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Communicating Clearly and Concisely

Communicating Clearly and Concisely

Leaning forward across the table, I explained how I was writing a blog about management and leadership. The man sitting across from me had an impatient look on his face as he shook his head and said, “So you’re writing blogging software?” I said no, I wasn’t writing software to create blogs, I was writing a blog about management and leadership. He waved his hand in the air as if to dismiss this notion and said, “That is not a business. You need to have a clear idea.” I attempted to share that I realized it wasn’t a business, however I wanted to write a blog about management and leadership. But he wasn’t listening. Looking into his eyes, I could see he was already thinking about what he wanted to say next. He only wanted to talk about his ideas.

There are two things that stood out in this conversation for me. One was that I don’t clearly explain what I’m doing which is something I can work on. Second, this person wasn’t listening to me.

The more I thought about this experience, the more I realized if I am going to communicate an idea or project or anything to another person, I need to have an absolutely clear, concise, and compelling way of doing so. Because no matter what I am doing or where I am working, I need to communicate about what I am working on whether it’s a product or a service. If I can’t do that in 1 to 2 sentences and it doesn’t sound very interesting, I’ll lose a large chunk of the listening population. Why? Because they will only listen long enough to determine if they are interested in what I am saying. Once they determine they are not interested, they aren’t going to listen to anything else I say after that.

In the last year, I joined a small business networking group to see how this type of networking works. Every week, each person has 30 seconds to introduce themselves and their companies. This was a tremendous learning experience. I learned to narrow down my focus and hit at the heart of what I am doing. I needed the practice. Listening to others pitch their companies gave me lots of examples and helped me to understand how to be more clear and concise.

In reflecting on previous attempts to explain an idea or a proposal through the years, I realized I failed to be clear and concise. I needed a 1 to 2 minute pitch even when I was working at an established company. If I had a 1 to 2 minute pitch then presented the details, I would have been more successful in selling my proposals. Looking back, I’ve created many Powerpoint presentations to explain projects but I bet I just bored the heck out of my audience because I didn’t have my pitch refined and in place.

That conversation about my blog was a good kick in the butt experience for me and joining the small business networking group was just the place to learn what I needed to learn.

So why I am I blogging about managing people? I blog because I want to share what I’ve learned about managing people and the most important skill a manager cultivates, at least in my opinion, is self-awareness.

Communicating more clearly and concisely about my work is something to always be aware of and a skill I need to constantly cultivate. Communication begins with me.

But We’ve Always Done it This Way

But We’ve Always Done it This Way

“But we’ve always done it this way,” he told me as I asked why we needed to continue to track metrics I didn’t think anyone was using. So I asked him, “How are these metrics being used and by whom?” He answered, “Well, I like to track all of these in case someone wants to start using them.”

I then went to several directors to ask them how much time it was taking them to collect these monthly metrics. One said it took time but was no big deal. Another one told me with a smile, “I don’t send them in anymore. I stopped two months ago. No one noticed.” I laughed.

Then I figured out how much time people were wasting on something that wasn’t even being used by anyone for anything. Why? I hate waste. I hate collecting metrics just to collect them. I dislike process just for process sake especially if it takes time that can better be spent elsewhere.

It’s always a good idea to review current processes to understand if they are still effective and supporting the business as expected. However, if you discover people are spending time on information gathering or processes that are ineffective or not being used, then either streamline them or eliminate them.

Some will argue that the process has been in place for so long because it really did solve a problem at one point so it shouldn’t change. These are the people who will find change uncomfortable. A guest blogger, Tarang, wrote about change management. You might be interested in his observations.

People find comfort in processes that have been in place for a long time because they are familiar. Safe. However just consider how much better that time could be spent if those processes are no longer used. Eliminating time wasting processes creates space for new opportunities and new ways of doing things.

After we evaluated and identified which metrics would help us make business decisions, we were able to streamline information in the report. This saved time for those that were collecting the data leaving them more time to focus on releasing the product. They also didn’t feel they were gathering metrics that no one would use.

It’s a good practice to review metrics and processes and fine tune to make sure they are still relevant, meaningful, and helpful.

The Buy-In Leadership Challenge and the 20-70-10 Rule

The Buy-In Leadership Challenge and the 20-70-10 Rule

As leaders, we are on a never-ending journey of continuous improvement in all areas of our business. Some of us, including myself, derive a great deal of satisfaction from transitioning teams and businesses into a new and improved future state. This journey towards a better future state can become arduous if we do not have genuine support from some of the stakeholders.

One way of managing your stakeholders is what I call the 20-70-10 rule of buy-in. The numbers represent the size of three stakeholder groups:

  • 20% group – Fully Supportive change agents
  • 70% group – Indifferent majority
  • 10% group – Detractors

tarang-stakeholder-revised

In my experience, for any change to be effective, you need at least 20% of the stakeholders to be fully supportive and optimistic about getting to the end state. The second group of individuals, the 70% group, may not be enthusiastic about the change, but won’t be detractors either. The third group is the dangerous detractors; those who may go out of their way to maintain status quo.

Carefully managing all stakeholder groups is vital, as momentum in the wrong direction can be disastrous.

My top five tips for leaders on this topic are to:

  1. Create a stakeholder map to identify the 20-70-10 groups. In the past, I have built this map after having one on one conversations with team members to understand what motivates them and listen to their feedback. By putting yourself in their shoes, asking open-ended questions related to the change, and carefully listening to what they have to say, you will be able to determine if they are a fully supportive change agent or a detractor. If they seem indifferent, then they would be part of the majority i.e. the 70% group.
  2. Build momentum with the agents (20% group). Back in 2013 when I was leading a team that was working on a new product, I found that a handful of developers were highly motivated to transform the industry that we were operating in and would come up with innovative ideas on an almost daily basis. We then set up a think tank group with those change agents and had a weekly brainstorming session to build momentum.
  3. Accept the fact that there will always be detractors (10% group), so acknowledge their concerns and try your best to address them. I inherited a team back in 2007, and during the stakeholder mapping exercise, I realised that a senior team member did not support our new initiative. In that case, it was the development of a new automated testing framework. After carefully listening to this individual’s concerns, I realised that he would see the success of this framework as a personal failure because he was part of the team that had earlier failed to develop a similar framework. During the one on one conversation, I acknowledged his concerns and requested him to play the devil’s advocate role during the technical review sessions. Everyone in the team knew that he would play this role, and he felt that he made a valuable contribution by using his experience in identifying potential issues with the framework design before it got developed.
  4. Ensure that the majority of the stakeholders are heading in the right direction by explicitly setting behavioural expectations, SMART goals, frequently measuring progress using KPIs, and course correcting when necessary. Developing SMART i.e. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound goals are an essential building block for results oriented execution. I have seen numerous initiatives fail as the leaders did not design and assign SMART goals. In those cases, individuals thought that they were making progress, but in the absence of clearly defined goals, they were heading in different directions ultimately leading to wasted effort.
  5. Over-communicate, because there is no such thing as too much communication. Don’t stop after an initial announcement. Reiterate your message on every opportunity you get. Use different modes of communication: record videos, organise webinars, send regular newsletters, set up all hands meetings, and have skip level one on one conversations to ensure that you receive feedback and individuals are adequately informed.

What are your top tips? Please share them in the comments below.

Tarang Waghela is a Senior Director of Software Development at ABB, Inc. He has extensive experience in leading global software teams and has successfully led and delivered numerous software products in the areas of mining long–term scheduling, short–term scheduling, geological data management, mining economics, ERP, and simulation.