Why do we think of so many great ideas in the shower?
Four conditions are generally in play:
- Our brain is relatively quiet with minimal electrical activity.
- We’re internally focused, letting our mind wander rather than being stimulated by external activity, such as digital screens.
- We’re in a positive mindset.
- We’re not directly working on any problems, especially work challenges.
As Dr. David Rock explained in his book Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long, it’s not the water that helps you get insights. It’s that you break the impasse in the way you’ve been thinking.
You’re lathering up while your subconscious brain works in the background. It taps into your stored memories and experiences and connects neurons in new ways for you.
And all of a sudden—as it seems to your conscious brain that has been taking a break from logical thinking—you have that “aha” moment. You’ve reached a great insight! (This is multi-tasking in a powerful, efficient way!)
Now contrast your experiences like this in the shower with what frequently happens at work.
Your prefrontal cortex—commonly referred to as the “executive function” of your brain—is often on overload. You’re trying to juggle a number of thoughts, you’re keeping an eye on your phone as well as the room you’re in, you’re listening to colleagues talking over one another, you all are on deadline to solve a new problem creatively, and you’re anxious about it and several other topics, especially since your boss just scared you about the consequences of last quarter’s performance on your department’s budget. Oh, and you’re hungry.
No wonder that only 10% say they do their best thinking at work, according to David.
What can you do to improve your focus and your thinking at work?
Short of constructing a shower in your cube, start small with some tiny steps.
First embrace the concept of “will, skill and hill.”
The “will” refers to your motivation to take control of your mind and thoughts. In other words, resolve not to play the victim, letting yourself and your thoughts be hijacked by others. Granted this is easier said than done; however, if you’re willing to become more mindful and more self-aware about what distracts you, you’ve taken a large leap forward.
The “skill” is to learn and adopt new behaviors that will help you clear your mind, improve your focus and think more creatively. Consider starting with Tiny Habits®,the innovative program designed by Dr. BJ Fogg.
This past week, as a certified Tiny Habits® coach I coached people in a pilot program of Tiny Habits for Work. We designed many of these habits to improve mindfulness, productivity and satisfaction with work.
For example, some effective Tiny Habits for Work are taking three deep breaths, affirming what a great day it will be and walking around the office.
“Hill” is all about taking steps in your environment to reduce or remove the barriers so you can get over the hill that’s in your way and be more productive. You may not be able to shrink a mountain into a mole hill, but you should be able to start building a path that’s easier to go across.
How can you set yourself up for success to think more clearly and creatively?
Some ideas that work for others include: Set an alarm so you’ll take breaks every 60 minutes or so to stretch or even better, walk outdoors. Keep a file of cartoons that will make you laugh. Have flowers on your desk. (Or walk to the reception area and smell the flowers.) Spend a few minutes doodling or drawing.
Next, you need to experiment to find out what works best for you.
To help you do so, join me for the webinar Stop Your Stinking Thinking: 7 Ways To Use Neuroscience To Sharpen Your Mind and Be a More Powerful Communicator and Leader on Wednesday, May 21 at 12 noon ET (9 am Central). The webinar sponsor Communitelligence is offering $50 off when you use the code connect50. Many of the ideas I’ll talk about on the webinar will help you improve your focus and your thinking as well as be more influential.
By the way, if you’re interested in diving into some of the research on this topic, check out the work of Dr. Mark Beeman at Northwestern University who’s an expert on the neuroscience of insights. Also look at the research of Dr. Stellan Ohlsson at the University of Illinois who studies the “impasse experience.”
Meanwhile, if you want any help becoming a “showerhead,” contact me. Who says showerheads should be limited to devices that control the spray of water in a shower?
Showerheads also can be those of us who think creatively in and out of the shower. What do you think?
By Liz Guthridge, Connect Consulting Group LLC
I’ll confess: the summons for jury duty at the Cook County Criminal Court got a very cold reception. I thought of ways to get out of it. I hoped that being an “alternate juror” meant I would not have to go. I prayed to not be selected for a trial. All to no avail.
Suddenly I was the foreperson on a jury trying a young man for the first-degree murder of another young man.
This may seem an unlikely source of inspiration for a blog on communications skills. It just goes to show: the real world offers as many lessons on the subject as writing a memo or giving a presentation. Here’s what I learned.
- Lesson #1: Look at people and speak clearly to connect with them. Not surprisingly, the teenage boys who were witnesses for the prosecution often looked down and mumbled. That made them harder to hear—and they often got angry when asked to repeat themselves. This also made them harder to believe. I learned from experience in dealing with teenage boys that they frequently look down when they’re lying (many parents can bear me out on this). And when the defense attorney asked questions that led them to contradict earlier statements, we had tangible reasons not to trust their testimony.
The expert witnesses (ballistics, coroner) and police officers all had been trained to look at the jury. So had the attorneys. Although our job as jurors was to listen to what people were saying, we couldn’t help but be influenced by how they spoke and appeared. After all, up to 93% of the information we receive from a situation is nonverbal.
- Lesson #2: Tell the truth. In his opening statement, one of the prosecuting attorneys told us a story about a young man who was celebrating his birthday for a second day. He was killed while his mother was cooking his favorite foods for dinner. This was obviously said to humanize the victim. But then the defense attorney told us the victim was no angel: he was a dealer, and the killing was related to a dispute over territories for selling drugs. And we later learned from the coroner that the victim was exceedingly drunk (a .14 level of alcohol in his blood when .08 is legally intoxicated). So we felt a little misled. That caused us to look closer at what every attorney was saying. While this was good for us as a jury, it cost the prosecutor some credibility points.
- Lesson #3: Speak in a way your audience understands. Our judge knew this. Before the trial began, she explained the process to us in plain English. She knew part of her job was to educate us, so we could do our job well. The only time she resorted to legalese was when she had to read the charges at the beginning of the trial, and the jury instructions before sending us to deliberate. Otherwise she went out of her way to ensure we didn’t feel as though she was talking over our heads or down to us.
- Lesson #4: Offer to answer questions or give feedback. When the trial concluded, the judge came into the jury room, ready to answer any of our questions. This was a highly emotional experience for the 12 of us, and we were glad for the chance to “debrief.” (We also got some comfort from the idea that, had this been a bench trial, she would have arrived at the same verdict we did.) She was followed by the two prosecuting attorneys. They were happy to answer our questions about why they presented some evidence and witnesses and not others. This helped give us a clearer picture of our experience.
- Lesson #5: Check your bias at the door. The only experience I’d had of a jury is watching the film “12 Angry Men.” My fellow jurors were the best group of people you could want to serve with. We had a wide range of backgrounds: a college student studying physics, an operating room nurse, a facility manager, a cook (with seven children: two of them in jail), a mother of a six-month-old, an IT professional. But all of us shared one interest: to interpret the evidence and come to a fair verdict. As the foreperson, it was my job to ensure that everyone was heard. I was incredibly lucky that no one felt the need to press an opinion on others. And when one person asked, “Yes, but what if we’re wrong?” we reviewed the definitions of first- and second-degree murder, and discussed the evidence until everyone reached the same conclusion.
- Lesson #6: Feel lucky. Everyone on the jury was just a tourist in the world of 48th and Drexel, which is where the murder occurred. We could go back to people who loved us; to homes where we felt safe. I can tell you, there’s nothing like the glimpse of a world where killing happens too often, to make me think twice before complaining about the annoying things in my life.
Personal Coda and Plea
I’m an old hand at speaking before groups. If I’ve got notes, I make sure to look up from them to make eye contact with my audience. But I must admit, when it came to reading a guilty verdict for first-degree murder, I chose to use my paper as a prop and not glance at the young man at the defendant’s table. Sending someone to prison for 45 years-to-life should give anyone pause.
According to the rules, I shouldn’t be called for jury duty for at least a year. I certainly hope never to sit for another murder trial. But now I know how important it is to go—and hope that you’ll choose to participate in the judicial process, too. As a good communicator, you can do some good there.
Lynn Franklin says she started Lynne Franklin Wordsmith 16 years ago because …”I was in danger of being made a partner at the world’s largest investor relations agency. Or because a tarot card reader told me to. Or because I wanted to prove my theory that wearing pantyhose didn’t make me more productive. All of those would be true.”
I’ve been doing a lot of intranet/portal governance work lately. It reminds me how important process analysis skills are for the communication professional. How many times have you been asked to “fix” a situation with communication, only to realize it is actually a broken business process that is the culprit?
When you set out to analyze a process, there are two steps to take first:
- Identify the start of the process
- Identify the end of the process, either where all activity stops or where another process takes over
Sounds simple, but the second one is sometimes challenging to determine. Once you’ve identified these, you can map the functions involved, what they are supposed to do and at what stage. Then, there are several key questions to ask yourself:
- How many different things can be in the process flow at one time (e.g., how many different pieces of content can be in the approval process at one time)? To find the answer, it is usually best to ask this question for each individual step in the process. Different steps may have different capacities.
- Where are the bottlenecks? Look for places where the process slows down or becomes less efficient.
- What is the cause of the bottleneck? Look for underlying causes such as inadequate information, availability of people, or people assigned to the wrong role.
- What can be done to eliminate the bottlenecks?
- What other people, processes, or groups depend upon this process?
These questions help you identify solutions and figure out how important the process is based on who relies on the process. If your organization has people dedicated to process improvement, try to spend some time learning from them. Process skills will be very useful in your communication career.
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado
There are many people against it, as they find it disrespectful to the speaker, distracting to others in the audience and just plain wrong that an audience member would do anything but listen attentively during a presentation (other than taking notes, which still seems acceptable if done with a pen and paper.) I, however, see value in twittering a conference speaker.
- You get to follow an event even if you’re not there.
Budget cuts kept you from this conference or IABC this year? Not cool enough to swing a TED invite? Search the hash tags for these conferences read what the people who were there were hearing in real time. (Respectively, #commtell09, #IABC09, #TED) - It’s an instant feedback tool for presenters.
Moments after she finished her presentation, Stacy Wilson twittered “… tell me how I can improve my preso, what is missing, or what I should remove. Thanks for feedback!” Immediacy like that can result in actionable feedback. Even if you’re not that direct, reviewing what resonated with listeners is a valuable tool. - It’s a connection point at a conference.
Even at small conferences it can be tough to meet everyone. Seeking out fellow twitterers can give you a starting point. I noticed that some attendees I hadn’t met yet started to follow me on Twitter during the conference, so it was natural for us to seek each other out. In other instances, you get a chance to meet live people you’ve only followed in the Twitter world. - It’s an opportunity to spread a good idea.
I love to give a shout out to services, businesses and ideas that I think are worthwhile and deserve to be known. If I’m clicking with what a speaker is saying, I’m naturally inclined to do a little word of mouth marketing on their behalf. - It helps maintain focus as an audience member.
Yes, this seems counterintuitive but let’s be honest. We all multitask and, for better or worse, it is the default state for some of us. I found that composing a tweet now and then gave the part of my brain that was screaming for action something to do while I was listening and it actually improved my focus on the presentation. Rather like taking notes. Did I miss some words while I was typing? Yes. Would I have missed some words if I weren’t typing? Yes. This is not a commentary on the speakers and their abilities, it’s just human nature.
I asked Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era and presenter at the conference, what she thought about audiences twittering her presentation. She shrugged, almost as if I had asked her what she thought about audiences breathing during her presentation. She told me that when she can, she often projects a live feed of tweets while she talks.
As I am doing a lot of presenting and training this month and next, let’s consider some fundamentals. First, when putting together a presentation, don’t pack in too many slides. Figure on half to a third the number of minutes you have to present. Presenting for 45 minutes? Shoot for roughly 15-22 slides. Don’t forget to pull out your Q&A time separately.
Second, stay focused on your purpose. If you’re trying to persuade the boss to fund a new project, focus on what he or she needs to know to make a decision. Don’t get side tracked with less important tactical content.
Third, avoid wordsmithing in committee over a presentation. You’ll find yourself spending more time fussing over the individual words and you won’t get the presentation done. When you present, chances are the stakeholders won’t pay enough attention to notice individual words.
Fourth, rehearsal is crucial. I don’t always do enough of this, but you can’t really get enough. Spending the time to really know your content proves to be valuable, in more ways than just being able to present and not look stupid.
And, finally five, the more you do it, the better you get. I talked with my daughter about this when she was preparing for her big dance recital. We practice so we can commit the routine to memory. But practice also makes us generally more comfortable with performing. No matter the type of performance. The more we’re in the spotlight, the more it feels like the light isn’t on us anymore.
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado
Here at the IABC World Conference (Twitter tag #IABC09), much of the buzz is about “social media.” First of all, a lot of my clients wrinkle their noses at the term. I’ve started using “social technologies” which is not only more broad and approachable, but also less entertainment sounding. Let’s face it, being able to find the right subject matter expert because of a great internal profile, well, that’s not really “media” is it?
I continue to be amazed at the number of people who are talking about social technologies, but not actually using them. It’s some of these who whine: “my boss won’t let us do this or that.”
Some of these technologies have to be tried to comprehend and strategize, not to mention convince others of their value. So, how can you really do justice to the opportunity and potential if you aren’t playing in the space at all? Jump in and give it a try. Read, comment, blog, make friends – just get a feel for it all.
Once you understand what social technologies can do, ask yourself these questions:
- What business problem(s) are we trying to solve? (from the perspective of the business or end user)
- What business goal does this initiative support? How?
- Who are our stakeholders?
- What do we want to do with our stakeholders?
- Do we have executive support?
- How strong is that executive support?
- How will executives and other leaders be involved?
- Who needs to be involved, and can they participate enough from the start to ensure success?
- Can this initiative start small?
- Which superstars/rebels can be engaged in a lead role?
- How well is the organization prepared for the impending cultural and organizational change?
- What legal issues (e.g., privacy, discovery, retention) exist and how will we address these?
These questions will set you on your way to strategic use of social technologies that will deliver business results, as well as, great new communication channels. So, build some skill first, then get serious.
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado
As I prepare to head west for this year’s IABC World Conference and then east for the Communitelligence conference, I am thinking a lot about networking and follow up. At this stage of my career, networking is the main reason I attend conferences.
Networking also continues to be a primary reason people join associations and other groups and attend conferences. Yes, the programming is important and recognition of excellence is good. But, finding colleagues who know stuff – well, that’s the real prize.
Where I sometimes, like others, fall short is in the follow through. So, here are some tips for those of us heading off to conferences in the next few weeks.
- Get their business card – don’t rely on the other person to follow up with you to acquire their contact information
- Ask if they are using Twitter or LinkedIn or another networking tool where you can connect
- If you decide to add them to your contact list, add a note about where you met and what you discussed in that first meeting
- If you send them an invitation to connect from something like LinkedIn, customize the message – you won’t appear to have tried very hard if you use the default message alone
- If they are on Twitter, follow them for a while – maybe they’ll follow you back
- Send a personal note (handwritten is very nice but uncommon, making e-mail the preferred choice these days) about how much you enjoyed meeting them
- Include a link to an interesting article in your note
- If you committed when you met to call (“I’ll give you a call…”) then call – don’t commit and then bail out
- If you committed to follow up at some time in the future, put a tickler in your calendar so you don’t forget
Networking is important for communicators at every career stage. Obviously, right now it is really important if you’ve lost, or are at risk of losing, your job. But we should always be looking out for those new great connections. Always building our catalog of talent we can turn to in a pinch.
If you’re a consultant or independent, you know these chance meetings can turn into new clients. If you hire sub-contractors, that new acquaintance may be the next perfect person to add to your team. If you work in an organization, you might have just met your future boss, or a future co-worker, or a consultant who can help make your next project shine.
Last tip: never go anywhere without a couple of business cards in your pocket. I even hike with them.
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado
Comments |
RE: Great networking is all about diligence |
Great comments! Agree that you should always have business cards on you. For example, in a casual conversation with one of the humans at the dog park, I learned that her best friend worked for Great Places to Work. At the time, I was wanting to connect with someone there. The dog bond, aided by a card, made it very easy! |
Posted on Sunday, Jun 07, 2009 – 05:58:00 AM CST lizguthridge |
Another thought |
One thing I should have added to this is that new contacts often turn into great resources of information. This just happened to me last week. A new contact turns out to have just the information I need for a client project. If it hadn’t been for all the networking last month at the Council of Communication Management conference, I wouldn’t have all the information I really wanted. Stacy |
A client recently asked me if I had a tool that would help her track and collect measurement data during the course of a project. “Have you got a tool for that?”
It made me realize that when it comes to measurement we really harp on the planning skills. Which is crucial. But the collection, tracking, analysis and reporting are equally important. How many of us have planned our measurement, but never carried through?
So, here are some tips that will get your measurement skills up to speed across the entire measurement lifeline.
- Planning
- Target metrics that connect to business goals and prove communication success
- Find out what the organization is already collecting
- Determine the frequency of collection, approach of collection (e.g., survey, interview, electronic) and owner for each metric
- Collection and tracking
- Identify due dates for all the collection activity
- Determine all the collection logistics in advance so you don’t miss anything
- Automate what you can (e.g., invitations, reminders, electronic data reports)
- For longer-term efforts with multiple measurement points, document key data points and findings as they come in
- Analysis
- Identify the three most relevant findings
- Identify the most surprising finding
- Identify the findings that require additional follow up
- Categorize, count and analyze open-ended comments
- Consider the benefits of cross-tabulating some of your quantitative data
- Assess what worked well in the data collection process and what did not
- Reporting
- Understand the expectations and interests of the stakeholders to whom you are reporting
- Break out recommendations by short-term and long-term timing
- Identify those findings that best connect to goals
- Be realistic about how much you can present in the given time
- Determine which visuals and which words will be most useful to incorporate
- Identify the final call to action
- Anticipate questions and prepare a response
If you approach items two through four with the same diligence communicators typically approach item one, you’ll be more apt to follow through. And follow through means having more and better data, and more and better data means proving our value.
Proving our value through great measurement is one ingredient in the recipe for becoming a trusted advisor. Thinking strategically throughout the measurement lifeline is another. And, yes, we have tools for every step of the way.
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado
Great communicators employ many different skills as they pursue success. Many of us focus on continual improvement in the tactical skills that carry our role — particularly true early in one’s career. Later, leadership, analysis and relationship skills help us become trusted advisors and strategic contributors.
One of the most important skills we can employ is giving unsought counsel – having difficult conversations with executives and clients where you disagree or offer an alternate view from theirs. I recently found myself in such a situation. The client is a new client and we don’t know each other well. She and her team are very interested in intranet governance and social media.
It is my practice to review current business and communication goals and objectives to better understand what drives the organization. The communication goals and objectives in place in this client organization are not strategic, not focused on behavior, and not likely to successfully position communication as the trusted advisor it should be. They also aren’t contributing to a strategic view of communication that drives the business.
Improving intranet governance and using social technologies may result in some successes, but couched in a flawed communication strategy, these things won’t have near the impact they could if the communication strategy itself were sound. Can you say “time for a tough conversation”?
What this requires most is courage – courage to think along a different line, to be observant of issues for which we’re not responsible, to speak up without prompting or expectation. Courage is in short supply in communication circles.
The best thing you can do is to prepare. Ask yourself the right questions first, and you’ll be better able to deliver clear messages and ask appropriate questions of the client. Consider:
1. What’s my relationship with the person and how might the conversation affect that relationship?
2. What would be the outcome if I never have the conversation? Bad enough to warrant intervention?
3. What are the two messages on which I can focus to get at the heart of the matter?
4. What is the balance to those two messages that helps to persuade and also lighten the negativity?
5. What examples can I offer in support of my concern?
6. What questions can I ask to get the client thinking along my lines of thought?
7. What solutions will I offer?
8. How will I wrap up the discussion in a positive and productive way?
What other tips do you have for giving unsought counsel? Share those and examples of a time when you worked through such a situation successfully.
Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado
Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your website.
So we thought it’d be useful to create a compact guide that lists some best practices that teams within Google and external webmasters alike can follow that could improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing.
View Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (pdf)
Stop and LISTEN. To be a successful communications professional means you are an exceptional listener. The more you listen, the more you learn. The less you listen, the less you learn.
When you consider the role of a communications professional, we better be doing a lot of real listening. We need to be aware of and understand the needs and goals of our internal clients and each employee audience subgroup — different generations, different functions, management vs. non-management, c-level and more.
From one-on-one meetings to interviews, focus groups to department meetings or townhall to board meetings, listening is key. So how much listening are you doing? Media guru Roger Ailes, author of You Are The Message, says people should strive to listen 60 to 70 percent of the time and talk 30 to 40 percent.
Here’s Roger Ailes’ tips for becoming a better listener:
- Relax and clear your mind so that you’re receptive to what’s being said.
- Never assume that you’ve heard correctly just because the first few words have taken you in a certain direction.
- Don’t overreact emotionally to speakers’ words or ideas, especially those that are contrary to your views.
- Before forming a conclusion, let the speaker complete his or her thoughts.
- Listen for intent as well as content.
- Try to listen without overanalyzing.
- Remember that human communication goes through three phases: reception (listening), processing (analyzing), and transmission (speaking).
- Being a good communicator is a natural skill for only a few people. Most of us have to work at being good communicators and learn to observe not only how we speak and listen, but also what kinds of unspoken messages we send to our colleagues.
My tip. The next time you meet with someone, make a mental note of how many times you’re silent. Remember, silence is golden.
My friend and colleague, Richard Barrett, wrote a book several years ago called “Liberating the Corporate Soul.” It’s exceptional on many levels, as I wrote in a review that is posted on Amazon.com. One remarkable quality about Richard’s book is how it is both wonderfully inspiring and technically rigorous. Marcello Palazzi, Co-Founder and Chair of the Progessio Foundation said that “Liberating the Corporate Soul achieves the impossible: it integrates the intangibles of ethics, vision, and consciousness into a tangible measurement system.”Much of Richard’s work is rooted in his experiences from when he worked at the World Bank. During his years there, he developed a strong conviction that the institution needed to focus more of its attention on the issue of human rights in its monetary policies and decision-making. Since he was a mid-level manager with limited influence, he decided that he would need to take a less conventional approach if he wanted to reach the ears – and hearts – of senior management.
Les Landes, Landes & Associates
Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement
When I was a kid, I really wanted to learn to play the piano. Weird, huh? Unfortunately, we couldn’t afford it, and the apartment was too small for one anyway. So when my youngest daughter decided she wanted to take lessons, I was thrilled. I couldn’t wait for her to become good enough to enjoy the music more than she dreaded the practice. That was three years ago when she was 10. Luckily, she was persistent – and I was patient. Now when she sits down to play, I stop whatever I’m doing to listen.
What Do You Mean, Dad?
The other day, she was playing something very moving, and I told her that when she plays, it makes my heart soar. She looked surprised and asked me, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I couldn’t believe the question, and I quickly assured her it was very good. “Then why does it hurt your heart?” she asked. That’s when I realized she thought I said her playing made my heart “sore.”
It was a vivid reminder of a lesson I learned years ago from my communication mentor, David Berlo – Meanings are in people, not in words or symbols. That lesson is obvious when it comes to homonyms like “sore” and “soar,” but it’s more subtle and complex in other forms of communication, and professional communicators need to be highly sensitive to all of its nuances in everything we do.
Align People’s Meanings – Inside and Out
That sensitivity is especially vital when it comes to aligning the meanings that people inside and outside the organization have for the words and symbols that organizations use to communicate. It’s common practice to do focus groups with customers to test promotional messages for interpretation and impact before rolling out a big advertising campaign. However, you rarely see the same attention given to assessing how employees inside the organization interpret those promotional words and symbols. What’s more, the implications are seldom considered for how employees need to perform in order to deliver on the promises being made in the marketplace.
Inside or out, with one person or many, here are some guidelines to help you avoid the “meanings trap”. . .
- Don’t ask what a word means – because IT doesn’t mean anything. Instead, ask what people mean by the words they use.
- Don’t assume people know what you mean when you tell them something or send out a message. Check to make sure they’ve interpreted it the way it was intended.
- Don’t ask people if they understand what you mean if you want to make sure they understand something important. Ask them to repeat what you’ve said until you’re satisfied you share the same meaning.
- Don’t expect to find common ground in a debate about the meaning of a word, but rather in a conversation committed to a common understanding of what is meant by the people using it. As the famed communication theorist, Marshall McLuhan, once said, “Propaganda ends where dialogue begins.”
- Les Landes, Landes & Associates
Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement
In the last issue of Inside Out (Proof for the profitability of engagement), I talked about what it takes to get employees engaged in systematic continuous improvement. I also cited recent research that proves the huge bottom line impact you can produce from doing it effectively.
After 15 years of benchmarking and refining a process that’s been used by several Baldrige Award winning companies, we’ve found that some of the “tried-and-true” principles for accomplishing that goal aren’t really so true after all. In fact, what actually works – what makes an improvement process a fully integrated system instead of a one-off activity – is somewhat counterintuitive.
“Bigger” isn’t always “better.”
One classic flaw in most suggestion programs is the emphasis on hitting “home runs.” It seems like it makes sense to focus on the big wins at first glance, but there are two problems with that notion. First, big things are hard to plan and implement, and not many employees are equipped to take them on. So it limits participation. Second, when employees get bigger incentives for bigger improvements, that’s where they tend to focus their attention – and they wind up walking right past hundreds of smaller ideas – the “base hits” – along the way.
The counterintuitive key is to set up the incentive structure to value every idea equally regardless of its size and impact. In our “Un-Suggestion System,” we use a random drawing to accomplish that goal. For every approved improvement that an employee implements (not just suggests), his or her name is entered once into a bi-weekly drawing. Depending on the size of the organization, approximately 10%-20% of the names are pulled each time. Importantly, the value of the awards is very modest – usually no more than $50 – regardless of whether the idea saved $100 or $10,000. The value of the award has absolutely nothing to do with the value of the improvement.
That approach works for several reasons:
- People aren’t wasting time trying to cost-justify a lot of small improvements that any well-trained supervisor can see right away will make things work better, faster, cheaper, cleaner, easier or safer.
- It keeps employees focused on the little things that they have control over.
- It emphasizes the intrinsic merits of the improvements and the inherent motivation that everyone has to make things work better rather than the “prize money.”
- In the end, the most motivating factor for employees is that someone is actually taking their ideas seriously, helping them get those ideas implemented, and thanking them for their contributions.
Committees aren’t close enough to the action.
If you want to make sure that employee suggestions get evaluated and implemented, set up a suggestion committee to review and approve everything – right? Wrong! Dilbert would have a field day with that notion. Setting aside all the jokes about committees in general, let’s look at how that process typically works.
An employee comes up with an improvement idea and submits a suggestion. After going to the supervisor and probably to a manager, the idea eventually works its way to the suggestion committee. That “team” gets together maybe once every month or so to review a slug of suggestions. Of course, they’re doing double-duty. Not only do they have their own jobs to do, now they have to take on another load. What’s more, they often don’t know much about the improvements that are being proposed, so they have to do some research. By the time they finally make a decision, it’s been weeks or even months. Employees lose interest, and they aren’t very motivated to submit additional ideas.
So what’s the alternative? Keep it local – focusing most decision-making where the improvements will be implemented. You make it the job of every supervisor to review, evaluate and approve or decline the vast majority of improvement ideas. You also make it the responsibility of employees to get their ideas implemented. If they need help from their supervisor or someone else, they can get it – but they “own” it.
Here’s another benefit of that approach. It bolsters the role of the supervisor as a coach. To optimize that role, supervisors need the right kind of skills, of course. They have to learn how to evaluate improvement ideas, lead process improvement meetings, encourage employee participation, help people get their ideas implemented and acknowledge them for their contributions. Those duties also need to be included in the supervisor’s job description and assessed as part of their performance reviews.
While the principles are basic, making the shift from a “suggestion program” to a more viable and vital “improvement system” is not easy or “intuitive” for most people. But when that system produces dramatically more implemented improvements than a traditional program, the rewards far outweigh the effort.
Les Landes, Landes & Associates
Buy Les’s webinar replay: Getting to the Heart of Employee Engagement
- YouTube Video made in a HAAGA-HELIA course to show the cultural differences in the workplace through gestures.
“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”
That quote, attributed to George Bernard Shaw, unduly portrays teachers as being better at telling others how to do something than knowing how to do it themselves.
Of course, not all teachers have failed at doing what they teach others to do. I’ve found this especially to be true of people who spend years toiling in a profession and then share their real-world experience and knowledge as college professors. As a mass communications major at Virginia Commonwealth University in the 1980s, I learned the most from people like Jack Hunter and Joan Deppa – teachers who had been or still were journalists and editors and who knew what we would face as reporters.
My mentor in corporate communications is Les Potter of Vienna, Va., who is somewhat of a legend in our profession. Potter’s career spans more than 30 years and includes positions in corporations, non-profits, huge consulting firms and his own practice. He’s traveled the world, helping to plant the seeds of strategic communication in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. A former chairman of the International Association of Business Communicators, he has received its highest honor – IABC Fellow – and is always among the most popular speakers at its international conferences. It makes me tired to think about all this man has done – never mind that Potter has spent half of his life in a wheelchair due to an accident.
You would think a guy in Potter’s position would be content to sit back and bask in the glory of a job well done. But a couple of years ago, in his late 50s, he decided to take what he felt was the natural next step of his career. He became a visiting professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Towson University. That’s not all. He also began working on his doctorate in Instructional Technology at Towson.
Ask anyone who knows him – and that includes thousands of communication professionals around the world – and they’ll probably tell you Potter is the last person they’d think would need to go back to school. One of the things I admire most about him is his appetite for learning. Even as Potter has mentored me through the years, he always makes me feel as if he’s learning as much from me as I am learning from him.
Nothing illustrates Potter’s attitude toward learning better than the fact that, just last week, he created a blog: “More With Les” at lespotter001.wordpress.com . He didn’t join the multitude of bloggers because it’s the latest fad. He did it so he could learn the new social medium as a participant and then transfer his knowledge to his students.
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Read his reasons for blogging, which always appear on his blog’s home page:
1. To continue learning by blogging for current and former students and friends.
2. To help prepare my students for successful participation in the social media revolution (and me, too).
3. To enable my current and former students and friends to help me be a better instructor.
4. To connect current and former students with my incredible network of professional friends and colleagues, and vice versa.
I can think of no better reason to join the fray of new social media – and I can think of no better person to join it.
To all keyholders of the company spam cannon, before causing immense collateral damage by firing off emails that don’t fit with the lovely idea of your brand, follow these ten pointers and, with me at least, you’ll be guaranteed a pair of eyes.
Give me whitespace and time to think
My eyes often refuse to work. They close on the world of advertising and allow me to walk into the middle of roads without realising it.
Quora’s welcome email is an industrial eye-wash station and not only left me opthalmically refreshed, but gave me the most important information, and nought else.
Give me welcome emails (if you have to) and make sure their content is well-defined
Don’t send me continuous wishy-washy ‘your account’ emails, telling me how great your services are. I ain’t got the time, MAN.
Do like the FT and make each of your welcome mails distinctive. You can see from my inbox, the FT firstly welcomes me (manners); secondly, promotes its reports; thirdly, introduces market data services; fourthly, its blogs and multimedia; fifthly, its lifestyle section.
Give me your digits
I’ve opened your email, you’ve interested me with your content, but I don’t want to book online because I’m superstitious and will only buy something from men called Gareth. So do like Lastminute.com and give me a prominent phone number.
Read full article via Econsultancy: Digital Marketing Excellence
There are many different styles of effective communication, but arguing with someone is typically the worst possible way to attempt to communicate. Once you enter the mode of arguing, listening shuts down by everyone in the argument.
Now, I’m the first one to admit it, I like arguing. In fact, for many years I was a TV and radio talk show host with a focus on politics. So yes, I argued for hours everyday. And I listened to a lot of people yelling and screaming at me on the air.
However, there is a difference between arguing on a talk show versus arguing with a boss, client, customer, friend or family member. If you or I argue on a TV or radio show, we might not convince the person we are arguing with, but we might convince the vast audience.
Back to real life: you don’t have an audience when you are arguing (unless you count your kids listening to you argue with your spouse). So it really never pays to have arguments in real (non-media) life.
You may have won high school or college debate competitions, you may be a successful courtroom lawyer, but arguing with people in real life will typically not result in you communicating your messages effectively. It will most likely make you hated — so don’t do it.
How can you avoid an argument?
If someone interrupts you, don’t interrupt back. If someone gets louder and angrier talking to you, don’t get louder back. Maintain your own conversational volume.
If someone makes several factual mistakes in a heated discussion with you, don’t revel in correcting every single fact. Instead, focus on something you agree on.
My goal is not to train you to let people walk all over you or to turn you into a bland yes-man/woman. There may be times when you want to argue with friends just for the fun of it – I know I do. Just make sure you aren’t fooling yourself into thinking you are actually communicating.
Of course you should state your opinions with confidence. Of course we all disagree with people from time to time; that is a normal course of human interaction.
But the second the person you are talking to feels that you two are in an argument, your ability to communicate messages has just dropped dramatically. So do whatever you can to lower the volume, temperature, cross talk and interruptions (not to mention name-calling) to insure maximum communication.
We all have people with whom we have to work to get things done. Our ability to communicate with clients, customers, subordinates, peers, and superiors can enhance our effectiveness or sabotage us. Many times, our verbal skills make the difference.
Here are 10 ways to increase your verbal efficacy at work:
“Less is More” may sound like a 70’s advertisement for a Volkswagen Beetle, but it really is the key to success for communicators who are speaking to live audiences or the news media. By “less” I don’t mean shorter or being more concise. “Less” means fewer message points.
The rule of thumb I use is this: try to communicate three message points in a media interview; five message points if it is a speech or presentation. If you try to communicate more than this (unless you are in a classroom with highly motivated students) you will fail.
If you doubt this then take this test:
1 – Write down every message point you remember from any one person you saw on the evening news last night.
2 – Write down every message point you remember from the best speaker you’ve seen in the last month.
It’s not easy, is it?
Here’s where the system breaks down in real life: Executives are harried and they don’t want to take the time to scrutinize their 60 message points and put them in priority, so they just dump all 60 points. Or, executives are afraid of looking “dumb” or “unprepared” so they attempt to show everyone how smart they are by covering 60 points.
Here’s the problem: It’s easy to “cover” 60 points in 20-30 minutes, but it’s impossible to “communicate” 60 points in that amount of time.
One of the most time consuming things I do in every presenting course I conduct with clients is have them brainstorm on all of their message points and then narrow them down to either three or five final points. Occasionally, this can be done in 5 minutes. The average amount of time is one hour. For one particular disorganized politician, I once had to spend 5 hours getting him to narrow his messages down to three.
But this is a critically important step—no matter how long it takes, take as much time as you need. Because if you don’t narrow your message down to the most essential points, you will not be effective in communicating anything. You can have perfect diction, great hand motions, fantastic eye contact and all the rest, but if you try to cover 60, 30 or even 20 message points, you will fail if you haven’t put your messages in priority and then eliminated any that don’t make your top five or three.
I know it takes time to prioritize your points and eliminate all but the top handful, but if you don’t take the time to do it, your audience won’t take the time to remember anything you say.