Steven Covey had the right idea. There are discreet skills and attitudes, habits if you will, that can elevate your conflict practice to a new level. This article shares a selection of habits and attitudes that can transform a good conflict resolver into a highly effective one. By that I mean someone who facilitates productive, meaningful discussion between others that results in deeper self-awareness, mutual understanding and workable solutions.
I have used the term ‘conflict resolver’ intentionally to reienforce the idea that human resource professionals and managers are instrumental in ending disputes, regardless of whether they are also mediators. These conflict management techniques are life skills that are useful in whatever setting you find yourself. With these skills, you can create environments that are respectful, collaborative and conducive to problem-solving. And, you’ll teach your employees to be proactive, by modeling successful conflict management behaviors
Understand the Employee’s Needs
Since you’re the ‘go to person’ in your organization, it’s natural for you to jump right in to handle conflict. When an employee visits you to discuss a personality conflict, you assess a situation, determine the next steps and proceed until the problem is solved. But is that helpful?
When you take charge, the employee is relieved of his or her responsibility to find a solution. That leaves you to do the work around finding alternatives. And while you want to do what’s best for this person (and the organization), it’s important to ask what the employee wants first— whether it’s to vent, brainstorm solutions or get some coaching. Understand what the person entering your door wants by asking questions:
- · How can I be most helpful to you?
- · What are you hoping I will do?
- · What do you see my role as in this matter?
- Engage in Collaborative Listening
By now everyone has taken at least one active listening course so I won’t address the basic skills. Collaborative Listening takes those attending and discerning skills one step further. It recognizes that in listening each person has a job that supports the work of the other. The speaker’s job is to clearly express his or her thoughts, feelings and goals. The listener’s job is facilitating clarity; understanding and make the employee feel heard.
So what’s the difference? The distinction is acknowledgement. Your role is to help the employee gain a deeper understanding of her own interests and needs; to define concepts and words in a way that expresses her values (i.e. respect means something different to each one of us); and to make her feel acknowledged—someone sees things from her point of view.
Making an acknowledgement is tricky in corporate settings. Understandably, you want to help the employee but are mindful of the issues of corporate liability. You can acknowledge the employee even while safeguarding your company.
Simply put, acknowledgement does not mean agreement. It means letting the employee know that you can see how he got to his truth. It doesn’t mean taking sides with the employee or abandoning your corporate responsibilities. Acknowledgement can be the bridge across misperceptions. Engage in Collaborative Listening by:
- · Help the employee to explore and be clear about his interests and goals
- · Acknowledge her perspective
o I can see how you might see it that way.
o That must be difficult for you.
o I understand that you feel _______ about this.
- · Ask questions that probe for deeper understanding on both your parts:
o When you said x, what did you mean by that?
o If y happens, what’s significant about that for you?
o What am I missing in understanding this from your perspective?
- Be a Good Transmitter
Messages transmitted from one person to the next are very powerful. Sometimes people have to hear it ‘from the horse’s mouth’. Other times, you’ll have to be the transmitter of good thoughts and feelings. Pick up those ‘gems’, those positive messages that flow when employees feel safe and heard in mediation, and present them to the other employee. Your progress will improve.
We’re all human. You know how easy it is to hold a grudge, or assign blame. Sharing gems appropriately can help each employee begin to shift their perceptions of the situation, and more importantly, of each other. To deliver polished gems, try to:
- · Act soon after hearing the gem
- · Paraphrase accurately so the words aren’t distorted
- · Ask the listener if this is new information and if changes her stance
- · Avoid expecting the employees to visibly demonstrate a ‘shift in stance’ (it happens internally and on their timetable, not ours)
- Recognize Power
Power is a dominant factor in mediation that raises many questions: What is it? Who has it? How to do you balance power? Assumptions about who is the ‘powerful one’ are easy to make and sometimes wrong. Skillful conflict resolvers recognize power dynamics in conflicts and are mindful about how to authentically manage them. You can recognize power by being aware that:
- · Power is fluid and exchangeable
- · Employees possess power over the content and their process (think of employees concerns as the water flowing into and being held by the container)
- · Resolvers possess power over the mediation process ( their knowledge, wisdom, experience, and commitment form the container)
- · Your roles as an HR professional and resolver will have a significant impact on power dynamics
- Be Optimistic & Resilient
Agreeing to participate in mediation is an act of courage and hope. By participating, employees are conveying their belief in value of the relationship. They are also expressing their trust in you to be responsive to and supportive of our efforts. Employees may first communicate their anger, frustration, suffering, righteousness, regret, not their best hopes. You can inspire them to continue by being optimistic:
- · Be positive about your experiences with mediation
- · Hold their best wishes and hopes for the future
- · Encourage them to work towards their hopes
Be Resilient. Remember the last time you were stuck in a conflict? You probably replayed the conversation in your mind over and over, thinking about different endings and scolding yourself. Employees get stuck, too. In fact, employees can become so worn down and apathetic about their conflict, especially a long-standing dispute; they’d do anything to end it. Yes, even agree with each other prematurely. Don’t let them settle. Mediation is about each employee getting their interest met. Be resilient:
- · Be prepared to move yourself and the employees though productive and less productive cycles of the mediation
- · Help the employees see their movement and progress
- · Be mindful and appreciative of the hard work you all are doing
Hopefully, you’ve discovered that these are your own habits in one form or another and that your organization is benefiting from your knowledge. You can learn more about workplace mediation and mediation in general from these books and websites:
The Power of Mediation
Bringing Peace into the Room
Difficult Conversation: How to Say What Matters Most
http://www.ne-acr.org (The New England Association of Conflict Resolvers)
http://www.mediate.com (mediation portal site)
http://www.workwelltogether.com (conflict management toolkit)
“Mediation is based on a belief in the fundamental honesty of human beings. Which is another way of saying we all want to be treated justly – that is according to our unique situation and viewpoint on the world. And we cannot expect to be treated justly if we do not honestly reveal ourselves.” ~ the Honourable Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister 1937
Dina Beach Lynch, Esq. was formerly the Ombudsman for Fleet Bank and is currently CEO of WorkWellTogether.com, an online conflict management toolkit. Dina can be reached at Dina@workwelltogether.com
Ironic, isn’t it? Here we are, smack in the middle of the Information Age, discovering that our greatest advantages aren’t coming from what we know but rather from whom we know – and that the high achievers of today are not so much a product of superior expertise as they are a product of superior networks.
Not that it should have come as a surprise to those of us who study organizational behavior. Flattened hierarchies and virtual enterprises have increased workplace complexity while reducing institutional support. We’ve gone from relying on org charts to depending on social networks. So now, more than ever, successful professionals must leverage their relationships.
Which makes me wonder about the connection between personal networks and organizational change . . .
In the pursuit of “hard skill” competencies and formal strategies we may have failed to notice that the most effective change agents are those individuals who have placed themselves at the center of intricate webs of relationships. How to help employees build and maintain these unique relationships may be the most effective change-management “technique” a leader could learn.
The new business fundamentals include an increasing focus on knowledge, trust, relationships, and communities. And social networks – those ties among individuals that are based on mutual trust, shared work experiences, and common physical and virtual spaces are in many senses the true structure of today’s organizations. Anything you as a leader can do to nurture these mutually rewarding, complex and shifting relationships will enhance the creativity and readiness for change within your team or throughout your organization.
This is true because your team or organization is an example of a complex adaptive system. In the natural world, examples of complex adaptive systems include brains, immune systems, and ant colonies. In each of these systems there is a network of individual “agents” acting in concert. In a brain the agents are nerve cells, enzymes, etc.; in a corporation the agents are departments, functions, individuals. Each agent functions in an environment produced by its interactions with other agents in the system. The relationships among agents are the conduits for the intelligence of the system. The more access agents have to one another, the more possibilities arise for creating innovative solutions to challenges faced by the whole system – and (as a direct consequence) the more prepared the system is to anticipate and react to change.
But, in order to capitalize on the business potential in relationships between people, trust has to be established. Trusting is not a matter of blind deference, but of placing – or refusing to place – trust with good judgment. In what are called “dense” relationships, the strength of connection is such that trust is taken for granted. In newer, less dense relationships, trust must be built.
Trust is the belief or confidence that one party has in the reliability, integrity and honesty of another party. It is the expectation that the faith one places in someone else will be honored. Or at least that is the definition of trust in its “benevolence-based” form. Another type of trust, “competence-based,” describes a relationship in which one party believes another to be knowledgeable about a given subject. When building personal networks, both types of trust are essential. People have to believe that you know what you’re talking about, that you have accurate information and expertise, but they also have to believe that you’re taking their perspectives and concerns to heart.
Another ingredient of trusting relationships is consistent credibility. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that you can talk until you’re blue in the face, but you will never create trust unless your sustained behavior parallels what you say. That’s why building trust can take so long. People are waiting to see a long-term, consistent pattern of behavior that is congruent with what you’ve been telling them.
High-trust relationships are also very personal. Beyond the obvious link of work-related issues, we develop relationships through finding things in common: loving the same music, rooting for the same team, having children in same school, liking the same kind of food, or playing the same sport. And sometimes a leader has to create experiences that enable individuals to get to know one another as fellow human beings.
A story I often tell in my Creative Collaboration program is about Jeff Garbin, whose first management assignment was to help facilitate John Deere’s change from the “cell concept” of manufacturing in which employees merely performed one or two operations on a component before passing it on to the next cell to a “modular production system” in which all employees working on a given component would share equal responsibility for the finished product.
Along with the other new module leaders at Deere, it was Garbin’s job to help his employees through the transition – and he had inherited a problem. In Garbin’s words: “We had ten people working the early shift and five on the late one. There were people on the two shifts who had never spoken to one another before. They didn’t know each other, they came from different manufacturing disciplines and they had a reputation for not getting along. I had to build some kind of relationship between the two shifts – and I had to do it quickly. What I thought of was pretty simple, but it turned out to be very effective. I got everyone together in a room for a couple of hours, with no limits on what they were to discuss, except that it couldn’t be business-related. That was the beginning. Within three months, people started coming in early or staying late just so that they could talk with people on the other shift about what was happening at work.”
Another issue leaders should be aware of is motive. Ron Burt, of the University of Chicago, discovered through numerous studies that certain patterns of connections that individuals build with others brings them higher pay, earlier promotions, greater influence, better ideas, and overall greater career success. But the MIT study found that high-performers didn’t develop and maintain these networks because it was “political” or self-serving – but rather because it was a natural consequence of the most effective way to get work done. And the connections made with others worked in ways that were mutual and reciprocal.
I’m not saying that leaders should throw out all formal change-management strategies. But I am suggesting that leaders should understand that the social side of change – which includes building personal networks and developing trusting relationships – might prove to be the most powerful strategy of all.
- Be aware of your biases. Your preconceived notions and attitudes often prevent you from hearing opposing facts/views. We hear things as we expect them to be. We often dismiss – or do not hear – statements that do not fit our belief system and values.
- Let the other person talk until they have finished. Be willing to take the time to listen. This is hard for some people at first. Just slow down, take a deep breath and wait for the other to say what they need to say completely.
- Look at the other person.
- Stop doing what you are doing. Eliminate distractions. In one of my listening workshops a young man said that when his mother phones him she asks if he is watching television. If he is, she asks him to turn it off so they can talk. Stop watching and using the computer, too. Effective listening requires your full attention on the speaker. It is impossible to multi-task and be fully involved in listening.
Leadership is caring. It’s about remembering what’s going on in the lives of those following you. Have they lost a parent? Did they just buy a new house? Are they going through a divorce?
Leadership is common sense. You can implement all the strategies, tactics, programs, and processes you want. But, when it comes down to it, people only really follow someone they believe in, and who they believe also believes in them. Leadership shows up in the day-to-day stuff, in the way leaders make decisions, remind others about what’s important, and have the ability to stay calm in chaos and shake things up when it gets too calm.
Leadership is courage. It’s lonely. It’s about taking the boulder on your shoulders, making decisions, and then moving. It’s about getting those following you to continue to do so. And, when it gets tough, when it gets down-and-dirty rough, that’s when you’ll prove you’re a leader, or just someone with lots of leadership books on their shelf.
Leadership is commitment. You will never give up. Never. Sure, some adjustments may be needed. After all, you’re not a seer, though you do tend to see past the hills and around the next bend. You know the path, even with your eyes closed. Especially with your eyes closed.
And each of these things – caring, common sense, courage and commitment – sends a message to those who follow you. In all, these things let them know you’re worth following.
And trusting.
Jim Warda
Maybe that’s because we’re trying too hard to formalize it. A recent MIT study found that 80 percent of the breakthrough innovations in products and services did not occur in training sessions or formal meetings. Rather, dynamic innovation was almost always the result of informal (even chance) encounters.
I help organizations find innovative solutions to business challenges. I’ve consulted with clients in the public and private sectors to develop collaborative meetings utilizing creative techniques for idea generation – and the results have been impressive. So I know the power of well-structured interaction to revitalize a group’s ability to think creatively.
But 80 percent! There’s a statistic that’s hard to ignore. And it isn’t only MIT’s finding. Steve Jobs put it this way: “At Apple, innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem.” In other words, innovation is less a product of structured processes and more a result of informal conversations.
Here’s an example of the results that can come from the cross-pollination of ideas: Two researchers at Hewlett-Packard were good friends. Sally worked in the life sciences area and Laurie was in the printing technology group. Both were part of the central research labs. At the time, H-P was looking at producing the print head nozzles for its inkjet printer through a process called laser ablation. This is a highly controlled process in which a high-energy laser vaporizes the plastic substrate to create a little hole.
Laurie told Sally about the project and she in turn mentioned it to Patrick, a colleague working in the R&D division for Hewlett-Packard in Germany. The three researchers started wondering if this same process could be used in life sciences to create microfluidic structures.
That was the beginning of over a decade’s investment – first by Hewlett-Packard and currently by Agilent (following a 1999 spin-off from H-P). And now Agilent has the world’s leading technology in ablation-based microfluidics for chemical and biochemical analysis.
How about your company – your agency – your association? Had any good conversations lately?
Obviously, it helps to have the right kind of culture in place for innovation to flourish – but creative conversations don’t happen because of a CEO mandate or a task force charter. Instead, they emerge organically in organizations as a byproduct of routine interpersonal interaction.
Creative synergies are often facilitated by employees with multiple networks throughout the organization. Friendships bring trust, inviting an even deeper level of communication. Importantly in the H-P example, Sally was able to connect to both Patrick and Laurie (who didn’t otherwise know one another) and all three people were essential to the project’s early success.
What to dramatically increase your organization’s “creativity quotient?” It may be simpler than we thought. IBM’s knowledge management guru, Larry Pruzak, says the key to knowledge sharing and innovation is to “hire great people and let them talk.” Social networks, personal relationships, people with connections across divisional boundaries – this is the real foundation for breakthrough innovation.
The grapevine – Webster’s “informal person-to-person means of circulating information or gossip” – is the unsanctioned communication network found in every organization. In my recent research, based on responses from more than 800 individuals in a wide variety of companies and industry, I learned just how the grapevine compares with more formal sources of organizational information.
I’ll share some thoughts on how communicators can harness the power of the grapevine. But first, let me share what I heard from some of those 837 individuals about how the grapevine poses a significant challenge for senior management – and for the formal communication channels employed by today’s communicators.
I asked, for example, if there were big differences in the message delivered in a speech from a company leader or the one heard over the grapevine, which would you tend to believe. Some 47% said they would put more credence in the grapevine. Another 11% would believe a blend of elements from both messages, meaning only 42% would believe senior leadership.
Leaders are “too PC” and “too positive,” I was told. “Senior leadership’s ‘advertising’ statements are not always trustworthy,” and “I tend to discount official speeches – they’re too carefully crafted. I prefer the truth.” Also: “Too often they paint a picture of Utopia. What world are they in?”
One individual had her own formula. “If senior leaders don’t trust you or aren’t confident enough to let you in, only believe 70% of what is said and get the other 30% from the grapevine so you’ll be prepared.”
I also asked which you would tend to believe if there were big differences in a message delivered in an official newsletter (online or print) or the grapevine. This time the majority (51%) favored the newsletter, with only 40% putting more faith in the grapevine. Putting something in writing, it seems, tends to carry more weight than the spoken word.
“This,” I was told, “is the official word everyone waits for. When something is in writing, it is likely to be quoted and displayed as evidence. At least here there is a paper trail.” On the other hand, there was the concern that “online or print means it’s already been filtered to be PC in the corporate culture. I don’t believe it.” And one caution to editors everywhere: “I believe what the newsletter says, except for those pictures of smiling employees. I’ve never seen any of them!”
I wanted to see how much of a credibility gap there was in message delivered over the grapevine vs. those heard directly from a direct supervisor. Not surprisingly, 74% told me they would believe their supervisor. But – everything depends on the relationship employees have with their supervisors. “I’d trust my current supervisor,” said one individual. “My old supervisor, no.”
People tended to give supervisors higher marks because of the more personal relationship that often exists. Said one individual, “I would believe my supervisor if I could also challenge him. Since your boss can fire you he should also be able to answer all your questions.”
I also wanted to know whether you would believe the grapevine or your most trusted co-worker if there were big differences in the messages from each. Personal relationships were again a crucial factor, with 89% reporting they would believe their co-worker. Here again, trust was the key, as with the individual who replied, “I don’t gossip with co-workers I don’t trust.”
So much for whom you believe. When all is said and done, it comes down to accuracy, which led me to ask people just how accurate they have found the grapevine?
Fifty-seven percent gave it favorable ratings. They supported their response with such comments as “Management communication usually confirms what the grapevine already knows,” and “The grapevine may not be wholly accurate, but it is a very reliable indicator that something is going on,” and “I believe the grapevine, but I validate it by checking versions from multiple sources.”
On the other hand, how did people rate the accuracy of formal communication? Given the tendency cited earlier to believe what they saw in writing, 67% had a favorable response to the accuracy of formal communication.
Communicators can take heart in hearing, for example, that “Formal communication is generally always accurate. There are seldom any mistakes in it, and people spend a long time crafting messages. But belief or trust in a message is based not just on accuracy. It also factors in completeness, disclosure, transparency, perceived intent, durability of the information, and of course, interpretation. Not to mention perceptions about and experiences with the sender. I think the mantra for today is ‘Trust, but verify.'”
As with all of the questions, there was a small percentage of people who indicated that they believed a “blend” of what they heard, rather than choose from among the formal communication channel and the grapevine. This, of course, is what really happens most of the time, which makes it incumbent for communicators to find ways to provide both formal and informal channels for their messages.
One individual reinforced this idea by noting that “Both channels have elements of truth that need to be synthesized.” Said another: “The grapevine is distorted, the formal is edited, and the truth lies between.” And a third: “Formal communication doesn’t tell the whole story. The grapevine has all the gory details.”
Others indicated that the nature of the message was important in deciding which source to believe more. “If the message relates to major changes and controversial issues,” said one individual, “the grapevine has more credibility. In the case of small and administrative changes, the formal methods are reliable. It’s all about skepticism.”
Another individual echoed a similar belief: “For information of a general nature (financial results, product news, etc.), I trust the formal channels. However, if the news relates to an ongoing investigation, regulatory action or product crisis – then I tend to believe the grapevine.”
Employees do, indeed, tend to believe the grapevine – an inevitable part of organizational life, a communication channel very much alive within organizations but not sanctioned by them, a natural (and healthy) consequence of people interacting.
Research suggests that up to 70% of all organization communication comes through the grapevine, yet many senior leaders are unaware that it exists or how it operates. One study, in fact, found that while 92% of lower-level managers knew the grapevine was active, only 70% of upper-level managers knew about it. In the same study, 88% of supervisors said they understood that the absence of formal communication increased activity through informal channels – but only 54% of executives understood this correlation.
Even with those numbers, one challenge today is for management to avoid overestimating the grapevine’s potential. As one of my interviewees explained, “A recent organizational change came as a complete shock. Senior leadership believed that the grapevine was more active than it really was – and that we would have some advance warning as a result of that activity.”
Research also finds that 80% of organizational rumor proves to be true. There may be a need for more research here, since this seems incredibly high, given what we know about how information gets distorted. Remember the child’s game of “telephone,” for example, where a whispered message is whispered and changes along the way from child to child.
But even if that figure is accurate – even if the rumor mill were 90% accurate – that small percentage of distorted or fabricated information can be devastating. And, remember, the grapevine is not responsible for errors.
Regardless of its accuracy, of whether it’s underestimated or overestimated, the grapevine cannot be eliminated or uprooted. You can’t kill it. You can’t stop it. But you can learn to understand it – and ideally even influence it. Here are some conditions when you can expect the rumor mill to kick into high gear:
1. When there is a lack of formal communication.
2. When the situation is ambiguous or uncertain.
3. When employees feel threatened, insecure, and highly stressed.
4. When there is an impending large-scale change.
5. When the subject matter is of importance to employees.
I think this response from my survey sums it up perfectly: “Formal communication focuses on messages the company wants to deliver, with a scope management feels is appropriate, and at a time management feels is right. The reason the grapevine plays such an important role is that it delivers the information employees care about, provides the details employees think they should know, and is delivered at the time employees are interested.”
The knowledge economy operates on the complexities of connections and networks. Companies are a combination of formal hierarchy and informal networks, but most communication strategies take into account only the formal organization. (Cascade communication is a classic example of “rolling out” a message from top to bottom of the organization chart.)
We will always need authentic speeches from senior leaders, well-written and well-researched articles in newsletters, and first-line supervisors who are first-rate communicators. It’s just that none of these strategies was created to deal with the complex web of social interactions and informal networks that grace today’s organizations.
In many of them, the grapevine is the major informal communication medium. It is a naturally occurring force. The question becomes: How do we tap into that force?
Malcolm Gladwell showed us one place to start in The Tipping Point: “If your want effective, sustainable communication in an organization, you need to reach a tiny minority of exceptional individuals who are responsible for the majority of the dialogue.”
His recommendation is keyed to the reality that gossip moves through groups that are split into factions (like separate departments and divisions) through people who gravitate into an intermediate position, making connections between the factions. They control the gossip flow and hold a lot of power.
Influencing the grapevine, then, begins with identifying “the influentials” who operate within it. Use a tool like Social Network Analysis to create a visual map of the informal organization and see who and where your connectors are. Find out about their attitudes toward the company, inform them in advance, train them to be even more skillful communicators, solicit their opinions. And ask their advice.
In conducting my research, there was no doubt as to which communication vehicle is the quickest. Some 99% chose the grapevine, which means that communicators are not going to be able to beat it to the punch. The challenge, instead, is to understand how the grapevine works within your organization – and how you can influence it.
Mission statements don’t have to be dumb. In fact, they can be very valuable, if they articulate real targets. The first thing I’d do is forget the exact words and remember the reason for a statement in the first place. In 2006, Wilson Learning surveyed 25,000 employees from the finance and tech industries. Respondents said they wanted a leader who could “convey clearly what the work unit is trying to do.” The same applies to mission state-ments, which set the tone. Employees, vendors, and clients don’t get stoked by fuzzy mission statements. They will line up behind concrete goals.
Email Nancy Lublin, the CEO of Do Something, with your nominees for best and worst mission statement.
Once I was trying to fix a toilet and water began to blast upward from a fitting. The building Super, who was watching me, commented, “You know the difference between a professional plumber and an amateur?”
“No,” I said, frantically searching for a towel.
“The professional makes as many mistakes as the amateur,” he said, swinging a wrench onto the main valve and closing off the fountain, “The difference is, a professional fixes them faster.”
We started this project about four years ago, and what this book is all about is about an organization that is full of conversation. If you think about what organization is all about, it’s just basically a bunch of conversations that are happening at the same time. And what leaders do to facilitate the conversations that actually produce value, and actually engage employees, is that what distinguished some of the best corporations that we studied.
So if you think about what makes conversations among friends to be really productive is that it has all the attributes. It’s interactive. It’s intimate. It’s inclusive. It’s actually intentional. And if you think about it, when you place that conversation inside organizations, many of those great attributes actually disappear.
So the book is, how do you actually have productive conversations in an organization? And the reason why it’s actually more important now in the 21st century than before is that, if you think about what’s going on around us, we’re a knowledge-based economy. Our source of competitive advantage are actually people who are working for us, working for our corporation. And the more engaged they are, the more productive they’re going to be.
So I think having right conversations [INAUDIBLE] 21st century is more important than 20 or 25 years ago. I think the speed of change, how industries are changing, how products are changing, is much, much faster than it used to be. So staying close to customers, staying close to your employees, that’s becoming more and more important.
Many companies nowadays are global companies, so you actually have to not only engage employees here locally, but you have to engage them across the board. And so communication, being able to be in touch with employees, is becoming more and more important.
An interview with Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind, authors of Talk, Inc.: How Trusted Leaders Use Conversation to Power Their Organizations. For more, read the article Leadership Is a Conversation.
Distilled Wisdom: A company’s competitive advantage is a combination of the potential of its people, the quality of the information that people possess, and the ability to share that knowledge with others in the organization. During transformation, leadership’s primary challenge is to link these components as tightly as possible. |
Patrick, the baby of my extended family, started kindergarten last week. As a graduate of pre-school, we thought he’d be right at home in his new class. But after the very first day, he firmly announced that he wouldn’t be going back to school. When questioned about this decision, he admitted that the teacher was nice enough, and all his friends were glad to see him, but (and to Patrick, this was the deal breaker) there was no naptime.
No naptime! In Patrick’s school, 5-year olds are being asked to “pay attention” from 8 am to 3 pm without an opportunity to rest and recharge. Have we learned nothing about educating young children?
Which started me thinking about my work . . .
I’ve spent the past twenty years helping individuals and organizations thrive on change. Yet, recently, I’ve seen leaders making some of the same mistakes I noticed two decades ago. Have we learned nothing about managing change?
I don’t mean to minimize the complexity and chaos that leaders are facing. Rapidly changing technologies make yesterday’s choices obsolete. The turbulent economy increases pressure to “do more with less.” Companies rely on a shifting stream of alliances – competitors one day and partners the next – and sometimes both at the same time. Corporate reorganizing is becoming an annual affair. Mergers and acquisitions are on the rise. Customers are demanding “better, faster, cheaper” everything. Competition is fierce. The pace of change is accelerating. And employees are increasingly skeptical about committing to business strategies that are constantly being redefined.
Yet this is our reality – and in this world, leadership success belongs to those who can keep a work force resilient, positive, and engaged while dealing with the tsunami of change that is turning our organizations upside down. Here are the most common mistakes leaders make managing large-scale organizational change and the lessons we need to reinforce.
Mistake: Not understanding the importance of people. As high as 75 percent of all major restructuring fails, not because of faulty strategy, but because of problems with the “human dimension.” After years of research studies and statistics, we know this for a fact. And yet, as recent as last month, a vice president facing the transformation of her department asked me if she really had to include her employees in planning for the change.
Lesson: Organizations don’t change. People do . . . or they don’t. If employees don’t trust leadership, don’t share the organization’s vision, don’t understand the reason for change, and aren’t included in the planning, there will be no successful change regardless of how valid the need or how brilliant the strategy.
Mistake: Neglecting the emotional side of change. Transformation requires a redefinition of who we are and what we do. It’s often unpredictable (responding to unforeseen circumstance) and unnerving (requiring employees and businesses to reinvent themselves while they are at the top of their game). It can twist people’s past success into their greatest obstacle for the future. It’s highly emotional.
Lesson: To lead an organization (or a department or a team) through transformation, it is not enough just to appeal to people’s logic, you also have to touch them emotionally. Change leadership is about creating meaning. Employees need to be engaged by a vision of the future, and to be inspired to execute that vision. This takes leaders with a deep understanding of human emotion, who can see the power of intangibles and can capture the imagination of an entire work force in the pictures they paint and the stories they tell.
Mistake: Not being candid. Under the rationale of protecting people, leaders present change with a too positive “spin.” And the more they “sugar-coat” the truth, the wider the trust gap grows between management and workers. Organizational communicators, perceived as the purveyors of corporate propaganda, lose credibility as well.
Lesson: Honest communication goes beyond simply telling the truth when it’s advantageous. It requires an unprecedented openness and transparency: a proactive, even aggressive, sharing of everything – financials, strategy, business opportunities, risks, failures. People need pertinent information about demographic, global, economic, technological, competitive, and industry trends. They need to understand the economic reality of the business and how their actions impact that reality.
Mistake: Defining “change communication” as what employees hear or read from officially sanctioned sources. Reflecting this belief, leaders focus most of their attention on traditional communication vehicles — speeches, newsletters, videos, intranets, email, etc. Yet, from the employees’ perspective, traditional communication accounts for only ten percent of what convinces them to change.
Lesson: The most powerful change communication, accounting for 90 percent of what impacts a work force, is divided evenly between organizational structure (whatever punishes or rewards) and leadership behavior. Rhetoric without congruent action quickly disintegrates into empty slogans. A communication strategy that is not aligned with organizational systems and the actions of leaders is useless.
Mistake: Trying to lead change with command and control tactics. In a command and control culture, only top executives are expected to solve problems, make decisions, and set the change agenda. Such a limited view not only places an enormous burden on senior management to come up with all the answers, it also restricts the contributions of the rest of the organization and widens the division between them and us.
Lesson: A company’s competitive advantage is a combination of the potential of its people, the quality of the information that people possess, and the ability to share that knowledge with others in the organization. During transformation, leadership’s primary challenge is to link these components as tightly as possible. The most successful change strategies are highly collaborative. Developed in participative sessions, these strategies capitalize on the wisdom, experience, and creativity of employees throughout the organization.
In today’s “knowledge work” — with its reliance on project teams and cross-functional collaboration — leadership in peer relationships is becoming increasingly important. As the guidance of team efforts tends to shift to whomever has the needed information or expertise, more people in the organization must be able to lead through influence, rather than relying on the control (or at least the illusion of control) that management position implies.
Punishes failure Encourages and analyzes failure
Step 4: Observe Nonverbal Cues
“Keep your eyes on the ball.” It’s an expression used in sports and often applied to business, but when it comes to interpersonal relationships, it’s essential to keep your eyes on the individual you are conversing with in order to discern the many nonverbal messages we constantly send to others. However, this does not mean that you should gaze unceasingly at the other person–that could feel invasive–but if you maintain softness in your eyes, generated by a pleasant memory, the other person won’t want to take their eyes off you!
Eye contact stimulates the social-network circuits in your brain. It decreases the stress chemical cortisol, and it increases oxytocin, a neurochemical that enhances empathy, social cooperation, and positive communication.
Step 5: Speak Briefly
Compassionate communication has a basic rule: whenever possible, limit your speaking to thirty seconds or less. And if you need to communicate something essential to the listener, break your information into even smaller segments–a sentence or two–then wait for the person to acknowledge that they’ve understood you.
It’s a hard concept to embrace. Why? The best reason we know of is that our busy minds have not been able to clearly formulate the essence of what we want to convey, so we babble on, externalizing the flow of information generated by our inner speech.
Our conscious minds can only retain a tiny bit of information, and for thirty seconds or less. Then it’s booted out of working memory as a new set of information is uploaded. Our solution: honor the golden rule of consciousness and say only a sentence or two. Then pause and take a small deep breath, to relax. If the other person remains silent, say another sentence or two, and then pause again. This allows the other person to join in whenever they feel the need to respond or to ask for clarification. If you must speak for a longer period of time, forewarn the listener. This will encourage them to pay closer attention to you and to ignore their own intrusive inner speech.
Step 6: Listen Deeply
To listen deeply and fully, you must train your mind to stay focused on the person who is speaking: their words, tone, gestures, facial cues–everything. It’s a great gift to give to someone, since to be fully listened to and understood by others is the most commonly cited deep relationship or communication value.
When the other person pauses–and hopefully they’ll have enough self-awareness not to ramble on and on–you’ll need to respond specifically to what they just said. If you shift the conversation to what you were previously saying, or to a different topic, it will interrupt the neurological “coherence” between the two of you, and the flow of your dialogue will be broken.
When practicing compassionate communication, there’s usually no need to interrupt. If the other person doesn’t stop talking, they may be giving you an important clue. Perhaps their mind is preoccupied, or perhaps they are deeply caught up in their own feelings and thoughts. If this is the case, it’s unlikely that they will be able to listen deeply to what you want to say.
As summer arrives you may you’re the one who gets burned when planning summer vacation schedules. See what you can do to prevent fighting over those prime dates like Memorial Day.
Everyone loves summer, especially employees who are looking forward to their summer vacation. The problem is that everyone wants to go on vacation at the same time. You know, Memorial Day, Labor Day and the 4th of July. Or, they want time in August to get the kids ready for school. And, not everyone can be accomodated. Here are five strategies that will make your summer planning like a day at the beach:
- Do the Work-Flow Planning. Examining the work-flow, or knowing the busiest times for your business, is critical both as you develop the policy, and, later, as you begin to consider requests. The more you know, the more you’ll be able to anticipate problems and spend time finding creative solutions.
- Create a Vacation Policy Set a policy for employees to follow when asking for a vacation, that examines when you need your staff the most, what your criteria is for selecting schedules and includes any exceptions. One of the biggest employee complaints is perceived favoritism. Be specific and fair. In fact, if you really want to get your employee’s buy-in, ask them for feedback as you develop the policy.
- Communicate your Vacation Policy. To paraphrase an old saying, communicate your policy ‘early and often’. Let employees know and ask questions about the policy early long before summer arrives. That way they will have time to adjust their plans if necessary. Present a written policy and discuss it at your next meeting.Repeat or reference the policy often to avoid misunderstanding(you know people rarely pay attention the first time.)
- Schedule a vacation request period. That way everyone has an equal shot of getting their prefered time.
- Look for creative solutions. So everyone wants to be gone for the last two weeks of July and you can’t do it. Be creative. Offer a special bonus for those who volunteer to postpone or switch their vacation. Expand the lunch hour. Buy lunch more often. Just make sure you have some options that let people really enjoy the laid-back summer vibe.
Think your shop is too small to fight over vacation scheduling? Think again. It’s even more important to plan for a small shop where everybody wheres multiple hats. Follow these strategies and this summer you’ll have it made in the shade.
At the root of every seemingly technical problem is a human problem. Five Whys provides an opportunity to discover what that human problem might be. Taiichi Ohno gives the following example:
When confronted with a problem, have you ever stopped and asked why five times? It is difficult to do even though it sounds easy. For example, suppose a machine stopped functioning:
- 1. Why did the machine stop? (There was an overload and the fuse blew.)
- 2. Why was there an overload? (The bearing was not sufficiently lubricated.)
- 3. Why was it not lubricated sufficiently? (The lubrication pump was not pumping sufficiently.)
- 4. Why was it not pumping sufficiently? (The shaft of the pump was worn and rattling.)
- 5. Why was the shaft worn out? (There was no strainer attached and metal scrap got in.)
Repeating “why” five times, like this, can help uncover the root problem and correct it. If this procedure were not carried through, one might simply replace the fuse or the pump shaft. In that case, the problem would recur within a few months. The Toyota production system has been built on the practice and evolution of this scientific approach. By asking and answering “why” five times, we can get to the real cause of the problem, which is often hidden behind more obvious symptoms.
… if I were hiring a “Universal PR professional” to guide strategic communications in 2013 and beyond, here are some of my best practice tips to shape that PR person’s role:
- Be proactive and don’t wait to be asked. Today, we are looking for people who will raise their hands to get involved. For example, with the development of a social media policy, training initiatives and governance (new responsibilities that require PR to participate). You should never wait for someone to give you the assignment, especially if you identify an area in your department or company that needs support. Propose new ideas, do the research, and offer your assistance. The initiative you take will make you stand out among all the rest.
- Start with good communication on the inside. Take the time to discover how to be more efficient and productive with your teams. Make suggestions beyond simply using email communication on how to finish your projects on time and under budget. Use social collaboration tools on the inside of your company for better internal communications and then take the time to educate your peers on new ways to work together to increase overall productivity.
- Test technology … always. Don’t be behind the curve, instead stay ahead for advancement. Be ready to answer those leadership questions asking “why” and “how” your brand should participate in new social communities. Take the time to “Tech Test” in different areas including collaborative platforms, applications, monitoring software, influence tools, etc., which will make you a more valuable asset to your organization.
- Listen to be heard and to be relevant. Gathering customer intelligence is the best way to internalize information and then use it to communicate with meaning, through offline and new media channels. Since I started in PR, I was always told to listen first to solve problems. This is much more apparent today, as a result of social media. By truly “listening,” we can help people and build stronger relationships with our constituents.
- You are always on! Social media doesn’t sleep, so your organization’s readiness is key. Creating the social media crisis plan (integrated into an overall crisis plan) requires knowledge and skills. It’s imperative for you to build a system that catches negative sentiment early on before it escalates, and to put processes and people in place for different levels of escalation through new media
Read full article by Deirdre Breakenridge on PR 2.0 Strategies
With his team, Saku Tuominen, founder and creative director at the Idealist Group in Finland, interviewed and followed 1,500 workers at Finnish and global firms to study how people feel and respond to issues in the workplace. Tuominen’s findings are easy to understand — 40 percent of those surveyed said their inboxes are out of control, 60 percent noted that they attend too many meetings, and 70 percent don’t plan their weeks in advance. Overall, employees said they lacked a sense of meaning, control, and achievement in the workplace. Sound familiar?
Based on the study and the insights of Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School, Tuominen recommends new approaches to changing our work processes that all tap into our unconscious:
- Think about one question/idea that needs insight and keep this thought in your subconscious mind.
- Clear your conscious mind by using this two-step system: move your thought(s) from your mind to a list and then clear your list when you have a short break (if your meeting is canceled, for instance, or your flight is delayed).
- Plan your week and month by listing three priorities you would like to accomplish.
- Make certain you have at least four consecutive, uninterrupted hours a day dedicated to the three priorities you identified.
This last point is key. Tuominen deduced that if you can schedule four hours with continuous flow and concentration, you could accomplish a lot and improve the quality of your thinking. As Tuominen aptly states, “you can’t manage people if you can’t manage yourself.”
7. Spend time with time wasters.
The classic business plan imposes efficiency on an inefficient market. Where there is waste, there is opportunity. Dispatch the engineers, route around the problem, and boom—opportunity seized.
That’s a great way to make money, but it’s not necessarily a way to find the future. A better signal, perhaps, is to look at where people—individuals—are being consciously, deliberately, enthusiastically inefficient. In other words, where are they spending their precious time doing something that they don’t have to do? Where are they fiddling with tools, coining new lingo, swapping new techniques? That’s where culture is created. The classic example, of course, is the Homebrew Computer Club—the group of Silicon Valley hobbyists who traded circuits and advice in the 1970s, long before the actual utility of personal computers was evident. Out of this hacker collective grew the first portable PC and, most famously, Apple itself.
This same phenomenon—people playing—has spurred various industries, from videogames (thank you, game modders) to the social web (thank you, oversharers). Today, inspired dissipation is everywhere. The maker movement is merging bits with atoms, combining new tools (3-D printing) with old ones (soldering irons). The DIY bio crowd is using off-the-shelf techniques and bargain-basement lab equipment, along with a dose of PhD know-how, to put biology into garage lab experiments. And the Quantified Self movement is no longer just Bay Area self-tracking geeks. It has exploded into a worldwide phenomenon, as millions of people turn their daily lives into measurable experiments.
The phenomenon of hackathons, meanwhile, converts free time into a development platform. Hackathons harness the natural enthusiasm of code junkies, aim it at a target, and create a partylike competition atmosphere to make innovation fun. (And increasingly hackathons are drawing folks other than coders.) No doubt there will be more such eruptions of excitement, as the tools become easier, cheaper, and more available.
These rules don’t create the future, and they don’t guarantee success for those who use them. But they do give us a glimpse around the corner, a way to recognize that in this idea or that person, there might be something big.
I frequently post what my University of Maryland University College Students think are some of the better PR campaigns out there. Here are some nominees from my Fall 2006 class.
Cecelia McRobie likes the GE Ecomagination Challenge. She writes, “I do feel that is it a best practice based on its message, audience and purpose. The Ecomagination Challenge is a contest for college students. General Electric is asking students to submit ideas that would make their schools more environmentally responsible. The winner receives a $25,000 grant to complete the project, plus MTV will perform a concert at the winner’s school. Visit:http://www.ecocollegechallenge.com/
She continued: “I believe this is a best practice because it helps the environment while getting young people involved in making our world better. This is an attractive contest because it involves MTV and a monetary award. The title, ‘Ecomagination Challenge’ plays off of the GE slogan, ‘Imagination at Work.’”
Don’t you just love those Imagination at Work television commercials?!!
The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty has come up before. This time, student Mona Ferrell selected it as her favorite best practice. She wrote: “The Unilever-Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, launched by Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, was a rather extensive PR campaign focusing on body image. What made this campaign so successful and deserving of ‘benchmark’ status for me is that the company did not push its product with the typical statement of ‘if you use our product you will look more youthful.’ Instead, using multiple PR tactics, the campaign promoted ‘their products with a message of real beauty by encouraging women and girls to celebrate themselves as they are — while using the products, of course.” (Howard, T. USA Today, http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.co.nz/in-the-news/ad-campaign.asp)
“The television ads pushing the ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ theme used ‘real’ women, not models. Questionnaires were also devised asking women to write in and share their views on what makes them feel beautiful. Live discussion boards with this same theme were also set up so that ‘real’ women could talk to each other about beauty and self-acceptance. PRSA awarded Unilever-Dove and Edelman Public Relations Worldwide with the ‘Best of” Silver Anvil Award for 2006 for the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. http://www.prsa.org/_Awards /silver/winners2006.asp”
Now, here’s a campaign that will wipe that smile off your face. It came from student Jaime Foisy and it’s about Charmin’ at the Fair. She wrote: “In my opinion the best way to advertise a product is to make it complement an event where it will get a lot of use, and is unexpected. Charmin’ did this at the San Diego Fair last summer. There we were at the fair and I kept seeing all these posters for Charmin’ toilet paper, but really thought nothing of it…until I had to use the restroom. So, there I was standing in front of the facility, dreading having to go in…As I walked in I was shocked! Sponsored by Charmin, these restrooms were immaculate! I could not believe it! … it got tons of publicity and goodwill among people of all ages and types.”
Natasha Lim highlighted Ultragrain Win: Proving Kids Love Whole Grains a Whole Lot
http://investor.conagrafoods.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=97518&p=irol-newsArticlebra &ID=731145&highlight=
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/prnewswire/2006/06/09/prnewswire200606091145PR_NEWS_ B_MAT_NY_NYF057.html
She wrote: “ConAgra Foods and their PR firm, Ketchum Public Relations, launched a Silver Anvil Award-winning PR campaign aimed at promoting whole grain foods in school cafeterias. ConAgra Foods is pushing products that boast ultragrain flour which offers more whole-grain nutrition with the white flour taste that a majority of kids prefer. According to a ConAgra Foods news release, ‘the new flour bakes and tastes like white flour, but has nine grams per serving of whole grains.’ The new U.S. Dietary Guidelines and the MyPyramid food guide recommend that Americans raise their whole grain intake from one serving to three servings daily. Currently only one out of 10 people get the recommended serving amount.
The two main food items that are being pushed in school cafeterias are: new wholegrain pizza products under a brand called “The Max” and wholegrain burrito products under the name “El eXtremo”. To ensure that schools sign the products on as part of their lunch menu, a PR campaign was launched that was geared toward school directors focusing on the School Nutrition Association Annual Conference that would help create a positive buzz, promote sales, and prove that kids would eat them.
“I think ConAgra Foods and Ketchum PR executed a good campaign. They made a smart decision to aim their ultragrain products toward the school systems’ cafeteria food. They knew that they could win their products over with school directors by promoting healthier food for kids. In recent years there has been push for kids to stop eating unhealthy junk food and to start eating things that are better for them, such as more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. This campaign supports this push for healthy eating by doing something about – putting healthy food products that kids will like on the school lunch menu. Their positive action is why this campaign works.”
Student Michelle Jones likes Energy Star. She wrote: “The ENERGY STAR public relations campaign is a great example of persuasive public relations. In fact, this particular campaign has several characteristics of an outstanding campaign. As background, the ENERGY STAR campaign (program) started in 1992 as a joint program between the Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy and was specifically designed to encourage everyone to “save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices.” From this statement, it is apparent that this U.S. Environmental campaign had a very clear objective, which is essential when considering what makes an effective
campaign.
“In addition, this particular campaign had several creative components connected to it. The infamous logo that we have all seen on several products is an example of this creativity. In order for a product to be eligible for ‘the star’ the business or the company had to prove that their products would use less energy, save money, and help protect the environment. Throughout this ongoing campaign, several partners and relationships were also established. As a result of this approach, several reputable sources joined forces with ENERGY STAR.
“On top of having a clear objective and being very creative, ENERGY STAR does an excellent job with measuring its results. In fact, the ENERGY STAR web site reports that ‘Americans, with the help of ENERGY STAR, saved enough energy in 2005 alone to avoid greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from 23
million cars — all while saving $12 billion on their utility bills.’” References: http://www.energystar.gov/
Public figures get in trouble all of the time and are then forced to apologize. Whether it is TV preachers who claim to know why God strikes some people down or Olympic athletes who brag about skiing while drunk, big shots are often forced into the role of the contrite. Few pull it off well, because they don’t seem to be sincere and they don’t seem to grasp why what they said or did it offended anyone.
Oprah Winfrey, once again, is in a class by herself. Not only is she only the world’s greatest talk show host, but she is a world class apologizer too. Winfrey suffered a rare ding to her public image when she promoted James Frey’s phony memoir “A Million Little Pieces.” She made matters much worse for herself when she defended Frey after he was exposed as a fraud. Winfrey called to defend him on the Larry King Show, saying the controversy was “much ado about nothing.”
What happened next was not the usual treatment for media darling Oprah. She was roundly denounced by columnists, pundits, editors and talk show hosts around the globe for essentially saying that “the truth doesn’t matter anymore.”
Oprah countered several days later on her show when she brought back disgraced author Frey and his publisher Nan Talese. Regarding Oprah’s call to King defending Frey, she said “I regret that phone call. I made a mistake and I left the impression that the truth does not matter and I am deeply sorry about that. That is not what I believe.”
Additionally, Winfrey said that she felt “duped” by Frey and she used the platform of her own TV show to rake Fry and his editor over the coals repeatedly.
So why was Oprah’s apology effective whereas as most politicians and public officials fail in their own apologies?
1. She said she was sorry and that she made a mistake. She didn’t sugar coat things or claim that she had “misspoken.” She didn’t apologize just for having offended people. She apologized because she had made a serious mistake.
2. Oprah didn’t try to minimize her sins. She showed she really understood why people were upset. She spelled out that her mistake was giving people the impression she didn’t care about the truth.
3. She seemed sincere. By spending so much time on her blunder and by giving airtime to her critics, Oprah seemed genuinely troubled by the course of events and sincerely sorry.
4. Oprah tried to take actions to correct the problems. She practically chopped off the fingers of Frey and his editor in order to keep them from writing and publishing again. This shows she takes the issue seriously and isn’t just doing a quick PR spin.
5. By apologizing to her viewers, admitting that her critics were right, and offering no defense for her actions, Oprah revealed herself emotionally to her fans and the world. She also left no other rational reason for anyone to be angry with her or to criticize her. Thus, the only logical reaction left from her audience was to give Oprah forgiveness.
That is a successful apology and that is yet another reason why Oprah is the queen of all media.
Yes, the technology for podcasting has never been easier. Microphones, editing equipment, mixers, the equipment keeps getting cheaper AND higher in quality. But the most important part of any podcast is the human quality. Namely, are the people talking saying anything interesting, and is their style tolerable?
More major corporations are starting to use podcasting technology to communicate with their most important customers and prospects around the globe. But once you start a podcast, there are a lot of tough questions to answer.
1. Do we try to write out an entire script for our executives to follow?
2. What is the best structure to use?
3. Do we have one person talking? Two? A group?
4. What is the best format?
5. Do we edit the show to make it sound more professional?
6. What is the best length of time for a podcast?
Here is how I advise my clients on these questions:
1.Never use a full-text script. Reading into a microphone is impossible to do well for the non-professional. If you give business execs a script to read they will be monotone and boring.
2.A simple one or ½ page piece of paper with an outline is the best thing for your executives to use as guidance through out the show.
3.It’s extremely difficult to have one person do a podcast effectively. Likewise, a group of people can be confusing and unwieldy. I recommend 2 people having a conversation.
4.The best format is to have two people talking together in a real conversation. Don’t have one person talk for five minutes going through a laundry list of topics and then switching to the other person talking for five minutes—that’s boring and sounds like a dry college lecture. Instead, have one person talk about one point for under a minute. Then, have the other person ask a follow up question on that subject. Then, the second person introduces his or her first point. The first person asks a follow up question and then the back and forth pattern can continue for the whole podcast, with no one person ever talking for more than a 40-50 second period without being interrupted by the other.
5.I don’t recommend editing the podcasts. If you let executives know the show will be edited, they will be less focused and prepared and will slip into bad habits. It will take less time for everyone if you record it live-to-tape (now digital).
The best length of time is whatever length it takes to cover your topics. It could be 90 seconds or it could be 25 minutes. Since you aren’t doing commercial radio with hard time breaks, your topics and content should dictate the length, not some artificial, pre-determined limit. Talk as long or short as you need to in order to communicate your messages.