Communication Is Finally Front and Center for Leaders

Open and transparent communication. Easy to write down, easy to talk about but extremely difficult to actually do. Great communication (internal and external) is something that most business claim to have, many wish they had and deep down, most want to have. For whatever reason, however, communication is very rarely a skill that businesses work on consistently and set out to improve. It’s only when communication is horrific that someone will think to step in and attempt to improve.

Communication comes easily to some people while others struggle to verbalise their frustrations or compliments. Leaders don’t realise that their ability to communicate effectively can make or break a business. Whether you are engaging with your team as a whole and telling a clear story to motivate them or talking one on one with a specific person, the way you communicate matters.

One of the surprising upsides of this global pandemic has been a rush to communicate.

I am watching people who hate video chat dive into Zoom calls. I’m seeing people who are shy of social media reach out and post how they feel without a second thought. This new global enemy is giving us the permission to finally communicate effectively and I hope it’s a trend that becomes the norm.

How a leader communicates in times of strife is a clear indication of their ability to lead and their chosen priorities. Leaders who are prone to micromanaging will double down and make their teams insane. Leaders who are clear, empathetic and concise will thrive and really take centre stage.

Right now I believe it’s extremely important for over-communication to become the norm. If you used to check in with your teams once a week then it’s time to start checking in three times a week. Your quarterly financial reviews need to become weekly financial reviews and your annual supplier call best become more frequent or those relationships will start to break down very quickly. Over-communication does not mean micro-manage, there’s a difference so let’s dive into some ways that you can and should be communicating better with your everyone involved in your business.

Talk to Your Team

The Radical Candor motto.

For years I have been practising something called Radical Candor with my teams. The premise is simple; challenge directly but care personally. In other words, address the issue and not the person. You don’t have to call John dumb. He’s not dumb, he just did something silly. Address the thing he did and care about John and his ability to improve.

The key to great communication with your team is that it’s a two-way street. Your team is filled with the people you should trust to build your business and make your vision a reality. They are the ones who speak with your customers, build your products and sell them with all their might. If you have hired the right people then you should be able to practice Radical Candor with ease.

As a leader, you also need to be able to take on criticism and listen to feedback without taking offence.

Now that everyone is forced to work remotely, open and clear communication is even more important and if you don’t know how to take on criticism and you don’t believe that the people you work with want the best for you then you’ve lost the war before stepping into battle.

Tools like Slack, Skype and others are great but they are just the tools. It’s how you use them that is key. If you are asking your remote team to check-in, check out, alert you when they’re taking a toilet break or when they are going to have lunch then you are not trusting them to be the best version of themselves. You’re just remotely babysitting them and micro-managing them.

It’s imperative to have clear goals for the day, week and month that everyone is on board with and understands. Then you must be measuring your team’s performance, not their attendance. It’s impossible to measure their attendance remotely so err on the side of trust.

If you can’t trust your team then you have the wrong team or, alternatively, your team doesn’t trust you and you are the wrong leader for your team.

Another useful tool to set up appropriate communication is to create a “How You Work With Me” document. I always have my “How you work with Nic” document at the ready to share with new team members. This document helps my team understand my expectations around comms and gives them the opportunity to shine. I also always ask them to put their own version of the document together so I know how I should be working with them as efficiently as possible.

Talk to Your Suppliers / Creditors

Your knee-jerk reaction right now might be to go silent on your suppliers and creditors. That’s the wrong move. We are all going through this crisis together and your suppliers are scrambling to survive just as you are. If you engage with them directly it’s more likely that they will be on your side and try to work things out with you rather than against you.

This implies that you have a good pre-existing relationship with your suppliers and/or creditors.

Everyone wants to make it out of this insanity with their businesses intact. That is an unlikely outcome if you shut yourself off to the help that could be out there.

Often our reaction to a crisis is to hide and hunker down in silence trying to shy away from responsibilities until the very last minute, that’s not going to work this time. When the lockdown ends and you haven’t paid your suppliers they’re either going to hold this against you when business opens up or they will have gone under and you’ll have no one to do business with.

Get on the phone, set up a video call or just drop them a message but communicate more often than less often until we all know what the next move may be.

Talk to Your Customers

If you have built a relationship with your customers then they are expecting to hear from. I’ll say it again: We’re all in this together, on a global scale. Consumers, suppliers, brands, businesses, freelancers, the government, NGOs, NPOs, all of us are in this crazy pandemic together. Your customers want to know if you’ll be around when they get out of their homes.

You may not know if you’ll be around and that’s OK. Tell them that. Reach out to them one by one if you have to and ask them for ideas, see how they’re doing and just be present.

I visit the same restaurant around the corner from my flat at least once a week. I love that place and I’ll be very sad if it doesn’t survive this mess but I have no way to reach out to them, they’re famous for not playing by traditional rules of customer engagement and that’s why I love their brand but that is making it difficult for me to support them right now.

I want to hear from the brands and businesses that I love and trust. I want to support you and I want you to make it out OK in the end.

Send me an email, give me a phone call if you have my number, I’m OK with that in these extraordinary times. Give me the ability to opt-out if I want to but for the time being, hit me up. Again, over-communicate don’t ignore that this experience is happening to us all.

Let’s recap:

• Talk to your team

  • Trust the people you work with

  • Communicate with the people you trust

  • Practice Radical Candor (Challenge directly and care personally)

  • Set clear goals for the day/week/month

  • Measure people by their performance not their attendance.

  • Over-communicate rather than under-communicate

• Talk to your suppliers/creditors

  • Do not hide from your responsibilities, they aren’t going away

  • Try to find a fair solution for everyone

  • We’re all suffering together so let’s all engage and find a middle ground

  • Over-communicate rather than under-communicate

• Talk to your customers

  • If you’ve been good to your customers over the years, they’ll want to be good to you

  • Don’t beg but tell your customers how they can support you

  • There is a person behind the brand/business, be that person and talk to your customer

  • Over-communicate rather than under-communicate

If you have other tips for great communication in this new world, add them in the comments on this post!