English Archive - Page 16 of 100 - The Art of Communicating

They won’t know what hit them

Alright, this is it. The big meeting. I’ve got all the facts lined up, PowerPoint is flawless, and my talking points are sharp. I’m ready to persuade the heck out of them. They won’t know what hit them.

Okay, opening slide – good. I can see they’re listening. Time to ramp it up. Point one, point two, hit them with a statistic! Why do they look confused? No worries, I’ll explain it again, but faster and with more emphasis.

Wait, why is Sarah looking at her watch? And why is Mike doodling? They should be hanging on to my every word. Alright, double down. Speak louder, be more assertive.

Uh oh, I’ve lost them. They’re nodding, but it’s that empty nod people do when they’ve checked out. What went wrong? I pushed all the points, I laid out all the facts.

“Don’t persuade harder, resonate stronger.” That phrase suddenly pops into my head. My old mentor, Michael, used to say that. I brushed it off back then, but it’s ringing true right now.

I need to pause. I need to breathe. What do these people care about? What matters to them? I’ve been so focused on what I want to say that I’ve ignored what they need to hear.

Alright, shift gears.

Let’s try this again.

Slow down … tune into their frequency … and hit the right notes.

Time to resonate …

The Tale of the Lost Hikers

Some are in it for the paycheck. But for most of us that’s far from what really motivates us. If you’re anything like me you’re in it because you deeply care about what you do. You see a better tomorrow and you work to make it happen.

Great teams succeed when what each individual cares about aligns with the greater purpose of the team. These teams have a shared sense of direction, purpose, and belonging that matters to each individual in the team. Without these cornerstones, even the most talented teams can feel like a group of hikers lost in a vast wilderness – full of potential but lacking the map and compass to find their way.

Each member could be gifted in one way or another – some with an excellent knowledge of the flora, some with vast wilderness survival skills, and others with infectious enthusiasm. But when they find themselves lost in a forest and realize that they don’t have a map, that’s when the team matters. Each hiker might have their own idea about which direction they should take. But without a shared understanding, they will still circle aimlessly, becoming increasingly frustrated and disoriented.

As a group of individuals, the team can get lost in struggles and disorientation. Without a common sense for direction, it’s hard to make choices everyone aligns with.

This is not about having all the answers before you start your journey, though. It’s about knowing how the team can work together to figure out the answers as they progress – answers that each hiker contributes their best to and that lead to a meaningful destination, one that probably would have been out of reach for each individual.

Much like this group of hikers, teams in the corporate world benefit from clear answers to pivotal questions that give them direction, unify their efforts, and make the most of each team member’s unique skills and talents – prominent among those questions are “Where are we headed?” and “How do we make choices along the way?”.

Compelling answers to these questions can transform a team from a disjointed group of talented individuals into a cohesive, goal-oriented unit, fully equipped to tackle any challenges that come their way.

Making the right choices

Ultimately, the course of an organization is determined by the sum of thousands of choices that each member in the organization makes each and every day.

Some of them are tiny, others gigantic. From the intern jotting down minutes to the CEO making acquisitions, everyone plays a role in the journey. Each choice, each action collectively determines whether the ship sails smoothly or veers off course.

How often do we see organizations with strong visions crumble? Not because of external threats or market turbulence, but from the discord within. The failure often isn’t in crafting the vision but in aligning the thousands of daily choices towards it.

It’s a myth that the course of an organization could be shaped by a handful of boardroom resolutions. It’s more likely to be the result of an intricate web of choices that spans the whole organization.

Aligning those choices across the organization and empowering each member to make the “right” choices is the actual purpose of a strategy.

And it can only work when it’s communicated in a way that makes it easy to translate it into how choices are made. It’s what I call lighting the path and it’s one of the most powerful tools a leader can have.

How do you align choices in your organization?

Slow down

Usually, the first idea is not the most creative. Or the funniest. It’s not the most sophisticated. Or the clearest.

That’s why I designed the 5 day “Crack the clarity code” journey to move you beyond the first idea.

The course helps you find the right words and communicate your ideas with irresistible clarity. But it doesn’t happen quickly, sorry. In fact, during the course, I deliberately slow you down to give you time to think each step of the journey through and look at it from different angles. That’s where the good ideas live.

If you’d watch the videos back to back, it would take you less than 40 minutes. But I won’t let you. Because the magic is in doing the work. And in taking the time to think things through before you move on to the next step.

The reward for slowing down is this: Once it’s there, clarity is the ultimate accelerator. Without clarity, speeding up will only lead you to move faster into the wrong direction. But with clarity … well, you get the idea.

“Crack the Clarity Code” is currently on sale for $29. Are you ready to slow down?

Stop scrolling

Watch someone flick through TikTok reels and you’ll see a repeating pattern:

Lame! -> Flick
Lame! -> Flick
Lame! -> Flick
Oh, what’s that!? -> Stop scrolling !!

Only to discover – usually in a matter of 2-3 seconds – that it’s still kind of lame. So: flick again to continue the loop:

Lame! -> Flick
Lame! -> Flick
Oh, what’s that!? -> Stop scrolling !!

And this time, it’s actually kind of interesting. And before they’ve even noticed it, they’ve watched the reel for 40 seconds.

It’s a very simple principle:

Get their attention
Spark their interest
Only then dive deeper

With presentations it’s much the same, albeit on a very different time scale.

Someone starts their PowerPoint, you think: “Lame!” and tune out to switch your attention to planning your evening.

Another one starts their PowerPoint, you think: “Lame!” and tune out to switch your attention to improving your tennis swing.

Another one starts their presentation, you think: “Oh, what’s that!?” but they land on a generic agenda slide and you go “No, still kind of lame!”

It’s the same principle:

Get their attention
Spark their interest
Only then dive deeper

Your audience’s tolerance to dive deep – and therefore your impact – is limited before you’ve established attention and interest.

Keep lighting the path!

Waiting for your turn

In many conversations, people tend to focus on their turn. On what they could say next.

As opposed to listening to what the others have to say.

These people just wait for an opportunity to jump in and take over the talking part. Usually speaking about themselves.

In these conversations, it can feel like being in a bad band consisting only of soloists – soloists who, rather than playing together, just happen to play at the same time. Everyone’s concerned with their own solo instead of complementing each other to create a collective masterpiece.

Good conversations are collective masterpieces that lead somewhere – a place we couldn’t reach on our own.

They can only happen when we are willing to truly listen – just like the masterpieces of a great band. World class guitarist Pat Metheny once said that “the best musicians are not the best players, they’re the best listeners.”

Truly listening means more than merely waiting for your turn. It means showing up with interest, empathy, and compassion: Are you willing to look from their perspective, ask questions that dig deeper, and learn something new?

When you’re constantly busy thinking about what you’re going to say next, you won’t have time for any of that.

The art of listening is the foundation upon which the art of communicating is built.

Leaders who light the path are great listeners in that sense. For them, it’s not about who says what. They don’t care for when it’s their turn. Because it’s always the team’s turn.

For them, it’s about unlocking the brilliance of everyone on the team.

Leadership lessons from Germany’s Qatar disaster

Among the many fascinating leadership lessons from Amazon’s “All or Nothing” documentary about Germany’s Qatar football disaster, here’s one that stood out for me:

For Germany’s coaches, it was US and THEM, not WE.
“Us” the coaches and “them” the players, not “we” the team.

The coaches expected them to deliver.
As opposed to being in this together.

When the coaches expect the players to deliver, it delegates the responsibility the wrong way. It frees the coach from the responsibility and puts that burden on the player. Basically, the message is this: “I’ve told you what you need to do. If you fail, it’s on you.”

A leader who lights the path would turn this upside down. They would trust the players to deliver. They would believe in the players to deliver. Because they would figure out a path and light it in a way that the players would see it, believe in it and trust in the path (and themselves), too.

No need to expect anything.

But Germany’s players didn’t trust in the path (or themselves). Head coach Hansi Flick’s words made it sound like he didn’t trust in the journey and in the team’s ability to deliver. And so, the players couldn’t find that trust, either.

Flick used pressure (“We expect X from you”) as a substitute for trust. But that can’t work when the players don’t even trust in themselves.

Worse, when it’s US and THEM, i.e. when the TEAM is missing, then you can’t compensate lack of trust with will power (despite the obvious individual strengths of the players). For will power to surface you’d need a reason – such as belonging to something bigger than yourself. As there was no team, there was nothing bigger. Who would they stretch themselves for? The coaches? But why?

The documentary is a rare glimpse into how professional top-level leadership actually performs (or doesn’t). You’d make a mistake to assume that 1) this example would be the rare exception and 2) businesses would be any different.

Which is not to say that there aren’t businesses that are different or that there aren’t leaders who truly light the path. But it’s certainly not the default.

“Leadership skill” is still largely expected to just somehow come to leaders “naturally”. You’re either born with it or not. Training, coaching and professional advisory around communication is still the exception to the norm – and even when it’s done it’s sometimes just to check the box.

And yet, communication can make or brake leadership – even if you’re highly skilled in other areas.

If you’ve watched the documentary, what was your biggest takeaway?

PS: It was heartbreaking to see the outsized role that PowerPoint played in the team meetings. PowerPoint is no substitute for empathy and trust and the way it’s being used in these meetings is a bitter example of that.

Navigating irrational team behavior

Some useful questions to ponder if you feel like the people in your meeting are acting irrationally:

1. To which group does the person want to belong (in this moment)?

The desire to belong is a deeply rooted human need. So strong, in fact, that it can overpower logic and rational decision making. The range of possible groups people want to belong to is vast. People might want to consider themselves as being innovative. Or one of the cool kids. Perhaps they want to belong to the rich. Or consider themselves pragmatic problem solvers who just get sh*t done. Maybe they value loyalty. Or are seeking connection to a group of “friends” … As I said, the list is practically limitless and can be very personal.

2. Who does the person want to be seen by (in this moment)?

Similar but distinct from the previous aspect. It might be related to career or competition. Romance or friendship. It can lead to people remaining silent when you’d expect them to speak up. Or it can lead them to do silly things when that hasn’t been their mode of operation up until this moment. It can lead them to change loyalty or neglect facts. And again, it’s a very personal list that’s not easy to see when we’re not walking in their shoes.

3. With whom is the person negotiating their status (in this moment)?

It’s a useful shortcut to assume that we’re basically negotiating status in any exchange. It leads people to thinking they can’t give in. Or need to please the boss. That they need to fight back or appease the opponent. Establish that they are the senior person. Or the smarter one. Or sometimes simply that they’re the boss.

The bitter truth is that these social dynamics can lead people to act very differently than we would in the same situation, even when looking at the exact same facts. Sometimes, it can be very hard for us to even understand why anyone would be acting that way. And yet, they do.

What’s sometimes hard to swallow is that these human needs can dominate something like logic. When a strong desire like “belonging” (let alone “love”) takes the driver’s seat, logic isn’t the most important thing anymore.

The good news is that you can learn to see these dynamics. Understanding which group a person wants to belong to or how they’re negotiating status allows us to see their behavior in a different light. And when we do we can work with what we see and adapt how we communicate with them.

Is this idea crazy?

Recently, Jonathan Stark ran a great exercise to rethink how to start your talk:

… imagine that you simply walk on, write a single word on the board, and then just stand there until people either start asking questions or leave.

One word. To create the tension that opens up a discussion.

Not a word to summarize your talk.
A word to light a path into your talk.

What would be yours?

PS: Hit reply to let me know. If I get more than 30 responses, I’ll share mine.

Truth shaping – the dark side of marketing

The dark side of marketing is what I call “truth shaping”.

It leads marketers to exaggerate the pros and hide the cons in order to shape a truth that fits into the marketing story.

Essentially, the dark side of marketing leads businesses to spend huge resources on inventing promises that sound irresistible for products that aren’t.

Which inevitably leads to frustration when the product doesn’t meet the buyer’s expectations. That, in turn, leads the dark side to make even bolder promises which leads to more frustration … which leads to … a vicious cycle …

Great marketers understand that it’s the other way around and that a virtuous cycle is possible.

The best products are those that customers love even more when they know the complete truth. Those that are not irresistible because the promise sounds irresistible but because it is irresistible.

Those that have been built with the customer in mind and that solve a specific problem they have.

These products might not be perfect. But that’s not the same as irresistible.

It basically reverses the shaping. Rather than build a product and then shape the truth so that the irresistible promise can somehow fit the product, you start with an irresistible promise and shape the product to fit into the promise.

If it eventually does, you’ll need to merely tell me a true story about your product in plain English.

SEARCH

Explore

Work with me

Connect

SUBSCRIBE