Less is More
One of the most common challenges associated with leadership communication is message clarity. Fortunately, this is also the easiest issue to fix.
Quite simply, to improve clarity, use less words.
Visualize this setting for a moment. The leader requests to have a corrective coaching session with a team member. Starting with “you know that you have been a very effective employee here and we appreciate your hard work, attention to detail and reliability.” Continuing without a breath to “In fact, the time back in 05 when you came in early during the computer transition was especially valuable and recently when you helped with the holiday party was very valuable.” Droning on with “The bottom line is that we need more people like you but unfortunately, we cannot tolerate you not getting along well with your fellow, and equally valuable, team members.”
Clarity was impacted early and often in the above interaction. The point of the dialog was to discuss the team member’s relationship with peers. Did the team member understand that or was he completely disengaged by the time that point was made? It is extremely likely in the above model that the team member did not get the point and was entirely uninterested by the time the point was communicated.
Think about another example related to a changed procedure for a minute. The leader begins by saying “when we began processing orders in the late nineties, there were only a few of us working on about thirty orders every day.” “From there, we installed the first automated processing system, that a few of you long-timers can remember; and I am sure you remember the problems we had with that conversion.” “We are now at a great crossroads in our department where I had to hire a consulting team to work with our order processes and hope to devise a method to handle the new increased volume, mostly from the internet, without hiring an army of new people.” “With that said, we will need to, effective immediately, begin coding our orders with a separate source identifier when it is an internet or email order.” Even the most eager and high energy team members will be long gone by the time the punch line rolls around on this one.
In both examples, the leader needed to engage in object oriented communication which is the articulation of the objective first and then holding all other detail for counter-punching opportunities or to respond to questions. This means to express the important part first to make sure communication receiver is engaged and to not jumble the message with unimportant fluff or unneeded explanations.
Some people are a little too anxious to add explanations and history when none is necessary. Still others will try a little too hard to provide mounds of information in support of their position. When this is done, in an unsolicited or in an environment that is not needed, the speaker loses credibility. Many subordinates will see through the overly pontificating boss rather quickly and this loss of respect will be hard to recover.
