Speaking Social

Young leaders have an advantage over me. They are fluent in social.

What I mean by that is they can communicate as easily on Twitter, Snapchat, or whatever the new thing is that I haven’t even heard of yet. That’s an advantage, because every year a larger slice of the workforce communicates that way. Already nearly a third of our team members are Millenials or Gen Z. They may not use social media for everything, but they use it for enough things that you’re going to miss something if you don’t.

More critical, though, is the mindset behind it. They use social media because they want to always stay in touch. They fear missing something, and four hours is too long to go without an update.

Being fluent in social doesn’t just mean understanding social media. It means feeding that desire to always be connected. You have to start being just as chatty about your expectations and their workload as they are on Hangouts.

You can choose not to, but you’re going to lose the people who are your future.

Broken Communication

I just watched some classic bad leadership in a conversation between two managers and a technician. All three were trying to solve a problem, but in the end they all left mad.

The issue: a customer's second bad experience with a bad product. Certainly something managers have a right to ask about. But here's what went wrong: the way they asked was, "Have you done this? Could you try that?" They sounded like they didn't think the technician was trying very hard, or maybe just wasn't competent.

And here's the predictable outcome: the technician finally said, "Look, why don't you guys do it yourselves." That push-back made the managers feel like he's arrogant and not a team player.

Ironically, both sides wanted the same thing: for the other to have confidence in them. Neither got it. And the customer isn't any better off, either.

The lesson is that communication as much about how you say things than what you say. Managers could ask, "Help me understand what you're doing." The technician could say, "Let me ease your concern by explaining how thorough I've been." Same concerns, different words, but the team would still be intact.

Vision: How do They See What Isn't Visible?

OK,  we know as leaders that it's our job to set the vision for our team. The problem is, how can we get them to see something that exists primarily in our own heads?

The only tools you have are words. Maybe if your vision is very small ("Let's work towards a new refrigerator!") a picture could work, but any meaningful vision is beyond that. So here's the rule painting a vision with words: They have to be concrete.

Concrete is the opposite of abstract: it means something that can be physically described. Your vision is abstract, so your description of it has to be easily seen in the mind's eye.

So don't say "Our vision is to delight customers," say, "We want our customers so happy they tell other people." Don't say, "We should strive for a zero-defect environment," say, "If we do our jobs right we can get rid of the scrap bins, and our complaint system." 

Your team can picture a time they got such good service. They can visualize the shop without the scrap bins and all the work that goes with them. Those are concrete images, and they're what you need to help them see an abstract vision.

The Medium Affects the Message

I recently turned a positive change for the team into a problem between me and one team member by communicating badly. One of the mistakes I made involved using e-mail when I should have talked face-to-face.

Lesson re-learned: The medium can change the message.

The hard part about getting a message across is that it passes through so many filters: The one between your thoughts and your words, and the ones created by different perspectives you and your team have. And there's the filter of the medium. The mistake I made was using the wrong medium for the content and the situation.

E-mail is great for passing along facts and data, coordinating schedules, and light relationship building (thank yous, well wishes). It's lousy for transmitting emotion or for dialog. And it not only stays around forever, it propagates as people forward.

The phone is a good tool for conversations, when some back and forth is needed to coordinate or to decide, but it works best when both parties are basically on the same page.

Face-to-face is the only good way to communicate when there are differences to be resolved, or there is strong emotional content. In those cases there are too many ways to be misunderstood, and you need to be where you can watch people's reactions and read their body language. And face-to-face is always the most effective relationship-builder.

The wrong medium can actually create barriers to communication. In my case, there was some emotional content to the information; e-mail tends to magnify passion. Also, my relationship with this person required some dialog, and e-mail just doesn't work for that.

Bottom line: the medium is inseparable from the message, so choose your means as thoughtfully as your words. When in doubt, the safest is to talk face-to-face.