Tag Archives: Communicating

My Top Lessons Learned regarding Measurement

  1. Don’t assume what you’re measuring is the right thing. Usually it’s the easiest thing to measure.
  2. It’s a relay race, not a sprint. Look at the end to end process.
  3. Every metric can be gamed. So question what doesn’t make sense.
  4. Don’t just accept numbers at face value: ask how it’s calculated, what are the assumptions, what’s the population, frequency, source?
  5. The right measures are almost always about timeliness and accuracy.
  6. The best metric reporting creates an immediate reaction from the reader: make sure you provide context.
  7. Focus on process, not people or functions.
  8. Data does not necessarily equal information or equal wisdom.
  9. Measure outcomes, not interim phases.
  10. Source/cause analysis is the key: not just what happened but why.

Help.

Help. A small word, but so powerful.

It means you’re doing something for someone else. You’re trying to get someone to a better place. You are stepping in to turn around a bad situation. It’s about someone else.

Here are a couple of ways to incorporate “help” at work that I like.

1. When someone asks me to do something, I always say “I’m happy to help.”  I don’t say “fine”, “sure”, “ok”. When I say it, I mean: “I am on your side and will work to make you/this successful”.  I saw this happen at a management meeting where a CEO asked one of his directs to do something, and that was the person’s response. It always struck me as a gracious answer.

2. A junior person asked me for advice. She had down time during the day and wanted to do more. She spoke to her manager, but nothing had come out of it. She was wary about constantly asking her manager for more things to do, to own…she didn’t want to seem like a nag.  My suggestion to her was to ask him periodically, “How can I help?” It’s hard to get annoyed when someone’s offering to help.

3. Whenever I finish up my meeting with my manager, I always ask “Is there anything you need help with?” I just find it’s a good way to make sure there isn’t something that needs attention, and he knows that I care.

Here’s what I’ve learned about being my best self: being confident that I could help made it easier to put my fear of failing to the side. So when you find yourself fearful of taking the risk, ask yourself “Can you help?”

A quote I love….”Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Communication Lessons Learned

I always thought communication skills were a no brainer. Obvious. What’s the big deal?

Then I had the benefit of working with someone who I call “Yoda” who taught me that communications has best practices. So a couple of things he taught me:

1. Communication in companies has changed. It used to be more like a newspaper: you’d report on what happened. Now, communication is more akin to a political campaign headquarters. The information coming in is constant, and you’re continually refining what you communicate out in response to what your voters are telling you.

2. When you develop your key strategic messages, they need to be simple, meaningful, and take into account what you want people to know, think, do and feel. They shouldn’t change significantly year over year. What you choose to emphasize may change.

3. Framing the message is critical….meaning context is key. A memo sent out “we’re closing down stores” feels different than a CEO getting in front of everyone and saying:  “As you all know, our company has had some financial challenges. While we have reduced our expenses where we can, the senior team has decided that we will need to close stores in the Midwest region this year.  We haven’t yet decided which ones. We will communicate to those impacted people as soon as possible, and we appreciate your support while this is going on.”

Be honest about what you know will happen, what may happen, what won’t happen. That way you’re always telling the truth, but you’re not waiting until you know all the facts before communicating. Remember, in the absence of information, people will make up their own version of the truth to fill in the gap. Make sure you involve human resources and legal if the situation needs it. I find HR to be a great group to run ideas by.

4. What you say means nothing if your behavior doesn’t support it. You can’t say you care about people if your behavior suggests the contrary. People look for the symbols that indicate the message is real. So if you say people are important, and then you spend more time in all hands meetings, improving benefits, refurbishing the cafeteria, you will be much more credible.

5. Optics matter. You may not necessarily be doing anything wrong, but the optics don’t work. Remember the three big automakers who asked Congress for billions of dollars? Later it was found out that they flew in on private jets.

5. Add value to every communication you send. If no one’s commenting, no one’s reading it.

My pet peeve are those emails that come out every week, or even every day. They have one or two lines that say “please find attached the weekly x. If you have any questions, let us know”, with an attachment. Which I can’t really open on blackberry.

Take the time and write a few sentences on the key soundbites. Why do I care? What is the report telling me that is of interest? If there’s been no change, tell me that. If there has been a deterioration in something (metrics, project status, etc.), tell me that too. Give me some indication of whether or not it’s good news or bad news. More importantly, give me the sense that you know what’s going on. Don’t make me work for it by trying to put the pieces together.

Pushing emails like this out without taking the time to summarize is an opportunity wasted. You have my attention….what do you want to tell me?

22. All presentations need to tell a story.

It’s almost always “Where we are, where we want to be, and how we’re going to get there.”

In my 25+ years working, I have given, received, reviewed many presentations. To small groups, to large groups. To friendly audiences, and to hostile ones. Met with applause, met with the sound of crickets. With paper presentations around a table, and on a screen on a stage. So my lessons learned….it’s a story. It starts out “Once upon a time”….and ends….well, that’s the question right?

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