In a professional context what I mean by this is the scourge of 'over explaining'. As leaders, our role is to be an effective communicator, and the skills needed to do this effectively and consistently are significantly underestimated. Part of my role is to coach my clients to practise the skills in a relevant commercial context, and be willing to be scrutinised and challenged in a realistic (and safe) learning environment. What I have particularly noticed this month is the degree to which a simple, open question elicits a lengthy, somewhat irrelevant answer. The challenge is to say less - but mean more - because we live in an attention deficit business world, where most people aren’t listening most of the time.

How to get around this? 

 

1. Firstly, by being aware of what we do at the moment to respond to scrutiny, and to be curious about our ability to answer the question but nothing more. My view of communication is simple: lack of clarity in our answer reveals a lack of clarity in our thought process.
2. In addition, we need to truly listen to the question. Easier said than done for sure. What’s being asked? Are we listening to understand or listening to respond? Given the nature of the 2, 3 and 4 screen world that we all operate in, our ability to truly listen is under assault. These skills have gradually depleted over the past few years and most of us didn’t even notice.
3. Take a moment to gather our thoughts before replying. It’s not a race to answer fast. It’s far more important to answer effectively. Structure a crisp and concise answer, and then stop talking.
4. Seek feedback – but not by ending every answer with ‘does that make sense’? Why? Because what we’re really saying is ‘I don’t think I made any sense but I’m just checking’. Instead, look for the opportunity to get feedback at a later stage from colleagues who we trust to be constructive and candid with us. 

Remember the acronym TMI – we want to be memorable and effective to be the legacy of our communication; not instantly forgettable and somewhat frustrating for just going on and on and on. 

A great cue to stop now.

The Clean Answer

There are many things that I love about my work; one of which is the opportunity to observe my clients ‘in action’, in order to provide rich and extensive feedback on their strengths, as well as those areas for growth. One such occasion really struck me of late and – with my client’s permission because he reads my newsletter – he has allowed me to share. Recently, I had the opportunity to observe a senior sales leader conduct a sales meeting. He had all his functional and regional leaders in the room and,during the course of the three-hour meeting, he was asked a question by one of his team members … so far nothing at all unusual with this situation. However, his answer was fascinating … because it last for five minutes. Yes -five minutes straight. At times the content was witty, amusing, insightful; , for the vast majority of the time the content was mired in detail, irrelevant and frustrating to hear.

This got me thinking…what’s really going on here? The question posed was very clear and simple; the answer given most certainly was not.

We live in an attention deficit business environment where most people aren’t listening most of the time and when I debriefed with the client, he was gracious enough to acknowledge a number of things:

1. He didn’t really hear the question properly 
2. He believed that he needed to prove he knew a lot of things to his colleagues 
3. He enjoyed ’taking the floor’ to share his point of view 

Now, before any of us leaps to judgement, as human beings we all seek different forms of validation from our communication with others. Whilst our motivations might be similar or different to those of my client, the reality is that what we believe impacts how we communicate, and, at times, this can work against us. In this instance, it was preventing my client from being crisp, concise and compelling with his communication. As a result, we have been working on what I term ‘the clean answer’. In other words, think of what you hear when you listen to a politician being interviewed by the media – and recognise that I am talking about the complete opposite of that. Whilst I appreciate that this is a generalisation, all too often I hear long, irrelevant, pre-scripted answers that are not connected to the question posed, and when politicians do this, they actually create more difficulty for themselves by providing more material for the reporter to scrutinise.

The ‘clean answer’ technique is all about answering the question asked, resisting the temptation to provide all the backstory, avoiding the trap of being defensive in offering rationales for things that were never sought in the question, stepping away from all the detail and, knowing when to quickly stop talking. This is an incredibly powerful communication technique and one that works well face to face, is extremely effectively in the remote meeting environment and absolutely essential when pitching to senior leaders.

Say less, but mean more. Answer the question and nothing else. Be brief, be brilliant and be done.

Are We Lucky Or Are We Good?

I have been working with a client this month who has a very experienced sales team. Their challenge is that they have delivered their sales target only 3 times in 12 months. That’s not a level of performance that any sales leader would accept, and in a traditional family run business, and thin margin industry, this clearly cannot continue. What has been so fascinating for me as a coach is exploring the skills and mindset of both the sales team and those who manage and lead this team. There is a question that my first boss used to ask me repeatedly when I started my career as a naïve pharmaceutical sales representative selling ethical medicine to doctors back in the early nineties…… are we lucky or are we good?

This question is built on a simple premise: good sales people are consistent with performance even when faced with challenging economic conditions and client setbacks. They are curious about their success, keen to learn, willing to ask for help and readily admit their mistakes. Sales professionals who are lucky are the ones where they have good months and bad; where one quarter they are on target and the next they are off target…… and the reasons why are always outside of their control. All too often we start to hear “yes, but…..” coming into their language and outlook on different situations.

Part of our challenge as leaders is getting the balance right between challenge and support so that our teams deliver consistent performance over time and this starts with scrutinising mindset. Henry Ford said “whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right”. Now, it’s not as simple as saying that we need to just think and we’ll be successful; but rather that this is our starting point. Hard work, taking risks, developing skills, reflection and learning are all critical to succeed of course… and mindset sits at the heart of it.

Leaders with Executive Presence know that their role is to inspire, stretch, support, challenge, motivate, enthuse and encourage their teams to achieve… and to do so in an environment rich with change, challenge and complexity. This means imbuing in others the belief based on the research of Julian Rotter in 1966 around the ‘locus of control’. Quite simply, more effective individuals operate from a mindset of belief that says we can influence more than we think, and “if it’s going to be; it’s down to me” thinking. Everything starts with mindset. We are wired to look for evidence that proves what we believe…. what we believe is what we seek and if we can’t find it; we create it ourselves.

So the next time, as a leader, you are reflecting on either your own performance or that of you team… take the time to ask yourself: “are we lucky or are we good?”

Until next time…..