Talent Development 45 Communications Strategy

July 5, 2021

Section 3.4 in the CPTD Certification program for ATD is Talent Strategy and Management. Section F states, “Skill in designing and implementing communication strategy in order to drive talent management objectives.”

All strategy needs to start with some fundamentals, and that is true for a communication strategy for talent management.  We need to start with a clear vision of where we are going.  Without that, we will flail around like a flag in a hurricane.

Knowing exactly where we are going with the talent development effort is always the first step.  Second, we need to create logical steps to get from our current position to the vision. 

It is essential to understand the gaps so people can visualize how our path will help us arrive at our objective in a finite period of time.  That specific plan is what we need to communicate to everyone involved. 

Sometimes we have the luxury of time to develop and communicate the plan in a logical manner, and sometimes we are forced to do it with blinding speed.

A Classic Example

For many groups, the date of March 13, 2020 sticks out as a prime example where speed was required. In numerous organizations, people went home from their work that Friday, and by Monday, March 16, the entire operation needed to be recast to allow people to work virtually. The pivot to pull off that feat required a kind of communication effort that few people could imagine just a few days earlier. 

That weekend was a scramble few people will ever forget. 

For the Talent Development professionals, the situation was just as chaotic. I recall teaching my leadership class live on Friday morning and having to retool my entire program over the weekend to be totally virtual. When there is no choice, it is amazing how quickly things can happen.

For most leaders, the need to retool how they communicated with people in the entire organization was just as abrupt.  Some people needed to upgrade their systems or borrow a laptop from work to allow a constancy of communication that was vital in those frantic days. The need for accurate information being given was even higher than before Covid hit. 

The Bar is Being Raised Even More

In his Trust Barometer, Richard Edelman described a shift that is ongoing.  When asked, “How many times to you need to hear something about an organization to believe it is true?” the answer used to be once or twice.  Currently the answer for most people is three to five times.

The need to be creative and frame up important communication in several different ways is a skill many leaders have not mastered yet. A simple “town hall” meeting is no longer adequate to convey important or complex information. Here is an idea of the steps needed to be sure information is conveyed accurately.

  1. Send out a meeting notice with the essence of the message to be conveyed.
  2. Have a meeting to convey the message in person or virtually.
  3. Ask the participants what they just heard (to verify the message).
  4. Follow up with an email explaining the message and the rationale.
  5. A week later, ask some people what they recall the announcement was.

Conclusion

The ability to communicate important concepts, like talent management objectives, is a lot more complex in the current environment than it was a few years ago.  I suspect the higher bar will be with us always, so we need to adjust our communication patterns accordingly.

 

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust.  He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change.  Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. 

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Leadership Barometer 77 Optimize Communication

January 12, 2021

There are hundreds of assessments for leaders. The content and quality of these assessments vary greatly. You can spend a lot of time and money taking surveys to tell you the quality of your leadership.

There are a few leading indicators that can be used to give a pretty good picture of the overall quality of your leadership. These are not good for diagnosing problems or specifying corrective action, but they can tell you where you stand quickly. Here is one of my favorite measures.

Optimize communication

All of us communicate all of the time. When you add the body language to what we say, there is a steady stream of communication all day, every day, so why does communication nearly always surface in the top two of every employee satisfaction survey as the most significant problem facing an organization?

The sad fact is that most leaders are not that good at communicating, even though they work very hard at it. Let’s first look at the problem form two vantage points.

The leader feels nearly overwhelmed with the need to communicate. In fact, the leader is communicating from the moment she logs on in the morning until she turns out the light exhausted at the end of the day.

All work is a steady stream of explaining what is happening, reinforcing good work, explaining how poor attitudes are not helping, discussing the new product roll out, etc. The challenge is compounded in recent times when a greater percentage of the work force is working remotely. Leaders need to redouble their efforts to communicate and use technology to be sure all people are informed, even if they are working remotely.

So, it is frustrating when people feedback that there is “never any communication” going on. Wow, what a slap in the face. Sometimes the opposite happens. There are a lot more emails in the COVID World. When people get too many emails, they can’t keep up and feel pestered or nagged.

From the worker’s perspective, the signals that are coming through are not consistent and often incomprehensible. They long for information in a format and frequency that computes to them. The messages workers hear are not the same ones sent by the leader.

There are frequent surprises where a vacuum in communication is followed by a “gotcha” announcement or people doing the wrong things.

The battle for excellent communication rages every day in every organization. Let’s take a look at some of the root causes of poor downward communication to uncover some opportunities for improvement.

1. Frequency 

The span between communication on key issues is trickier than meets the eye. The old rule of “the more the merrier” is really not the best policy.

When you constantly say the same message in the same format, eventually people tune it out, and you might better not have said anything because nobody is listening anymore.

Yet, the other extreme is worse, if your touch points are so infrequent that people have forgotten the context of the message, then they will listen and hear, but not understand. So, what is the antidote?

How do leaders find the sweet spot? You need to let feedback from people be the frequency control on your outgoing communication. Most of this feedback comes in body language – often in group settings in live or remote interfaces.

2. Boring Message 

I have seen really good leaders who tend to drone on in a monotone style that puts everybody to sleep. All the information is given, but everyone is zzzz’d out, so there is poor communication.

The best way to avoid this is to watch for the MEGO effect (short for My Eyes Glaze Over). When people get that look, (which is harder to detect accurately in a remote world), you need to stop and ask a question. Get the audience back with you.

Change the cadence, even use 5 seconds of silence to get the group conscious again. Get people up on their feet or engaged in a question for discussion among small groups. In virtual meetings, use the breakout rooms to accomplish this. The energy needs to be on a conscious level for people to grasp meaning.

3. Not What I Said 

Some people hear what they think you are going to say, even if you say something else. Their predisposition leaves them incapable of absorbing the actual words and meaning.

It reminds me of the old Archie Bunker quote, when he says to his wife, Edith, “The reason you don’t understand me, is because I’m talking in English and you’re listening in Dingbat!”

During any presentation, test with your audience if you are getting through the fog. If they are not with you, stop talking.

4. Too Complex 

In an effort to be complete with communications, many leaders are their own worst enemy. People can only absorb and internalize so much information at one time. Exactly how the information is conveyed has a lot to do with how much can be presented at any one time.

Make sure each communication effort has only two or three key points and these are repeated at least three times in the presentation.

Test afterward if people really understood those three key points. Use illustrations when possible and consider the different learning styles of your audience and where they are located.

5. Management Speak 

Leaders often talk in a kind of language I call “management speak.” They need to understand that the average shop floor person does not relate to ROI or references to Maslow.

Make sure your communication is on a level where people can readily grasp the message. However, be very careful to not “talk down” to people on the shop floor.

They are not dumb; in fact they are incredibly smart. They just use different words, and you need to use their language as much as possible when communicating messages to them.

Resist the temptation to “dumb down the message” so they can understand. Instead think of using the right language.

6. Shifting Messages 

It is not a static world, so a valid message on Wednesday may be the wrong one on Friday. The problem here is that leaders are cognizant of what transpired as the current message morphed into something different.

Unfortunately, the shop floor people are not up to speed on the shifting sands. Remote workers may have missed a key change that impacts everything. All they experience is a confusing message that is not consistent.

Actually, this problem is more pervasive than leaders recognize, and it is a key reason why there is such a disconnect.

The antidote is for leaders to be extremely cognizant of any small change in the message over time. Make sure you bring all people up to speed on the background for the change if you want them to grasp the true meaning.

7. Electronic Communication 

Leaders have shifted to a much higher percentage of communication via online means. It is not in the scope of this short article to go over all of the gremlins in this mode of communication.

It took me 300 pages in a book (“Understanding e-Body Language – Building Trust Online“) to describe how leaders fail to navigate the minefield of successful online communication.

Suffice to say this is an area of great peril. Unfortunately, most leaders think there is little difference between communicating face to face versus online. There is a huge difference (I outline 8 major differences in my book). An example may help here.

Most people view an email like a conversation. You have information coming in, you process it, and then send information out. Just a conversation, right? Wrong!

When we talk to people face to face, we are constantly modifying the message, cadence, body language, and the words based on the real-time feedback we are getting.

Online, there is no feedback while the message is being sent. It is all blind, and we have no way to correct things if we are off track. Thinking of online communication like a conversation is extremely dangerous. In Zoom or other remote platforms, it is far more difficult to read the body language of your audience.

8. Communicating at the Head Level

Good communication does not occur at the “head” level. Sure, we use the mouth to speak, the ears to hear, the brain to interpret, the eyes to see, etc.

Real communication is deep in the gut and the heart. When you have internalized the message fully, it goes well into the body.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you have communicated with someone because you have talked and they appear to have heard it. Verify what was taken in at the gut level.

Those are just 8 ways of improving communication. Actually there are hundreds of them, this article only scratches the surface. But, if you focus on these few important considerations, you can really improve your communications with people at work.

Bob Whipple is CEO of Leadergrow Inc., a company dedicated to growing leaders. He speaks and conducts seminars on building trust in organizations.




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Leadership Barometer 18 Handling a Crisis

October 1, 2019

There are hundreds of ways to test the greatness of leaders.  Here is one of my favorite measures.

Handling a Crises

One easy way to measure the caliber of a leader is to observe him or her in a crisis. Great leaders take command, but do so in a special way that weaker leaders try unsuccessfully to emulate. In the first place, they have the ability to diffuse internal crises and avoiding a kind of mob scene where workers gang up on the leader.

The distinction begins even before the crisis is evident. It is a mindset. Average leaders take rest when things are going smoothly. They focus on the little fires and beat them down so they do not spread. Other than that, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is the mentality. We might as well enjoy the way things are going, since it is smooth sailing.

By contrast, the great leader sees the world as a series of calm times and storms, some of them hurricanes. The calm times are opportunities to sharpen our skills and reactions for the next storm. For sure, it will come, so we ought to be looking at our past successes or failures in prior storms to get ready for the next one.

In business, the character or timing of the next storm is far less predictable than in nature. For example, in late summer, we can expect several hurricanes to crop up in the Atlantic and work their way toward the mainland U.S.. Once they form, computer models can predict with various levels of accuracy if, when, and where the storm will come ashore.

Most crises in business are less predictable. Some trends can be tracked, but usually the big disruptive events are things that are impossible to forecast. For example, if we are manufacturing aircraft, we can plot the seasonality and long-term trends, attempting to anticipate peak loads. Then, a fire in the factory causes a crisis that is a total surprise. The impact of the crisis on our business dwarfs anything we had been planning based on market projections, yet we are forced to deal with it immediately.

Once the crisis hits, the average leader becomes unglued for a while. There are so many things to do at once, and triage in the business world is often a neglected skill, so the leader wonders whether to call a meeting or let the front line people work on the most urgent issues without interruption.

Communication channels have not been set up to handle the chaos, so instructions or intentions come through as garbled signals. Think of the first responders in the World Trade Center after the first tower fell. Instructions were not getting through to all responders, and many additional lives were lost because of it.

The average leader somehow manages to deploy an effort to fight the situation, but it is often meager compared to the proportion of the disaster. People wonder why there was not more specific leadership coming through when it was needed most. When a leader appears to be unprepared for the disaster, then there is a loss of trust.

By contrast, the great leader has refined the procedures for communication and action ahead of time. Even though the exact nature of the crisis is not known, the preparation phase is an ongoing high priority. There are often mock “fire drills” to practice damage control and hone communication procedures to be ready in case the real thing happens.

For example, a CEO might arrange to distribute a fake internal news release that the toy being sold by his chain was causing deaths in children. This would force people to react with everything from recalls, to insurance negotiations, to government briefings, to press statements, etc.

After practicing the mock disaster, they could hold a debrief meeting and might determine the internal communication between executives was practically nonexistent during the crisis. All of the managers were doing their best to keep a lid on the damage, but the total effort was not well coordinated. This debrief would allow the team to design an information dissemination process, so if a crisis ever surfaced, they would be in a far better position.

I know one college president who had to endure three different embarrassing public issues in just a few weeks time. None of the problems were caused by the president, and none of them could have been predicted, yet he had to deal with them in a way that upheld the values of the college and gave all stakeholders confidence that the institution was not out of control.

If you are the head of an organization, you need to be prepared for these kinds of disruptions. You know there is a comet or two heading your way, you just don’t know specifically what it will look like or when it will arrive. Warren Bennis, my favorite all time leadership author, put it this way:

Leaders learn by leading, and they learn best by leading in the face of obstacles. As weather shapes mountains, so problems make leaders.

The best leaders look at these kind of crisis situations as a way to test themselves and their teams.  The best advice is to keep practicing your response and communication methods. You cannot anticipate the nature of the comet that is heading your way, but you can prepare your team to deal with anything.

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Colorful Communication

April 2, 2019

When you communicate with other people verbally, in writing, or even in emails and texts, be particular about how you phrase things to draw upon the imagination of the receiver.

Avoid stilted language or jargon that may confuse some people.  Also, try to avoid cliches, such as “failure is not an option,” or “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Try to paint a picture that is vibrant with colorful imagery. Use words as surrogates for a paintbrush, and actually let images flow into your words like paint onto a canvas. The idea is to use analogies, as I just did with the paint. Analogies allow us to span the gaps between ideas that are created by the limitations of words.

The idea is to use colorful words. Clarity of expression is not only more entertaining, it actually helps build higher trust between people because the thoughts are fresh and vibrant.

What are colorful words? Well, “color” is a great colorful word. We can see in our mind’s eye the difference between flat black & white information and full color. We hardly ever think about the complex interplay of hues that surround us every day.

Take a moment now and look around your current environment. Notice the colors, textures, and shapes. We are so used to viewing these things that we often take them for granted.

When you write, try to liven up the text with word descriptions that tickle the senses of your readers. If I use the word “pretty” to describe a scene, it will send a certain message. Using the word “breathtaking” magnifies that message like looking at a panorama through a telescope. I can either “mow the lawn” or I can “shear the aromatic fescue.” I can “take a deep breath,” or I can “breathe in the giant pines.” I can “be glad it is spring,” or I can “welcome the first robin on the lawn.”

You can use colorful images to convey emotions and events in the business world as well. You can say “he was angry” or you can say “his flared nostrils and clenched jaw were obvious.” You can say the meeting was “good” or you can say “the meeting was incredibly refreshing.” Next time you want to compliment someone on a fantastic performance, you can say “Congratulations, you did really well on that,” or you can say, “You must feel like you just caught the winning touchdown pass in the Superbowl.”

How can you use more colorful language? One way to broaden your vocabulary is to make good use of a thesaurus. In every note, try to send out a word that is unusual for you, but more accurate to the context than the word you would normally use. One caveat: be careful not to overdo the analogies or use of colorful words. It can be annoying if you take it too far. For example, here is a colorful note followed by a similar note with too much color.

Good colorful language

“You were refreshing in that meeting, because your ideas crackled with potential. Your points were crisp, and you prevented the group from becoming stuck on trivial issues. Nice going. We need more people like you who can think clearly and not become distracted by petty gripes.”

Overdone colorful language and use of clichés

“Your performance in the meeting was magnificent. Your discussion was as clear as a mountain stream and you kept the group out of the quagmire of repetitious arguments. People like you are as scarce as hen’s teeth. You have the unique ability to keep people from complaining all the time like a nagging backache.”

In developing colorful language, try to avoid the use of hackneyed expressions and clichés. There is an art to weaving words into a cohesive note. A good note should have a directional flow without the need to double back on some issues. If you find yourself writing, “as I said before…” you need to go back and revise the flow.

Put a little spice and adventure in your notes and spoken communications.  You will find that people appreciate the thought and respond better to your ideas.

The preceding information was adapted from the book Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, by Robert Whipple. It is available on http://www.leadergrow.com.
Robert Whipple is also the author of The TRUST Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, and Leading with Trust is like Sailing Downwind. Bob consults and speaks on these and other leadership topics. He is CEO of Leadergrow Inc. a company dedicated to growing leaders. Contact Bob at bwhipple@leadergrow.com or
585-392-7763.

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Body Language 14 Hand Gestures

February 8, 2019

In my article last week, I covered wringing of the hands. This week I want to make some general statements about hand gestures and discuss several of the ones that are of high interest to me.

There is no way that I can list even half of the gestures that people use in this short blog article, but I will share my favorites and give some caveats on their use and misuse.

In an article in “Science of People,” they reported that the most viral TED Talks contained roughly two times the level of hand gestures than the least viral talks.

Gestures generally improve the accuracy and interest of communication. Usually the use of hand gestures is a positive thing for communication, but we will see that it is not always the case.

First of all, recognize that if you have hands, you are going to use them when you communicate verbally. If you doubt that, just observe yourself as you talk with other people naturally. You will use your hands to embellish your points as naturally as you breathe in and breathe out. If you ever do observe a person who can talk for 10 minutes with no hand gestures, check his pulse, he may be dead and just playing a recording.

On the other extreme, some people use excessive hand movements to emphasize their points. It can get to be distracting and even annoying. I know a public speaker who uses excessive gestures to emphasize every part of every sentence. I found myself listening to him and began to realize that all the movement eventually distracted from his meaning, and I started to lose trust in him.

The habit of hand gestures is nearly impossible to break, so an important concept is to monitor how much gesturing you are using and watch how other people react when you speak. If you see a fatigued, confused, or bored expression, you may be doing too much gesturing.

If you do any speaking in public (including training or teaching), it would be wise to get a tape of yourself from time to time to view your level of gesturing. You may be surprised by what you see on the tape.

Just like all body language, hand gestures are highly culturally specific, so do not assume your gestures will translate accurately to everyone. For example, when Neil Armstrong first walked on the surface of the moon, he turned to the camera and made an “O” gesture with his first finger touching his thumb and the remaining three fingers straight out.

For people in many countries, the implication was clearly a signal meaning “AOK.” However, the people in Japan interpreted it as “Zero” and the people in Brazil and Greece saw an obscene gesture. Be careful with that gesture!

The position of your hands as you speak also reveals a lot about your attitude. For example, extended hands with palms up is a signal of openness and honesty. This type of gesture works to enhance the level of trust. The other extreme where the palms are hidden from view while gesturing often has a negative impact on trust.

In any context, pointing is one of the more hostile gestures. It tends to put people on the defensive. If you point a lot while you speak, you would do yourself a favor by toning it down. It takes a lot of effort to break the habit, but you will improve your relations with others if you refrain from pointing, unless you are giving directions or directing attention to something of interest.

We tend to indicate the relative size of things by the distance between our hands or fingers. This gesture is usually done when we are comparing one thing with another. We might have our hands apart by 18 inches when describing a very large boat and then only a few inches apart when we talk about the dinghy.

One gesture that I found particularly useful in the business world was the “Time out” sign, where you put the tips of the fingers on one hand to the palm of the other hand. I found that sign to be helpful in a team environment to allow one member of the group to signal he or she is questioning what is going on. You have to make an agreement at the outset between all parties that anyone can make the gesture without fear of being ridiculed.

Once you have that agreement, the “time out” sign is useful at enabling more meaningful discussions that enhance the level of trust between people. If someone thinks we are “spinning our wheels” he can just indicate that with the time out signal.

When people want to communicate literally, they will often use “air quotes” where each hand bends the first two fingers simultaneously. This gesture is easy to understand, but there is a caveat. It may mean that the speaker wants people to understand the specific wording, but it can also be a kind of mocking gesture where the person does not believe what another person has said and wants to point that out for the record.

You need to decipher the meaning from the context of the message. The use of air quotes can signal disagreement between parties in a discussion. One party may be trying to mimic what another party said with an tinge of scorn.

The famous “thumbs up” gesture is a quick way to indicate approval, and the reverse (thumbs down) gesture indicates the opposite. These gestures are generally consistent from one culture to another. I have never heard of these signals being reversed in any particular culture.

These are a few of the thousands of hand gestures that people use all the time. The important thing is to use gestures well but not to excess and be very careful when using gestures outside the specific culture where you live. When going to a culture you are not familiar with, it is a good idea to check out the specific gestures for that country. A good book to help with this prepping is “Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries” by Morrison, Conaway, and Borden.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Body Language.” The entire series can be viewed on https://www.leadergrow.com/articles/categories/35-body-language or on this blog.

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of four books: 1.The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals (2003), 2. Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online (2006), 3. Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind (2009), and 4. Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change (2014). In addition, he has authored over 600 articles and videos on various topics in leadership and trust. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at http://www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763

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Successful Supervisor 65 When to Use Reflective Listening

February 18, 2018

When consultants do Quality of Life (QWL) Surveys in organizations of all types, the issue of “communication” invariably comes out as being the number one or number two frustration of people in the organization.

It seems that we have a primary problem cornered, right? Wrong! Just because we know communication is a huge problem in most organizations does not make it any easier to solve. Communication issues are still at the root of many frustrations, and the problem exists at all levels.

We could dissect all aspects of communication, but in this article I would like to focus on listening skills. Human beings are good talkers, and we actually read body language pretty well. Most of us can write instructions or emails well enough to be understood, at least most of the time.

We are habitually weakest at grasping the full meaning when people are talking to us. We are usually able to grasp some bits of information, but we often miss the full significance of what the other person is conveying.

For supervisors, the ability to listen more carefully is one of the most significant improvement opportunities, but that is easier said than done. In this article I want to discuss Reflective Listening and reveal four skills that will make your listening vastly more powerful, if you use them well. They create the opportunity to use a more interactive and integrative approach to grasp incoming information more completely.

Reflective Listening

The technique of “Reflective Listening” has been documented and taught in management training for decades. The skill involves just four parts:

1. Attend to the person who is talking. Put down your phone or other distraction and pay attention. Make sure you are in a place conducive to a serious conversation, not on a noisy shop floor.
2. Listen with an intensity high enough to be able to paraphrase the main points from time to time.
3. Insert short “reflections” into the conversation that indicate your understanding and that you are following the conversation.
4. Repeat.

The skill of reflective listening is not consistently practiced for one good reason. Most people can talk at a rate of about 150 words a minute (give or take some), while our brain is capable of thinking at 400-600 words per minute or more. With 2-3X idle time between the words, our brain has a lot of spare time while listening. When we think that we are listening, what we are usually doing is using most of our mental processes getting ready to speak, or thinking about what we have to do after the conversation is over.

The reflective listening technique forces us to keep more concentration on the words and body language that are coming in, so we can absorb more of the meaning. There is a catch here that most people miss. It is difficult work to force one’s mind to adhere only to the conversation when there is so much spare capacity. This is where well developed skills can make a huge difference for you.

Skill 1: Pick your Situation

Don’t use reflective listening on a routine basis. Your brain will quickly blow a fuse, and you will be right back where you started.

Most conversations we have on a daily basis are casual conversations where we can get the gist of meaning while the mind is occupied with our own process. Do not try to use reflective listening for 100% of your conversations and you will do a lot better.

Roughly 10% of conversations will be significant. You will be dealing with an emotionally charged situation or a person in an emotional state. The speaker will be angry, confused, giddy, frustrated, or any number of other highly emotional states. For those few conversations, you can use reflective listening and relax with your old habits for the majority of conversations.

You always need to be alert to cues that tell you it is time to listen with more intensity. In this mode, you are paying full attention to the words as well as the body language to absorb a holistic understanding of the other person’s meaning. A conversation can shift from casual to serious suddenly if a person is somehow triggered. At this point, it is time to put on your imaginary listening hat, as I discussed in a prior article. Mine is the kind of two-pointed hat that Napoleon wore. When someone is in a state of high emotion, I silently tell myself, “it’s time to put on my listening hat.”

For that particular conversation, I kick up the intensity of reflective listening and try to absorb the true meaning of every sentence and gesture. Then I go back to my normal pattern of mental activity for the non-emotional discussions. This technique has worked for me over the years. I am far from perfect using the method, but I am far better than if I only had one mode of listening.

Skill 2: Listen with all your senses

When you intensify your listening, you can use other senses than just your hearing. You can use your sight to notice the body language: the cues that the other person give that show their emotional response to the discussion.

You can also use your sense of touch, to notice how your own body is responding to what the other person is saying. Is it stressing you? Are you tightening anywhere? Are you triggered?

You can also use your sense of touch energetically, to feel the emotions the other person is sending out.

You can use your figurative senses of smell and taste (both ways of discernment) to see if what you are hearing “smells” right, or whether you “smell a rat.”

In being aware of all the subtleties and being discerning in what you receive, your senses can help you truly understand what the other person is trying to convey, which helps you get to the heart of the matter.

Skill 3: The Pause that refreshes

Don’t feel you have to start speaking the moment people stop talking. It is okay to take a moment to regroup and consider your response based on everything they have communicated. This pause lets people know you are thinking, and they may even add something else that is helpful. Their response to the pause is additional information.

Skill 4: The Question that gets to the heart of the matter

Learn how to ask insightful questions that help get to the heart of the matter, the meat of the situation. An insightful question lets people know they have been heard and that you are interested, ready to hear more, and are taking them seriously, which builds trust.

If you are a supervisor, put on your “listening hat” at the right time and place, and open your senses see if it improves your ability to absorb and respond to conversations that are critical.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of four books: 1.The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals (2003), 2. Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online (2006), 3. Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind (2009), and 4. Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change (2014). In addition, he has authored over 500 articles and videos on various topics in leadership and trust. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at http://www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763

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Successful Supervisor 59 – Improve Online Communications

January 7, 2018

Supervisors are increasingly called upon to communicate with crews online rather than face to face. This may be due to people working in other locations or working on different shifts. Communicating effectively online is a very different process from communicating face to face.

I wrote an entire book on this topic, entitled “Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online.” In this brief article, I want to share a dozen tips for improving online communications.

Overarching consideration: Use the right mode of communication – often email or texting are not the right ways to communicate a particular message.

1. Do not treat online notes like a conversation. In normal conversation we use the feedback of body language to modify our message, pace, tone, and emphasis in order to stay out of trouble. In e-mail or in texting, we do not have this real-time feedback.

2. Keep messages short. A good email or text should take only 15-30 seconds to read (texts as little as 2-3 seconds) and absorb. Less is more in online communication. Try to have the entire message fit onto the first screen. When a messages goes “over the horizon,” the reader does not know how long it is, which creates a psychological block.

3. Establish the right tone upfront. Online messages have a momentum. If you start on the wrong foot, you will have a difficult time connecting. The “Subject” line and the first three words of a note establish the tone.

4. Remember the permanent nature of e-mails. Using email to praise helps people remember the kind words. Using email to be critical is usually a bad idea because people will re-read the note many times.

5. Keep your objective in mind. Establish a clear objective of how you want the reader to react to your note. For sensitive notes, write the objective down. When proofreading your note, check to see if your intended reaction is likely to happen. If not, reword the note.

6. Do not write notes when you are not yourself. This sounds simple, but it is really much more difficult than meets the eye. Learn the techniques to avoid this problem.

7. Avoid “online grenade” battles. Do not take the bait. Simply do not respond to edgy note in kind. Change the venue to be more effective.

8. Be careful with use of pronouns in email. Pronouns establish the tone. The most dangerous pronoun in an online note is “you.”

9. Avoid using “absolutes.” Avoid words such as: never, always, impossible, or cannot. Soften the absolutes if you want to be more credible online.

10. Avoid sarcasm. Humor at the expense of another person will come back to haunt you.

11. Learn techniques to keep your email inbox clean (down to zero notes each day) so you are highly responsive when needed. Adopting proper distribution rules in your organization will cut email traffic by more than 30% instantly.

12. Understand the rules for writing challenging notes so you always get the result you want rather than create a need for damage control. Proofread all notes carefully. Think through how the other person might react from his or her perspective rather than you own.

Your organization has a sustainable competitive advantage if:

• You live and work in an environment unhampered by the problems of poor online communication. This takes some education and a customized set of rules for your unique environment, but the effort is well worth it.

• Employees are not consumed with trying to sort out important information from piles of garbage notes.

• Your coworkers are not focused on one-upmanship and internal turf wars.

• Supervisors know how to use electronic communications to build rather than destroy trust.

For supervisors, once you learn the essentials of e-body language, a whole new world of communication emerges. You will be more adept at decoding incoming messages and have a better sense of how your messages are interpreted by others. You will understand the secret code that is written “between the lines” of all messages and enhance the quality of online communications in your sphere of influence.

Training in this skill area does not require months of struggling with hidden gremlins. While supervisors often push back on productivity improvement or OD training, they welcome this topic enthusiastically because it improves their quality of work life instantly. Four hours of training and a set of rules can change a lifetime of bad habits.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of four books: 1.The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals (2003), 2. Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online (2006), 3. Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind (2009), and 4. Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change (2014). In addition, he has authored over 500 articles and videos on various topics in leadership and trust. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at http://www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763

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Successful Supervisor 34 – Communication Improvement

July 9, 2017

The “VAK” Model (Visual, Auditory, or Kinesthetic) is a wonderful technique to improve communication that any supervisor can use once she has picked up the necessary skills.

Its origin goes back to some studies done in the 1970s by behavioral scientists Bandler and Grinder, who proposed that humans have preferred ways of learning information.

The model was part of a much larger system called Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP). The VAK Model hypothesized that each person has a preferred channel for taking in information: either visual, auditory, or kinesthetic (movement, as in learning by doing).

The VAK Model is often used in teaching to ensure that people with different learning styles have the same opportunity to learn. It can be used in business and personal situations to establish rapport and increase understanding in communications.

The ideas have been debated by scientists over the years, and I have found the VAK Model is very helpful when it is applied to communications in business.

In the 1980s, Neil Fleming expanded VAK to include Reading and Writing, so the model became VARK. With all the acronyms, it sounds like a little “hocus-pocus,” but the concept is very simple and amazingly powerful.

The idea is to find out what “channel” is the one that the other person prefers and flex your communication style to use that method of transmitting information. Rather than walk through the theory of why this can be helpful to a supervisor, I will share a story that illustrates the point.

Many years ago, I was teaching a Leadership Course at Syracuse University. I had just completed a module on the VARK technique, complete with how you can determine the preferred communication channel by listening to the words a person chooses when talking normally.

Before the class met the next session, a young female student approached me and said, “It works! That VARK system you taught us really does work.” As the class started I asked the student to tell the story to the entire class.

She said, “After our last class, I went to see my calculus teacher. I am having a problem getting the feel of double integrals. I understand everything he is saying in class, but I just cannot make it happen by myself.” Notice the student said she could not get the “feel” of the content (indicating that she is a kinesthetic communicator).

She indicated that she and the professor seemed to be on two different planets in terms of communicating and that both of them were starting to get annoyed.

She said the professor was getting red in the face and finally put his hands on his hips saying “I just don’t see what your problem is.” BINGO! A little bell went off in her head that she was listening in Kinesthetic, but he was a Visual communicator.

She immediately went to his white board and drew the sign for the double integral. She pointed to the place in the process where she was not visualizing the right thing to do. (Note: she shifted her communication mode from Kinesthetic to Visual by drawing on the board and using the word “visualizing” as opposed to “feeling.”

The student related that the professor “melted and became like a puppy dog.” He said, “Oh, that is what you are not seeing, let me show you.” She said that in 5 minutes he had explained it so she understood it forever, and they parted the best of buddies.

For any supervisor or manager, having the ability to flex your own communication style to match the person you are trying to reach is like a magic potion.

The trick is to pay attention to the words the other person uses to describe what is happening. Within a sentence of two the other person will tell you his or her preferred channel by the phraseology.

For example, if you hear the following words, they give away the channel to use:

I hear what you are saying – Auditory

This feels a little dumb – Kinesthetic

He was texting my best friend – Read/Write

I don’t see your point – Visual

We have a procedure on that – Read/ Write

Looks like I will see you at the meeting – Visual

That sounds easy to me – Auditory

He was experiencing a deep depression – Kinesthetic

Also, it is important to pay attention to a person’s actions and patterns.

When you tell them something, do they remember it? — Auditory

Or do they have to write it down? — Visual or Read/write

Can they learn from watching you do something? — Visual

When they have to learn something new, do they have to do it over and over until it finally “sticks? — Kinesthetic

The first order of business if you want to become a master of this technique is to determine what your own preferred channel of communication is. It may not be obvious to you, but if you simply go back and read some of your notes in your “sent” file, you will quickly determine your channel.

We all use all of the modalities in daily life. The trick is to determine which is used the most and your pattern of usage. Also, think of your learning style. Do you learn best by listening, watching, reading, or doing?

It may be different depending on the subject. Doing this type of self-analysis will help you understand how you communicate and learn as well, saving you time in the future.

The second step is to look for situations where the communication with a particular individual seems to be not as smooth as it should be (by the way, I just gave away my preferred channel by using the word “look.”)

If you can see (again, I give it away here) a potential problem, then pay attention to the specific phrases the individual is using. Once you determine his or her preferred channel, try flexing your normal mode to play into the way the other person receives information.

You will immediately see (once again) a huge improvement in the ability to communicate with this individual.

You can play this little game without the other person even knowing you are doing it. It’s kind of fun, but it does take time and practice before you will observe improvement. People can be complex in their approach to their world. Keep with it, and you will have great rewards.

This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on http://www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.

Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of four books: 1.The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals (2003), 2. Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online (2006), 3. Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind (2009), and 4. Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change (2014). In addition, he has authored over 500 articles and videos on various topics in leadership and trust. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at http://www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763

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Trust Lubricates

April 25, 2015

dripping oilI have been studying and writing about trust for over 30 years. Today as I was responding to a ping back in LinkedIn, I thought of an analogy that had never occurred to me.

Trust acts like a lubricant in that everything works better and runs more smoothly when trust is present.

I am a mechanical engineer by training, and I know how lubrication lowers the coefficient of friction which allows machines to run better and not overheat.

Let’s explore this metaphor and see how it applies to our everyday life. Here are six ways trust acts like a lubricant.

1. Trust makes communication work better

When people are at odds with one another, they often do a lot of talking but very little deep listening. As the differences of opinion, become more apparent, the tone and volume become more heated, just like a shaft would sound if the bearing had gone dry. The scraping and screeching will just get worse until the whole mechanism freezes up.

2. Trust smoothes the roughness

People are often not very kind to each other. We can be rather egocentric and usually think about what is best for number one. We can become abrasive like rough sand paper when other people advocate something that would not be optimal for us. Trust helps fill in the low spots and smoothes out the roughness so people can interface with less friction.

3. Trust helps us find win-win solutions

When we have a difference of opinion, we often dig in our heels, knowing that our perspective is the correct one. We all wear a button that says “I AM RIGHT.” Trust helps us see that there may be more than one legitimate way to look at an issue, so we have the opportunity to invent creative solutions that work better for both parties.

4. Trust keeps the temperature down

A major function of a lubricant is to lower temperature. The reason mechanical parts overheat without oil is that there is no way to dissipate the heat. Oil in a car engine allows the cylinders to continue their momentum without freezing up. Without oil, a car engine would overheat and seize up quickly, thus destroying the engine. With people, trust wicks off the overheating of emotions and allows people to disagree without being disagreeable.

5. Trust polishes relationships

The bond between people will be very strong and supportive when trust is present. Just as lubrication keeps the oxygen away from surfaces that could tarnish or rust, so trust keeps acrimony from destroying the love and affection people have for each other. When trust is high, personal relationships sparkle just like highly polished metal.

6. Trust acts as a preventive

In the stress of everyday pressures, it is easy to become inflamed or at least anxious. Trust is a kind of balm that soothes the nerves and allows people to be calm in stressful situations.

Knowing you have my back gives me more confidence that all will be well. Just as we use grease to prevent stored parts from rusting, we can use trust to keep us well mentally.

In any organization, if you have high trust, the entire organization is going to run smoothly like a finely crafted machine.

The trust provides all of the wonderful properties of a lubricant. Work to develop higher trust within your organization.

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Face to Face

February 7, 2015

Portrait of a young woman with beautiful hair and blue eyesWhen leaders work with teams, it is easier to grow and maintain trust when the teams are in the same location.

The ability to observe body language in face to face encounters makes communication rich and precise. Granted, people working in close quarters do have a propensity to drive each other crazy at times, but amid the squabbles, team rapport and association do develop.

Team cohesion and communication can be enhanced when people are in the same location.

Over the past four decades, organizations have become less centralized. It is a rare group that does not have some component or a sister group in a different location.

Groups that are spread out in different locations, even in just adjacent buildings, become polarized from each other easier and eventually identify with their geographical counterparts more than the people at the other location.

Does that mean that communication has to suffer? How does a leader effectively manage a virtual team and facilitate the ability of geographically separated teams to communicate well and build trust?

The decentralization trend has been counterbalanced by the rise of instant communication enabled by advances in software and electronic technology, especially the rectangular goodies we all carry.

Even though people are spread out all over the world, the ability to communicate to anyone on a moment’s notice means that communication could actually be superior to what we experienced a decade ago. But will it be?

The increased volume of messages may be offset by the problem of lack of face to face communication.

In an old study (circa 1965), Albert Mehrabian at UCLA tried to measure how much meaning we get when communicating face to face from 1) the words used, 2) the tone of voice, and 3) the facial expression.

His experiment was confined to communication about feelings or attitudes, but the results were that only about 7% of meaning comes from the words. The remaining 93% of meaning came from things that are not present in electronic texts or e-mails.

While there have been additional studies since the 1960’s, the general conclusion remains that the words represent only a small fraction of meaning when two people converse.

Unfortunately, words are all we have in e-mail, chats, or texts, except for those wonderful emoticons that can give a tiny sliver of what a true facial expression can convey.

Using texting technology as a substitute for face to face communication has tradeoffs that need to be understood and agreed upon.

As the younger generation refuses to look up from their devices even to glimpse the person sitting next to them, preferring to text rather than speak, the quality of communication may be lower in the future unless we specifically find ways to enrich the pattern with good quality face time.

Video chat and video meeting technology can be keys to regaining the personal touch in communicating between locations. Here the visual element can be preserved, and a permanent record kept of interactions.

Don’t forget the telephone! It adds the audio element, the tone of voice and emphasis that can tell us so much.

How can a leader effectively use technology to build trust and cohesion in a decentralized team environment?

• Clarify a strategy for how communication should be optimized for their particular team dynamic.

• Ensure all team members are trained to use all the different communication methods properly and have the proper equipment to use it easily.

• Have a well understood policy for when to use each type of communication. What sorts of communications need a permanent record? When is it important to be able to see a person, face to face? Some decisions are not clear cut, but it is important for the leader to teach the team what to consider when making the choice of how to communicate.

• Model the behavior you wish to see.

We have so many different types of communication available today. Use them wisely, and teach your teams to do the same to have more cohesive decentralized teams.

A resource you might find helpful is my friend Nancy Settle-Murphy, who writes a blog titled “Guided Insights.” If you are a leader trying to maximize communication in a virtual group, I highly recommend taking a look at her work. She often has creative and pragmatic advice to add to the things you may already know.

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