Haltung Archive - Page 6 of 27 - The Art of Communicating

The one who asks the question

“Wait, what is this for exactly?”

This simple question brought the meeting to a screeching halt. No-one had a compelling answer – despite the fact that plenty of answers had led to this point.

One idea had led to action. Which led to more action. Which created leverage that led to even more action.

Everyone knew how to build that thing.
Everyone had an opinion on how to improve the thing.
But no-one had bothered to ask the crucial question.

Indeed, when everyone else only has answers, it’s a lucky team to have you on board if you’re the one who asks the question.

Leaders with dim light

Lighting the path is hard when your light is dim.

Saying X but doing Y as a leader crushes any team. The same is true for commitments that these leaders ask from their team but deliberately (and regularly) fail to make themselves.

When a leader demands standards from their team that they themselves do not meet, no amount of communication skill can fix this. Even if your words are highly inspirational: when you don’t walk the talk, your team will take notice sooner or later.

Great leaders are often great communicators. But not every great communicator is a great leader.

It’s always communication plus action. Keep lighting the path!

I’ve figured it all out

A professor once told me:

“When you’ve graduated from school you think you know it all. When you’ve graduated from college you know that you really know nothing. By the time you get your Ph.D. you see that no-one does.”

The most useful insight here for me was to realize that this is actually good news. It’s precisely the fact that I don’t know that leads me to look closer, to figure it out, to learn about it.

A similar story exists for startups. When you start out, it’s tempting to feel like you’ve got this covered. Your idea is definitely going to change the world. Just do this and that, and success is pretty much a no-brainer.

Until you discover that, well, there’s a lot more to it than you thought. As you dig deeper and build your product you discover all the nitty-gritty details that you should have thought of and all the mean traps of having to make compromises.

Only to discover that a new competitor has suddenly surfaced who seems to have solved all of it.

Which they haven’t, of course.

At the time you’re a venture capitalist you know that no-one has figured it all out.

That’s why VCs are not interested in founders that have it all figured out. They wouldn’t believe you, anyway. They are looking for people who are willing to figure it all out.

What you need to prove to them is that

it’s something that’s worth figuring out and that
you are able to figure it out.

The coaching spectrum

A lot of coaching focuses on fixing the coachee. Someone has a problem and visits a coach to help them overcome it and pull them out.

A different approach to coaching is more like the “sports” way. Their focus is not on fixing you but in helping you to achieve your goals and push you forward.

A third kind avoids pushing and pulling. These coaches try to make the coachee see the possible paths so that the coachee can make conscious choices based on what they see.

The differences might look subtle. All three approaches work towards an outcome that improves on the current situation.

But they can feel vastly different – on both sides of the room.

If you’re a coach where do you sit on that spectrum?
If you’re not a coach what do you seek in a coach?

Waiting for the CEO

I sometimes meet two very different kinds of CEOs.

One is OK to have their team wait. After all, the CEO is the most important person in the organization and they have lots of very important meetings with important clients and partners. Please ask their assistant for a new appointment.

The other thinks that it’s not OK to let anyone wait. Not their team, not their partners, not their customers.

If anything, CEOs should have a higher standard for how they treat people. Not only as a role model. But also because it’s the right thing to do.

That doesn’t mean that you’ll never re-schedule a meeting but that you create the conditions that make this unlikely and a rare exception.

The beginning of the story

Congratulations! You made the deal happen!

Is it the end of the story? Or the beginning?

Some businesses are only ever interested in getting deals. Customers are mostly a problem that needs to be dealt with in order to get to their money. These businesses are often willing to use up trust just to get the deal. They make bold promises but don’t care as much to keep them.

For them, the deal is the end of the story.

Others look at it differently. They care about what they do and would love to spend their whole day doing the work. For some of them, sales and marketing feels like a problem that needs to be dealt with in order to get to work with customers. One of their biggest assets is that they build trust through the work they do. They make bold promises and work extra hard to keep them.

For them, the deal is the beginning of the story.

What is it for you? How does your answer influence the way you look at sales and marketing?

Bad presentation jokes

It’s a beloved coffee break activity at conferences and in between meetings: Making fun of bad presentations.

The funniest aspect of this, though, is that the people who love to make those jokes are usually the same people who are guilty of the exact same things they are joking about.

What’s your favorite joke?

Doomed to fail

Many great ideas have died as a result of status fights. In the meeting room it became more important whose idea it was rather than whose idea was best.

And so, the best idea died.

Of course, the world couldn’t care less about your status struggles. If you show up with an inferior idea and others show up with their best idea, who’s gonna make it?

For that reason, Rick Rubin, the famous producer, tries to remove names from ideas as much as possible: “I always ask for any information shared with me to not be labeled and not explained at all.” This allows him to judge an idea based on its merits rather than based on whose idea it was.

And quite likely that explains part of why he has managed to produce winning records for over four decades and become one of the most influential producers of the world.

Have you taken any deliberate steps to leave status out of the decision making process?

What? You don’t enjoy public speaking?

“What do you mean you don’t enjoy public speaking?”
My friend was surprised to learn that his peers had perceived him as a fantastic public speaker. When he shared that he actually didn’t like being on a stage, they were – in turn – baffled to learn that.

How can someone who’s so good at speaking not like it? Worse: How can he be better than some of them who love the stage?

Actually, I encounter this mismatch quite frequently. Often, the best speakers turn out to be the very people who don’t seek out the spotlight.

Which is part of the reason why we find their speeches so enjoyable.

They don’t show up to show off. They show up because they care for their cause. Which gives their speeches a very different angle.

They don’t seek applause, but change. They are not looking to wow us, but to lead us to a profound aha moment.

They merely try to help us see what they see. And because they care deeply, they will not settle with confusing language, but look for crystal clear language that makes the complex feel simple.

To them, standing on a stage and giving public talks is an essential part of caring for their cause.

They may not enjoy the stage.
But they enjoy making change happen.

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