“As soon as you move one step up from the bottom, your effectiveness depends on your ability to reach others through the spoken and written word.” It’s been years since Peter Drucker offered that bon mot, but it certainly seems to be truth. The New York Times’ Corner Office feature, which runs Sundays on page two of the Business section, talks to business leaders of all stripe, and each of them has something to say about the importance of communication to their business style.
Dec. 6, Joseph J. Plumeri, Chairman and CEO of Willis Group Holdings (the insurance broker whose name now graces the former Sears Tower in Chicago), was Corner Office’s subject. He said:
I spend 25 percent to 30 percent of my time calling my associates — whether they had a family problem or pulled off a great deal and brought in a new client, or saved a client. Two-minute phone call, or handwritten note. I can’t begin to tell you how important that stuff is. E-mails are easy, but sometimes they get in the way of really feeling how somebody feels about your effort.
Is it time consuming? Yes. But that’s what you’ve got to do…
Plumeri goes on to say that helping people understand and believe in the choices the company makes is essential to realizing business vision.
On Dec. 13, Nancy McKinstry, CEO of Wolters Kluwer, a Netherlands-based information services company, says “Every culture is very different in how people make decisions” as she relates how her leadership style changed over time according to the communication styles of her team.
In the Netherlands, where our company is based, people really want to be heard early in the process. So if you just go to someone and say, “I want you to go take this product and enter this new market,” most likely the first response they’ll say is, “No, and let me tell you how that won’t work.” What they really want to say is, “I’m not going to commit yet to that objective until we have a chance to really sit down and explore how we’re going to do that, what your expectations are, and how we measure success.”
Then, when I work with my Italian colleagues and the Spaniard colleagues, what you find is they can’t always tell you how they’re going to get something accomplished, but they manage to get it done.
Shocking news, really, that one’s leadership team expects to have a clear strategy in place before acting, and wants the freedom to choose how to accomplish the goals they’re responsible for.
What concerns me is how few middle managers (or even executive managers) have undertaken the sort of self-examination that both McKinstry and Plumeri evidently have. In 20 years, I’ve met only a handful who embrace the power of participative communication. By the way, they’re the leaders who typically win in the marketplace.
Why don’t more organizations evaluate the communication strength of their leaders? One reason is the perception that you can’t hold people accountable for “soft” skills. Yet, we know that there are very strong correlations between effective communication behavior and employee understanding and comprehension. So, if we want an informed, educated workforce which understands the business and their role in it, their managers will need to be the ones providing context and leadership.
Therefore, let’s evaluate communication skills among managers and come up with ways of helping those managers improve and thrive. It’s not too difficult a concept.
Tags: @commammo, Communication AMMO, communication experts, communication messages, communication methods, communication skills, communication vehicles, effective communication, employee, engage, evaluation, internal communication, leadership communication, manager communication, measurement, PR measurement, reputation management, transparency
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Sean: Another interesting post. I am especially intrigued by your idea about assessing the communication skills of managers. How do you see that playing itself out in a business context? Communication is actually among the competencies on which managers in my company are evaluated. The potential problem is that the evaluation is made primarily by an individual’s manager. (I say “primarily” because in some instances input is sought from others in the organization in a “360″ format.) That manager might be a great communicator — or that manager might be a lousy communicator. Either way, are you suggesting some “expert” form of evaluating managerial communication skills? In-house or third-party? Also, it would only seem fair to offer some form of formal training in communication for managers as part of professional development opportunities if it is among the criteria on which individual performance will be judged. Are you aware of companies with such training programs? It would make for an interesting research project, potentially testing that link between communicative comptence and managerial effectiveness.
Jeff
Jeff, thanks for the comment.
Yes, several firms have strong manager communication methodology (or they did when I trained them!) — Merck, Prudential, First Energy, John Deere — all of them invested in manager communication training as a precursor to making communication skills a stronger part of evaluation. The trick is getting the firms to continue helping sharpen the saw after the consultant goes home. Also, many many companies use the Gallup Q12 method of employee engagement survey, which has a strong bias toward effective managerial communication. The engagement data is so important that they typically want communication skills training to help the managers be more effective…
There are independent best practices we can apply to a general template of managerial behavior — holding staff meetings, one-on-ones, sharing context and information, asking for input prior to plan development, etc., all appear in most overall managerial communication assessments….
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I am a fan of anonymous 360 degree feedback from all employees who report to the relevant person – and maybe a few more.
That way people can express their views without fear and the messages and advice gets through to the relevant person.
Just like in a family situation, it is role modelling which creates a culture and the difference. And as we spend so much of our lives at work, it is the socially responsible thing to make life pleasant, interesting and rewarding for those who we work with, but particularly those who we are ‘responsible’ for as leaders/managers.
Craig, thanks for stopping by. At one company, we did multi-feedback as part of the annual review process. We needed to provide a list of “clients” to our boss, and he’d ship a one-pager off to gather feedback. It’s a great device and adds a lot of value if it’s thoughtfully considered.
Take care!
S.
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