While talking with customers in Cleveland last week, “leadership and accountability” was a trending topic. The subject came up in a business discussion with two executives whose organization is on a push to grow leaders who understand the importance of accountability of individual contributors and of their teams. This learning fits in with their succession planning in not merely putting names in a box, but following up with a robust development plan. The question is what training and coaching is needed in order to build strong leadership skills with an emphasis in accountability.
The challenge and the answer lies in communication. The challenge is communication overload. For example, while our folks are in a meeting, they may understand clear direction and goals and embrace the expectations, only to walk out of the meeting and have six text messages, 18 Facebook updates, nine LinkedIn messages, two voicemails, and 42 emails waiting for them. In no time at all, confusion sets in causing them to forget they were even in a meeting in the first place. The result is they go back to doing what they have always done or revert back to the activity they were caught up in previously that was causing them to spin their wheels. Human nature causes us to remember what we want to and forget what is challenging or unpleasant to do, causing us to think we are busy and working hard. All may be true, and we are missing the boat and finding ourselves out of alignment, sometimes within minutes.
Meanwhile, as leaders, we are feeling good about our communication skills and our ability to get our teams focused on going in the right direction. We think, “We had good discussion and everyone seemed to be totally on board and in agreement as to what specifically needed to be done in the next 48 hours.” Life is good. What could go wrong? Oh yeah, for most leaders, be sure to double the above communication distractions, throw in a few bigger business challenging emails and an irate customer call or two and now you are good to go. What was that meeting actually about? Well, it’s not really important now because we need to fight a new fire with “all hands on deck.” So we fire off a new set of emails to our team, unintentionally redirecting their activities to solve the new issue that is so clear in our mind, yet so confusing in the minds of others and then we wonder why we create aimlessness. Quite often, they wait around doing nothing because they don’t want to start something they know will get interrupted by our next fire drill.
Now I am in a boardroom in Cleveland, Ohio, being asked to design a three-hour seminar to build leadership and accountability skills… smile!
Good news! We can help, though perhaps not in three hours… Moving from complexity to simplicity.
- Frame your conversation — this will give context and an urgency meter to what needs to be done.
- Storytelling — Relate a story to the situation. This has a 100% better chance of being remembered through the communication clutter we all wade through every day.
- Summarize and review or remind others of your message often. Two or three times within 24 hours. Send a text, email, social media reminders, etc., keeping in mind their communication overload.
- Continue your transformation from “me” thinking to “we” You will be less reactive and stop sending confusing messages.
Personal note: Remember the stress weekend of May 9th that was facing our family — Three college graduations four hours apart, a fourth if you count my niece Cara, a granddaughter being born, and the NFL draft with my son, Sam. The challenge started a year ago when Sam was informed he was the marshall of his college and would be giving a speech. So…we are all going to Syracuse to hear the talk, our twin daughters were able to walk in their graduation in December, and then — just for fun — my wife, Colleen, through game housing rented our home for the weekend.
Our beautiful granddaughter helped the cause because she arrived early and was born April 11th. This is where God does have a sense of humor. Wednesday, May 6, Sam gets invited to the Buffalo Bills rookie minicamp (Friday – Sunday). He video records his talk which will be aired at graduation. Our twin daughters, Jillian and Kaitrin, could have walked in May. My wife and I were “homeless,” and we did not attend anyone’s graduation, but did attend my niece, Cara’s, graduation party Sunday night. What we did was spend a surprising enjoyable Mother’s day weekend with my mother and watch the live streaming of the Syracuse graduation in my mother’s kitchen.
The above reminds me of a Dale Carnegie Stress principle – “Do the very best you can”… and have a sense of humor.
Let me know how “Doing the best you can” and having a sense of humor in what you do have served you well. mentor@dalecarnegie.com