"When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion."
—Ethiopian Proverb
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| Communication |
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“Why Communication?”
Imagine for a moment that everything in life is communication – simply speaking and listening. Communication is the medium of leaders. It’s the water in which they swim. There are few issues today that cannot be solved through full communication: take just the corruption scandals at Enron, Anderson, or most recently Putnam; the leadership challenges of the New York Stock Exchange; intelligence failures at the FBI; a code of silence in the Catholic Church; or political issues in the Middle East. But the issues don’t have to be big: competent communication can tackle day-to-day management issues: getting your boss to listen, resolving interpersonal struggles in your team, or empowering a colleague to try a new approach in solving a problem.
So what is the Communication = Results Pyramid? It’s about knowing the building blocks of effective leadership – leadership that gets results. Our clients’ experience has shown that without systematically completing each floor of the Pyramid, you cannot build substantial – or sustainable – accomplishments.
Whether you start a new job or take on any new challenge, you have to build the ground floor of Relationship first. This may sound trivial, but so many managers think that it’s enough to have a few beers, or they bypass the Relationship level altogether and get right down to business. One of our coaching clients became a regional team leader and was seen by his new colleagues as inexperienced and untested, so he had to build trust and credibility and partnership with key colleagues before doing anything else. In Relationship you ask, “Who are we?” You have to be genuinely interested in the other person: who are they? Where do they come from (and I don’t just mean their birthplace)? What are their values? What makes them tick? The ground rule is that the deeper the foundation of your relationship, the higher you can build the pyramid of accomplishment. Without at least some basic trust, you cannot build a meaningful accomplishment—a point easily lost on most of the Western world in which the court system has largely replaced a system of trust based on Relationship.
Once you have built a solid partnership, the second floor is Vision. Here you ask, “What are we here for? What is possible? What do we want to accomplish?” Communications to create Vision should avoid censorship or evaluation of ideas (these belong to the next floor). Pretty much anything is possible at this stage. It is here that you ask people, and yourself, to think outside the box, to dream. But the key is that Vision must be shared: when I coached the government of Haiti for the UN Development Programme, the officials from diverse government agencies needed to build a common Vision for reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS in Haiti.
When John F. Kennedy stated in 1961 that the US would put a man on the moon by the end of 1960’s, he sparked the drive and energy of the country, still hurting from falling behind the Soviet Union in the space race. Without this vision, the American space system couldn’t have achieved the astonishing accomplishments of the Apollo program. Vision was necessary, but not sufficient. Standing on the foundation of relationship and inspired by a common vision, the United States needed to move into the realm of Strategy. This was where all the skeptics and nay-sayers came in and ask tough questions like: What could go wrong? Here you ask: “How will we get it done?” You think your accomplishment through to the end: budgets, timelines, who does what when, details that might fall through the cracks, what comes after the project, and so on. Some cultures excel at strategy (for instance detail-oriented Germans or Swiss – believe me, I know!), and frankly won’t commit to a vision unless and until the How is clear to them. But any successful endeavor, regardless of your culture, needs a strong and shared strategy. Nike’s slogan “Just Do It” espoused action above all, but just doing it without strategy can backfire.
Only when the planning is complete and your team is clear on the “how,” it is time to move into Action. Here is where you make commitments and requests, and every word you say is geared toward catalyzing action. A team of executives at a large multinational energy company needed was clear on its Vision and Strategy, but each executive needed to make powerful promises to each other, and then requests of other key players in the company, to catalyze concerted action. Another coaching client at a multinational bank wanted to use her financial skills make a difference for women in the Middle East, so she needed to make powerful promises to, and requests of, her managers.
Of course, communication does not always happen in the linear fashion suggested by the Pyramid. It is quite possible to create a powerful partnership that allows you to jump straight into action. It is even possible to start an interaction with someone you don’t even know by requesting an action right away, but I don’t recommend it. In general, it is unwise to skip a level before you move on to the next one.
Imagine that each of the floors of accomplishment has its own built-in alarm. When your communication partner is upset, you can be pretty sure that relationship is missing. Rather than charging full-speed ahead, it is a good idea to go back to strengthening the ground floor of relationship.
• When people are resigned to the past, what is missing is a common vision. So when you pick up signs of resignation around you, you want to rekindle the vision that brought you all together in the first place.
• When people are unsure about what to do, or when they move too slowly, the strategy and tactics are probably unclear to them. In that case, they don’t need to be yelled at. What they do need is a better sense of how to go about achieving the vision, so your communication needs to focus on the How until you be sure that they have a clear pathway for action. At this stage, you want to ask questions like, “What is missing for you to deliver on our vision? What are the obstacles? What could go wrong, and how can we prevent that? What are your immediate opportunities?”
• Finally, when people don’t keep their agreements or don’t take the actions needed, a communication for action is missing—if, and only if, the other three floors have been built. If people don’t come to your meeting on time, it is not necessarily because they are sloppy or forgetful. Perhaps they are late because they don’t feel like stakeholders, they don’t experience partnership with you, they don’t own your vision, they can’t see the way through, or they need a better visual display of their commitments and agreements that pulls for the right actions and practices.
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| The 5 Steps of Good Feedback: |
- Don’t barge in. Unless they’re open to your feedback, you’re wasting your time. Ask: “Do you have a moment? I’d like to tell you something.”
- Don’t talk about what they did but about your experience. And avoid characterizations. “You’re selfish!” is unlikely to get you what you want.
- Clarify the consequences of their behavior: “When you don’t show up for the mailing, I end up saving the day, but it costs us time for fundraising.”
- Ask if they are open to working out a mutually acceptable solution.
- Thank them.
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