Being Understood

Real Conversation - Part 2

Here's Part 2 of the condensed version of the arguments supporting giving face-to-face communication more attention. They are extracted from Real Conversation - the most powerful business tool your organization will ever use, my presentation at the recent Ragan Corporate Communications Conference.

Brain scientists speak: "Humans have to talk!"

Developments in neuroscience are showing us that conversation has tangible physical effects on us as human beings.

In an era where people are paid to think, it’s probably no coincidence that there’s a lot of research examining how our brains work. Using new tools, graduate students everywhere are hooking folks up to functional MRIs to see which parts of their brains light up when they do or think about various things.

There’s evidence that we’re genetically “hardwired” to communicate face-to-face. Moreover, we actually need the company of other humans. It keeps us human.

Real Conversation - Part 1

Earlier this month, I spoke at the excellent Ragan Corporate Communications Conference, in Chicago.  My topic? Real Conversation - the most powerful business tool your organization will ever use. 

One of the topics I tackled was how to convince leaders and managers to pay closer attention to conversation in the workplace. People found it useful, so I thought I'd share it with my regular readers. So here - in two installments - is the Reader's Digest version of that section of my talk.

Making the Case for Face-To-Face

OK. Here we are, face-to-face, because that’s the way human beings were meant to communicate. We’re here to have a conversation about conversation. More precisely, we’ll discuss ways to get authentic, productive, valuable, human conversations going on in our organizations, instead of the same old bla bla bla – or worse – silence. It’s a quest organizations have been on for a long time.

I recently read a story from the 1950s. Before he founded WL Gore & Associates and started making GoreTex, Bill Gore, worked for chemical giant DuPont. He observed that there were only two places at work he ever heard a meaningful conversation. One was on task forces, where people have a clear and important short term purpose. The other was the car pool. In the car, everyone was equal, everyone was smart and the conversations were brilliant. Unfortunately, when they reached the parking lot, everyone straightened their ties, put on their work faces, stepped into the hierarchy and - conversation over.

You call this entertainment?

It's hard to be a Help Desk person. We customers only call when we're angry or confused or both.  If only we could just learn to enjoy:

• waiting (Kenny G is Top Of The Pops on "Hold" this week)
• listening to long multilingual messages that don't make sense in any language
• bouncing between service people (I suspect they have a [Random] button to send us to other departments where we will hear, "That's not my job," immediately before they ask the obligatory question, "Is there anything more I help you with today?")
• getting nowhere and taking forever to get there

In a bid to be the "ideal customer," I have started to use my problems as entertainment, for both myself and Help Desk employees. I had a great chat, this morning, with someone at Bell Canada. He was wonderful and had the customer service spirit so often missing in call centres.

The Deadbeat Harrassment System
I'm not a Bell customer, except for the occasional pay phone. However, I'm receiving daily "Pay up or die!" calls from an automated  system that asks me to call a phone number that turns out to be the credit department at Bell. It seems a former holder of my new phone number hasn't met  some of her financial obligations. I know this because Bell wasn't the only firm calling about monies owed. Fortunately, the others sent humans or included an account number in their recorded messages. These companies understand that communication requires some content and contact.

Not so Bell Canada, which is, ironically, Canada's largest communications network and has corporate communication departments in several cities. This was the sixth time I had called Bell on this matter - and the first time anyone seemed interested. This lovely agent dug into my case like detective Hercule Poirot. He revealed that, for this giant company whose business is phones and phoning, a phone number is insufficient information. He searched on all my particulars, diver's licence, social insurance nubmer, and such, just to rule out identity theft. Then he determined, to his and my regret, that there is absolutely nothing he or Bell can do to stop the system from hassling me.

A solution is found (maybe)
Firmly convinced that you can always get good service if you communicate, I didn't give up. There is a possible solution. Caller blocking! So the next few times Bell calls, I can note the time and caller phone number and my telco can stop the nonsense. 

How do I know this? You guessed it.  I called the Rogers Telecom Help Desk.

Cheers - Sue

Communication Sinners - Are You One?

I have invested far too many hours, this weekend, trying to sort out a communication mess.  A member of a volunteer board, on which I serve, has, effectively punched the rest of us in the head.

We probably deserve it.

There are sins of commission and sins of omission. Both forms are present on both sides of this particular communication mess.

The sin commtted is that of  working up a good sense of outrage, sending off the e-mail equivalent of a nuclear attack on the entire world, and sitting back to watch the explosion 

I confess.  In my younger, stupider days, I committed that very sin, myself, though on a smaller scale (and using cleaner, crisper, clearer language).  I loved being outraged and articulate about it. Later, I became a journalist, and was paid to commit that sin.

In the situation this group faces, today, it's the sins of omission that are more disturbing.

Extra: Calling Out For Service - from Voice Jail

Call anytime, but it's better to send e-mail - Yesterday, while I sat on hold long enough to tidy my entire office, the recorded greeting told me that my bank has extended its call centre support service by two hours. Nevertheless, the recording went on to suggest sending them an e-mail for faster service. The irony is that the purpose of my call was to clarify something about online banking. Hmmm. 

A friend is using the time she spends on hold to write a book - I imagine there is a statistic, somewhere, revealing that the average North American spends 1.5 months of his/her life on hold.

Would you like fries with that? - Another friend revealed today that while he was waiting for service at a technology site, the system offered him the option of waiting with or without music. I guess they didn't read the 2002 study by France's Université de Rennes showing that callers listening to music while on hold underestimate the length of time they've been waiting. Next we'll have a choice of musical styles. But will we ever reach a human being?

Poison IVR - Broadcaster/podcaster Jeff Hoyt has some interesting thoughts on yesterday's subject of interactive voice response systems that seem to be keeping customers separated from customer service reps.  You'll find his entertaining "Voice Jail" recording at www.hoytus.com/?p=21

Get Real - Calling Out For Customer Service

I have a lovely telephone company.  Through the magic of mergers, it's also my mobile phone company, my Internet service provider and (if I had a TV) my cable company. Multiple services mean multiple reasons to contact its customer service line.

And there the loveliness ends. The organization that enables me to communicate with you and the rest of the universe seems intent on preventing customers from communicating with its helpful help desk.

Place a call to the customer care line and you're connected with an interactive voice response system (IVR). In other words, a fake guy, with an incessantly cheerful recorded voice tries to guess why you're calling. Our IVR Guy has advanced beyond the "Press 1 for billing enquiries" stage and saves you the digital wear and tear of button pushing. All you have to do is speak the right words.

Pray the situation fits the options offered. Unless he hears the magic words, this poor man apologizes. "I'm sorry," he says, "I must have misunderstood. Can you repeat that please?" Welcome to Canada, where even our robots are polite.

Outwitting the robot - Since there's no officially sanctioned way to bypass IVR Guy, getting to a real person requires creativity, if not cunning.

Something to honk about

I've always believed I could learn from anyone. But a bird? Teaching me? About leadership communication?

In recent weeks, the skies around me have been filled with migrating Canada Geese. I've never been interested in these critters, unless I had to chase one off the bow of my little sailboat or scrape their droppings off my shoes after an evening walk.

But coasting along the highway, I had a chance to watch them in action as hundreds headed northward.

Geese travel in a distinctive V shape. One goose's flapping wings create an uplift for the one that follows. Apparently, that arrangement allows the flock to travel 71 per cent further than one bird could travel on its own. For the geese, this is instinct at work, yet it's as if each trusts the other geese as well as the V formation to get them to their destination. As leaders, we start a process where the group understands and agrees on the goal and the route to get there. When we emphasize the interrelatedness of individual contributions, people see where their work fits into the whole and where other people's work supports them.

Geese take turns leading. This is amazing to watch. When the lead goose has had enough, it drops back and someone else takes over. Sharing leadership helps the group go further. Using individual strengths strengthens the whole team. Leading can be hard; give yourself a chance to recover.

Geese honk to encourage each other. This may be unconscious for geese,  sound modified by the speed of their flapping wings. But we can do it consciously. Honk! Think how marvellous it would be if all the honking we heard was encouraging. As leaders, when we practice supportive honking, we inspire others to do the same.

Geese merge their Vs without a fuss. It's fascinating to watch a five-goose V join a larger group. From the ground, we can't tell if they discuss leaping on board, but they just seem to forget that they're they "new guys" and fall in. Could we use that as a model for avoiding the "them" and "us" feelings that accompany mergers, reorganizations, or even interdepartmental transfers?

Stray geese rejoin the flock quickly. If you watch one goose stray out of the formation, you'll see it gradually work its way back to the flock. The extra effort required to go it alone isn't worth it. Is there a lesson in this? "Conform or die?" I think not. As leaders, we can create environments where original thinkers and creative people are encouraged to move from the margins of our organizations and are included in our discussions. These are places where people express their authentic ideas, not just the ones they think we want to hear.

Geese stick by each other. If a goose is ill, injured, or shot, two others will leave the V formation and stay with it until it dies or is able to fly again. Then they catch up with another group. That's why you'll sometimes see two or three geese, in a cluster, flapping like mad.  When we provide genuine support to people when things are rough, we build connection and mutual commitment that lasts into the good times.

So now I'm wondering where we ever got the idea that geese are silly? Sounds pretty smart, to me. I also wonder if I'll remember all this wonderful stuff the next time I'm scraping goose poop off my shoes. Honk! Honk! Honk!

Leadership Lit

In the past few months (make that years) I've read everything I can on the topic of leadership. Several bifocal prescriptions later, I know qualify for guru status.

Ostensibly, I'm gathering information that can help my clients. And I'm doing research for my own book. But mostly, I'm hunting for the elusive key that will unlock the mysteries I face daily in being a leader myself.

As I stand before the great wall of leadership titles at my local Chapters store, I wonder if there is anything more to be said on the topic.

There are books that will show us how to lead from the back, the middle or the front. They'll teach us how to lead like Jesus, Einstein, Colin Powell, Billy Graham, Attila the Hun, or even Harry Potter. Authors share their laws of leadership and secrets of success, which (oddly?) always appear in uneven numbers. Unless there are 10. Speaking of numbers, these titles tell us to run our business by the numbers - or not to take the numbers too seriously, depending on the author. Some of them wisely tell us not to take ourselves too seriously.

My reading has led me to the following conclusions:

• I lead from where I am. Back, middle, front, top, or bottom - it really doesn't matter. Your location in the organizational hierarchy or political pecking order is unimportant. Lead from where you are, even if it's the garage.
• I lead like myself. I'll bet you noticed you're not Einstein or Harry Potter. You have to find the leadership style that fits you. And you can. There is no secret formula. All those who dispense leadership advice, including me, can do no more than spark your imagination and point you in a direction for experimentation. Watch yourself in action. See what works. Change what doesn't. Here's where Einstein comes in. He's the one who said doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity.
  
• There is one law of leadership: Treat people like people. Respect their humanity. Demonstrate empathy.  Acknowledge their contribution. If we treat people as "resources," just raw materials in the corporate success mix, they will know it. I used to work for an executive who barely knew who I was, let alone what I did. I felt I was indistinguishable from the photocopier and made weekly updates to my résumé. His successor asked my opinions, took my advice, shared his dreams, knew mine, and made me feel honoured to be part of his organization. For the first man, I worked hard. For the second, I worked well.
• There is a corollary to the one law: Show them you're human, too. Acknowledge your own imperfections. I know a man whose motto is "Flaunt your quirks." That may be further than most of us are willing to go. But showing your own humanity is attractive. We're working with smart people. They know we're not perfect. Why pretend to have all the answers? A willingness to be vulnerable can be disarming.
  
• I lead myself before I lead others. The days when "Do as I say not as I do" was an effective leadership tactic ended before we were born. We don't need to be perfect, yet we do need to be awake and aware of our behaviours and our interactions.
• Taking myself seriously will make me crazy and wreck my business. Seriously, we have to lighten up. Take your business seriously. Take your relationships seriously. Take the hockey playoffs seriously (if you must). But take yourself seriously and, next thing you know, you're on the nasty path to self-absorption, listening to ego, and losing your focus.  Plus people will hide when they see you coming.

So what's my point? Maybe what the business press calls "leadership" is really better described as "interpersonal effectiveness." Leadership is no longer about getting people to line up behind you, follow you up the hill like good soldiers, and obey your commands. Leadership today means aligning diverse people to work on common projects to meet individual needs that may or may not overlap. As individuals, interacting with and relating to other individuals, we determine the outcome.

Field work: Notice. In your interactions with people, observe your habits. Do you really see them as people? Do you let them see you that way?

Trust me, I'm a communicator - Part 3

We are the Lens

As professional communicators, we stand between people and information and give it shape and form. We are the lens through which information is filtered. In most cases, whether we are journalists or organizational commuicators, our intention is to make things clear for our audiences.

Unfortunately, there are communicators who distort the information. So the lens is scratched - or clouded with finger prints - and the audience sees a fuzzy image.

The True Believer - Distortion by Accident
Try though we may, it's unlikely that anyone can be truly impartial. Everyone's view of the world is coloured by his or her experiences, learning and beliefs (and maybe their Meyers-Briggs Type and their astrological sign).

We imagine the truth, as we see it, is the real deal. We unintentionally distort the information we communicate  to fit our personal world view. Knowing that we all have biases that filter the way we experience, receive and transmit information, I think it makes sense to declare them up front so your audience knows the nature of the lens. But then, I'm biased. Not only am I an over-40, Honda-driving Canadian with a liberal arts education (and an ENFJ Leo), I'm a natural optimist who believes people want to be understood and believed when they communicate.

Exceptions to that cherished belief bring us to the second type of distortion. 

The True Deceiver - Distortion by Design
These are the people who deliberately set out to shape a less than truthful picture of the facts. Whether they engage in propaganda, spin doctoring, political campaign rhetoric, press agentry or "sensational" journalism, true deceivers embellish the "truth" that serves their ends and diminish what doesn't serve them. They know they're being "less than truthful" and so does most of their audience. This is the stuff that inspires public inquiries. This is the stuff that gets people fired. This is the stuff that scares the public and erodes trust.

Disintermediation and CEOs who blog
As communication professionals, we need to step up our efforts to get and share a clear picture, one that's undistorted by accident or design. If we don't, we risk redundancy.

Communicators are intermediaries in a world that is, increasingly disintermediated. We once were the "source" for current and relevant information. Today, people don't need to go to traditional news organizations for news. They can go to the Internet. Consumers don't have to rely on what companies tell them about their products. They can find rants, raves, and reviews of almost every product or service on the Net.

Online, they find everyone from lunatics to CEOs (and some who fit both categories) expressing their opinions on millions of topics.  When people can go right to a web site or blog and get the story (official or unofficial) for themselves, public relations people and journalists are cut out of the game. We lose the role of leading and shaping opinion.

Some might argue that's a good thing. But, for most people, going to the Net is a bit like a walk in the dark without your glasses. You're dazzled by the brightest and lulled into a false sense of safety by the familiar.

I'll argue that someone needs to take on the role of discerning what's true and presenting it to people so bombarded with information they no longer know what to believe.  That "someone" can and should be professional communicators. The trick is to demonstrate that our lens is as smudge-free as it gets. Or,  at least, declare the tint of the filter.

 

Trust me, I'm a communicator - Part 2

Did they ever trust us?
That's the question IABC Chair Warren Bickford asks in response to my blog post, March 20, about the Léger poll that suggests more than half the people in Canada don't trust professional communicators. 

Of the 22 professions measured, PR folk are the fourth least trusted professional group. Even lawyers fare better. Journalists, too, are trusted by less than half the population. Ouch!

The chart shows the trend, along with scores for  the most and least trusted professions. Not much variation over five years. Maybe, as Warren suggests, they never did trust us.

So what's the deal here? Should the public trust professional communicators? If so, how do we make that happen? If not, what's the point of our work? Besides paying for groceries.

So, let's say that, along with buying groceries, communicators want to gain the public's trust. Can we take our own good advice - do the things we urge our clients to do?

• Be visible.
• Listen to your audience.
• Acknowledge people's feelings.
• Answer their questions.
• Tell the truth.
• Admit when you're wrong.
• Do what you say you will.
• Remember that actions speak louder than words.

I think we know the answer. Let's look at a few of the steps.

Be visible. The first action is to step out and talk about what we do and why we do it. Let the public see that  "spin doctors" and "muckrakers" are dinosaurs. PR, done well, is not about hyperbole or avoiding the truth. Journalism, done well, is not about pointing out the bad things in society or glorifying conflict.  We know our work is to find out what people need to know or want to know and present it as clearly and accurately as we can. Let's make that obvious by talking about what we're doing. Let's also stand up for those codes of ethics our professional associations promote, and apply some pressure to practitioners who cross the line.

For example, I know of a situation where, based on the contents of a news release, a newspaper printed an account of a meeting involving locals visiting a far off land. The next day, one of the alleged (and quoted) participants called the paper to state that the event never actually took place. Enraged, the reporter wrote an article about how the event was misrepresented, in which the PR woman admitted that, perhaps, the news release wasn't exactly accurate. It was based on what was supposed to happen and sent out to meet the newspaper's early deadline. The reporter didn't verify. The PR woman didn't verify. Honest mistake? Ethical violation? Either way, they both should have been slapped! I'm guessing each one learned an important lesson.

Listen to your audience. We need to get out there and talk to real people. Not our cosy colleagues. What do they think of our professions? Where do they get their impressions of us? How do they feel about our work? What would it take to make them trust us? Is trust even possible? How will we know when we get there? These are not questions pollsters are asking - not until we pay them to ask. We need to get out of the office and talk to people - not about the content of our communication, but about the nature, context and utility of it.

Acknowledge people's feelings. Let's look at the feelings that underlie trust and mistrust. Some emotional intelligence theorists suggest that all feelings boil down to "mad, sad, glad, or scared." So what's the emotion? Do those who don't trust us fear that they're not getting the real story? That's my take on it. Do I hear a good argument for angry or sad?

Answer their questions. What do people want to know about our professions? Apart from the usual whine about journalists, "Why don't you ever write about good news?", my guess would be, "They don't really want to know much." Maybe we need to let them know how we operate, so they can work with us to bring their interests and needs to the attention of people who can make a difference for them and, in the case of corporate communicators, for our employers. Maybe some of us already are doing this.

Tell the truth. Admit when you're wrong. Do what you say you will. I'm thinking these suggestions don't need expansion.

Remember that actions speak louder than words. We communicators need to take our own medicine.  If,  on our own behalf or on behalf of our profession, we actively and visibly practise the habits we urge our clients and audiences to adopt, we'll surely gather some goodwill along the way. We might even get better at our jobs, since we'll actually be using our "products."

Will the public ever trust us as much as, say, firefighters? Maybe not. Maybe yes. Maybe it's time to think big.

Coming next:  Disintermediation - and CEOs who blog.