Observations on communication and leadership
By Mary
Today was one of those glorious fall days: painfully blue sky, colorful leaves clinging to the trees, and warm enough that jackets aren’t required. As I stepped outside with my morning coffee, I thought, “This is a gift and I’m grateful that today is Sunday.”
But like any other weekend, I had errands to run. So after a respectful amount of time in contemplation of the day, I set out to accomplish some retail goals. My first stop was a hair salon that sells my brand of color-protecting shampoo. As I handed the saleswoman $30, she simultaneously handed me my shampoo and said, “There you are … and your receipt.” I waited a split-second thinking she would thank me for dropping a ridiculous amount of money on shampoo, but she did not.
My next stop was Barnes & Noble where I purchased a 2012 calendar. Again, I handed the sales clerk cash and she responded with, “Have a good one.” This pattern continued at Macy’s, where I was given a bag of men’s clothing with, “Here you go.” Finally, at Eddie Bauer, a 30-something man said to me, “Thank you very much and I hope you have a wonderful day today, ma’am.”
Hallelujah! I could have done without the “ma’am,” but I gladly took the offer of thanks.
I recently heard a guest lecturer talk about research his firm conducted on what makes “admired leaders”. Specifically, admired leaders deliver performance and appreciation. That’s the key point: it’s not either/or.
Highly motivated employees deliver results, and motivation is delivered through consistent, authentic and appropriate appreciation. For example, giving concert tickets to a music fan, or football tickets to a sports fan shows you not only appreciate their word, but have taken the time to know what interests them.
Another key behavior is, of course, being present. And too often, customer-facing employees aren’t very present, looking past you to the next person in line. So I’m going to turn the other cheek and give it another try, this time thanking my retail brethren and see if I get a different response. After all, it is right to give thanks and praise … especially on Sunday.
By Mary
If you follow European soccer, you’re watching the UEFA Champion’s League tournament. And if you’re watching that, then you saw the semi-finals this past week between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. It was one for the archives for Barcelona’s Leo Messi, widely recognized as the world’s greatest player. He sealed the win scoring the only two goals of the match, all but ensuring a spot in the finals.
I’ve said for years that Messi is the poster child for employee engagement – both on and off the field. He never gives up, is unselfish with the ball, is a goal-scoring machine, and stays incredibly healthy.
Did I mention he scores a lot of goals? That’s what impact players do, they score goals.
And when a goal is scored, that player has the camera on him, which is the perfect opportunity to show who (or what) you hold dear. For example, Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo tells the world he’s No. 1 by raising his index finger, and Barcelona’s David Villa points to the name on the back of his jersey. Madrid’s Angel di Maria (a mesmerizing Argentinian striker whose name translates, appropriately, into Angel of Mary) runs to the camera and forms a heart with his hands and blows kisses to the fans. But Messi takes a more noble (and more frequent) route after he knocks a ball into the back of the net, kissing the team’s crest on his jersey.
Which begs the question: Is it better to pledge allegiance to oneself, one’s fans or one’s club? I think the answer lies in the results. And by that measure, it’s all Barcelona.
By Mary
At a recent off-site teambuilding event, a paid facilitator asked a group of 100 communicators to break into small groups to write (and perform) a 15- to 30-second commercial based on a word pulled from a hat, and incorporating props arbitrarily chosen from a bag. Oh, and we had 10 minutes to complete the assignment. Fun, right?
Luckily, the team I was assigned to quickly gelled around an approach, divvying up roles, jotting down parts and rehearsing. We were ready to go on.
As 18 groups performed their commercials, it became very apparent that shorter was better, and funny or unexpected was best. Which reminded me of a stretch of road I drive every day to work.
For nearly half a mile on 294 South near the Rockford interchange, I pass billboard after billboard lining both sides of the highway like a Siren song to commuters. With the topic of distracted driving so prevalent, I’m surprised no one’s mentioned billboard overload. But I digress.
As I was skimming the casino and health care ads last week, I noticed a white sign with big orange letters. It said, “Drive Safely.” Wondering what organization was behind this kind encouragement, I looked closer. And that’s when I saw it. I had mis-read the message; it actually said, “Drive Savely.” It was an ING ad. “Oh, that makes sense,” I thought to myself. “How clever.”
The good news for ING is that I spent more than a split second considering its billboard. And I guess if you’ve only got 15 seconds (or two seconds on the Tri-State), funny and unexpected work. Now if someone would advertise that the left lane is where the cars go fast, that would be great.
By Mary
I subscribe to something like 10 different magazines. Their titles range from Fast Company to Vanity Fair to Rolling Stone to This Old House. And while I recognize the value of printed, portable communication, it seems to me that the channel is protesting a bit too much. I know I’ve touched on this topic before, but it practically screams out for someone to put it in its place.
Time and again, I see advertisements inside magazines promoting their quaint connection to a simpler, more relaxing time. Their message is always the same: When push comes to shove, consumers would rather curl up with a magazine than sit at a computer reading the exact same content. One ad’s headline pleads, “This is not the Internet. Feel free to curl up and settle in.” Which made me laugh out loud since I fell asleep last night snuggling my iPad after a two-hour session on Facebook, YouTube (you know how addicting videos can be), Yahoo News and a couple of blogs.
This notion that the Internet is somehow a sterile, impersonal and short-transaction medium, is, well, dated. I have many relaxing evenings with my tablet. But to hear the magazines tell it, if you’re not flipping pages – literally – you’re a megabyte short of being a robot.
Because of this, it seems hypocritical that Vanity Fair has begun encouraging readers to go online to find complementary articles from the magazine’s archive. In the past, “the archive” was that stack of unread magazines either on your bedside nightstand or living room coffee table. Today, it’s the magazine’s Internet site that serves as the public library and bedside table rolled into one. Want to read all the articles Christopher Hitchens has written about his battle with cancer? It’s on the Internet. Want to re-read an article from 2003 on Weezer? Go to Rolling Stone’s Internet site.
Broadcast news has embraced its digital half-sister for years now, but it seems magazines are just getting into the act. The time has come for printed publications to embrace the possibilities of the Internet. Sure, there’s satisfaction to be derived from ripping and tearing pages out of In Style, but there’s also immense delight in finding an article (or articles) you’ve been searching for in that wonderful online archive. It’s the digital equivalent of scratching an itch. And by itch, I mean Weezer.
By Mary
A couple of years ago, I contracted Matthew Kelly to speak at a leadership conference my company was hosting. If you don’t know him, Kelly’s a published author and gifted speaker who motivates managers and leaders to think beyond the walls of business to help employees achieve goals.
In his book The Dream Manager, he uses the now-familiar style of a parable to tell one company’s story. Faced with rampant turnover and unmotivated workers, the organization needed to try something innovative to turn things around. The answer? Hire a Dream Manager to work with all levels of the organization to define personal goals (home ownership, college funding, overseas adoption, long-term care options, etc.) and then bring in experts to help educate, plan, activate and achieve. The end result was a workforce committed to the organization that provided these services.
Sounds like employee engagement, right? But that’s not the purpose of this post. Instead, I want to share what Kelly did for the team of 100 or so managers at the leadership conference.
For the better part of an hour, we each used a 79-cent spiral notebook and wrote down 12 headings: Physical, Emotional, Intellectual, Spiritual, Psychological, Material, Professional, Financial, Creative, Adventure, Legacy and Character. Then in 90-second spurts, we brainstormed every goal we could think of for each category. For example, under the Intellectual category, I wrote “read at least 20 books each year; learn Italian; write a screenplay; cooking school in Italy.” The next part of the exercise was to identify the time horizon for dream achievement, placing firm commitments on what we would do in the next three months, 12 months and five years.
As we finished the exercise we were asked to determine the value of the notebook. Was it still worth 79 cents? Or were our dreams much more valuable than that?
Food for thought.
By Mary
I like social media, but anything that encourages incremental behavior can be bad for you, too. Some people get really caught up in adding friends, viewing other peoples’ posts, commenting, gaming and posting their own thoughts. What was once a recreational hobby can quickly escalate into addiction. But what has really begun to freak me out is the type of information people communicate on Facebook.
Last week two “friends” (one is a woman I knew in high school and the other is a former co-worker) announced the deaths of family members on Facebook. I read both posts and wondered about the etiquette of expressing sympathy in the digital age. I found it ironic that friends would post remembrances or encouragement and other people would “like” their posts. Am I the only person who feels weird giving a “thumbs up” to a condolence note?
I chose to send messages to these women via the more private mail feature in Facebook, since I don’t know them well enough to have either their phone numbers or their email addresses. Which begs the question about appropriate channels of communication. If I had known the co-worker well, I would have called her or sent a card with some thoughts on mothers, life and the importance of keeping memories alive. But we now live in the age of social networking and it’s just faster and easier to use this channel for every type of news – births, career changes, marriages, vacation plans and, sadly, death.
And that makes me wonder about all those people who aren’t on Facebook … and trust me, they’re out there. If you use Facebook as your primary communication channel, how do you reach your friends and family who refuse to sign up? Some of my closest friends are not on Facebook by principle. My oldest brother isn’t there. My mom’s not on Facebook.
It reinforces the most basic principle of communication: know your target audience and use all necessary channels to reach them. And, yes, sometimes that’s as archaic as the phone or a letter. Just one more use of the phrase “different strokes for different folks.”
By Mary
It’s my favorite time of year … awards season. For me, the Academy Awards is bigger than the Super Bowl. I’m ashamed to admit that I love Joan Rivers’ recap of the fashion, Vanity Fair’s photos of the after-parties, and the buzz leading up to the hardware giveaway.
All this energy spent discussing films and the movie industry has me thinking about writing my own screenplay. I mean, how hard could it be? I just need a universal theme, a compelling opening, interesting characters and a well-structured plot, right?
Perhaps it’s a cliché, but screenwriting is a process I am eager to embrace. It’s also a process I’m totally unfamiliar with – full of jargon, traditions and networks.
But rather than worry about what I don’t know, I’ve decided to focus on what I do know. For example, I’ve learned that a “log line” is a 25-50 word summary that quickly outlines the story. For organizational communicators, it’s similar to an “elevator pitch,” which we use to briefly explain an issue and the solution. The concept being that you should be able to get your point across in the amount of time it takes to ride an elevator with someone. I’ve also learned that the best stories are told in three acts: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy makes something of himself … and finds a better girl. This story structure is as old as Aristotle, and is not dissimilar from what communicators use to format key messages: the problem, the actions taken, and the results achieved. Finally, it’s important to write for a global audience, and the key word here is action. Wordy movies don’t have universal appeal. Similarly, over-written communications are often glossed over or, worse, ignored.
If this is sounding a little too much like The Player, I agree. But you’ve got to admit it’s also exciting. Everyone’s got a great story in them and I’m eager to get mine on paper.
By Mary
Today we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. It’s an important day because at least once a year we are reminded of the power of words. Invariably, news programs re-run parts of Dr. King’s famous 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Given recent events in our country’s history, revisiting this powerful speech is especially timely.
Last week, President Barack Obama gave one of the most emotional speeches of his political career. It was a eulogy with a specific goal: to heal a nation. And while most every speech is a collaboration (presenter and writer working together to agree on the intended outcome and the examples and stories that will lead the audience to those outcomes), the success of any speech almost always comes down to delivery. And rhetoric.
Which makes me wonder about the recent outcry for politicians to “turn down the rhetoric.”
The word rhetoric has taken on negative meaning lately, which is misguided. Simply put, rhetoric is the art of using words to communicate effectively and persuasively. So when pundits urge us to “tone it down,” they are essentially asking us to write or speak less effectively. Is that what they want or what our country needs? Rhetorical speeches take the audience on a journey of discovery and meaning. A well-crafted presentation relies on word choice, style (repetition is often used) and memory. MLK Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech is perhaps one of the greatest demonstrations of rhetoric. Not only did he call on a nation to recognize the urgency of the moment, but painted a visual picture of the future.
I don’t know about you, but I think this world needs more rhetoric.
By Mary
Several years ago, I hired a woman straight out of college. She had a couple of impressive internships on her resume and I needed someone smart, ambitious and eager to learn. She worked for me for two years and then followed her boyfriend to California. A few months after she left, I got a call from a recruiter in the Bay Area asking for a reference. Seems my former employee was being considered for a director role at an industry association. When asked to provide specific insights, I cited the obvious things: she was conscientious, professional, empathetic and had good writing skills. And then the recruiter asked me what I thought could get in the way of her success. “Apart from the obvious?” I replied. That response was met with silence so I was forced to elaborate. “She’s only 24,” I said.
I realize people battle age discrimination every day, and I wasn’t suggesting she shouldn’t be hired because of her age. I was merely acknowledging one risk of the hiring decision. And, sure, there are 24-year-olds who have lived very interesting lives, but not many.
Turns out she got the job … and I was happy for her.
As someone securely in their “late forties,” I have experienced life, including the devastating impact of national tragedies, swift reversals of fortune, long rebuilding processes of corporate reputations, the impact that missing earnings expectations can have not only on your stock price, but on employee morale and customer confidence. And I’ve witnessed the power of authentic and consistent leadership.
Experience doesn’t just prepare you for the unexpected, it also gives you time to develop opinions rooted in fact. Here are a few things I have learned over the years:
• Don’t close your eyes on a treadmill … not even for a second
• It’s always better to be proactive during a crisis than to take a wait-and-see attitude
• Adolescents and teenagers aren’t the only ones who love technology
• Twitter (in 99 percent of cases) is a time waster
• There’s no such thing as being too educated
• Cars with manual transmissions are more fun to drive than automatics
• Diet and exercise will lead to weight loss (regardless of what Suzanne Somers says)
• South Park is consistently funnier than Family Guy
• Nobody wants to hear about your workouts
• A man is himself plus what he reads (OK that’s someone else’s quote, but I agree)
Just some food for thought.
By Mary
I’m the first to admit that, as a nation, we’re entirely too inwardly focused. In other words, America thinks it’s the center of the universe. Case in point: Our national pastime’s annual championship is called the World Series … even though the only teams playing in the World Series are from the United States (no offense, Canada). So when I quote statistics that are for the U.S., it doesn’t presume that these trends hold up in other countries or parts of the world. That said, the percentage of Americans who use Facebook, according to comScore, is 62 percent, which strikes me as incredible. To put that number into perspective, only 6 percent of Americans use LinkedIn and a mere 3 percent use Twitter.
Which makes me wonder why Facebook? Surely it’s the “social” aspect of the network that draws so many people. Or is it the ease and accessibility of the platform? And if nearly 170 million Americans are using Facebook, shouldn’t marketers and communicators be using this medium more strategically?
My former employer does a good job of engaging millions of people in social activism and brand excitement via Facebook. And more companies are identifying ways to capitalize on consumer loyalty using social networks. But there will come a time when people become de-sensitized to social media hype. For example, I was checking out at a small grocery store this weekend and the cashier’s screen encouraged me to “join the conversation” on Facebook. What conversation is that? I’m in there every week, is something else happening on Facebook that I’m missing out on?
The next frontier is engaging employees’ personal networks to promote corporate reputation, but organizations need some “sandbox covenants” as Charlene Li calls them. For example, is every employee allowed/encouraged to blog? If so, what are the rules? Microsoft had just two simple rules: 1) Remember the confidentiality agreement you signed when you joined; and 2) be smart.
I think 2011 is a great year for more companies to follow these trends and embrace social media. Yes, traffic drivers like online coupons and sales notifications are important. But the real power will be when we unleash the ambassadors alive and well inside every organization. All it takes is clear expectations and shared responsibility, including transparency, accessibility, authenticity and patience. Come to think about it, those are great rules to live by this year, too.
