Chapter 6 Words Fail Me. The Communications Stall When someone in your organization correctly perceives a high-value opportunity, to capture the benefit that knowledge must be effectively communicated to those who can act. So that you can create truly effective and rapid sharing of critical information and knowledge, this chapter shows you how to overcome the harmful assumption that information or knowledge is perfectly received every time someone in your organization tries to share it. Film director Cecil B. DeMille spared no expense to part the Red Sea for his epic The Ten Commandments. Actors, engineers, horses, and assorted other animals were everywhere. The dust, heat, and noise were ferocious. Finally, everyone was ready to go and DeMille called out, "Roll the cameras." After he finished shooting the scene, DeMille called to a cameraman on a high cliff to check on how that part of the shooting had gone. The cameraman reportedly yelled back, "Ready when you are, C.B.!" What was the boggle here? What was DeMille's stall? He thought that everyone heard and understood his message whenever he spoke. But in this case, he never checked to see if the camera on the cliff was rolling before starting the scene. The solution: Check first to see if your message is received and understood before going into action. Ask people what they have heard and what they plan to do, and then keep repeating the same message in different ways to reinforce your point. This story delivers an important lesson: In business, we have to be sure that we all get the message--and at the right time--in order to get the results we want. Too many times messages are either not sent, not received, incorrectly understood, or not acted on in time--as happened with DeMille and his cameraman. The da Vinci Communications Stall That Delayed History for Three Centuries Imagine that you are Leonardo da Vinci's employer back in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Da Vinci is one of the greatest geniuses of all time, but you have hired him to design your city's fortifications. In his spare time, he is busy designing other things that he does not share with anyone. Da Vinci put drawings of many inventions in his trunk, then turned his attention to the more immediately profitable projects preferred by his employers. In fact, Leonardo was to spend most of his life manually recording his secrets in a novel manner that required a mirror to render the text intelligible. Buried in da Vinci's notes was a remarkably viable design for a bicycle. We did not get actual bicycles on the roads and paths for another three centuries, not until 1839, when a blacksmith introduced pedaled bicycles in Britain. If only the design of Leonardo's bicycle had been communicated, not stalled, recorded history might have had a faster ride into the future. Increased travel might well have vastly improved commerce and communication. People didn't travel much then. Large numbers no doubt lived their lives without ever seeing the next village. Back then, the Catholic Church was the font of literacy. Catholic monks laboriously recorded Bible text by hand. The priests passed Scripture to the illiterate by word of mouth. Had they bikes, the monks might have ridden over the footpaths between the parishes with some frequency. Monks had families and friends among the laity. It is not farfetched to think they might have begun carrying notes between friends and businesses. The demand for literacy could have found its way sooner into the community at large. As growing numbers of people learned to read and write, they would look for easier ways to put ideas in print. The printing press might have become popular sooner to meet the demand. (Also buried in his trunk was a printing press modeled after Gutenberg's that could be operated by one man. Gutenberg's press required two printers to roll the presses.) Progress on the march. As a post office developed, commerce might have bloomed earlier. The powers-that-were might have used cheap labor to build better roads. Da Vinci fell prey to the communications stall. He normally decided to communicate little about his ideas, and only selectively at that. He may have assumed his employers would only be interested in one or two of his capabilities and stopped communicating about the rest, or he may have feared his ideas would displease the church and lead to excommunication. His employers, in turn, were held back by the misconception stall that Leonardo could only help them in the areas they had already talked about. They never found out about what was in those notebooks. More typically, communications stalls occur as we try to express ourselves but fail to do so. We hear the words but don't get the message; or we get a message, but it's not the message the sender meant to convey. Remember the childhood game of telephone or whisper down the lane? Kids sit in a circle or a row, and one child whispers a story in the ear of the next one. This is repeated until the story makes the full circuit. The last child tells the story out loud to disbelieving ears because the final version is completely different from the original tale. "The red rooster crowed" might become "The red head drove a wrecked roadster." Similar mutations occur with facts, expectations, and directives in the business world. As company policy is set forth and circulated throughout the company, by whatever method, the end result is often far from the original intent. This muddying of the message is somewhat understandable when a new policy is passed on by word of mouth, less so when the new program is committed to writing. Regardless, due to the limits of training and the ability to express thoughts clearly, many a written memo (or e-mail) is nearly as likely to be misinterpreted as a verbal policy directive. Just the Facts, Ma'am Seeing Is Believing In the 1980s, there was a U.S. manufacturer that was widely considered to be a top producer of roofing materials. It was prohibitively costly to ship these heavy commodity products very far, so foreign manufacturers were willing to share information with those outside their home market. The division president often visited noncompeting plants in distant locales to get ideas--to see if others in the trade knew something he did not know about manufacturing. He knew that Japanese companies were good manufacturers, so he flew to the Orient to see how they produced materials similar to his. As it turned out, the Japanese were using the very same equipment he was, but he discovered something amazing. He used thirty people to run each line. His Japanese counterpart used only eight. He returned home elated. He was dazzled by the potential impact on profits and on the company's growth prospects if eight people could do as much as thirty. He was totally open about his plans, communicating them fully to his aides. But when he told his manufacturing chief the story, the man said, "Baloney!" So the division president went to Japan with the doubter and showed him the lightly manned production lines. The manufacturing chief became equally excited: "You are right!" he said. "You can run the line with just eight people." The two came back and told the company's plant managers the story. They said, "No, no, you don't understand what we are doing here. What you say is impossible." Back to Japan again. This time it was the plant managers who were floored. They said, "You know, you are right! But the guys in the plant won't believe it. Let's create a videotape so the shift supervisors can see that the system works." The tape was made, and the shift supervisors were corralled and shown the video. "Nonsense," they said. "It can't possibly be. Someone doctored the tape." The division president said, "We'll go to Japan one more time. But this time, I'm going to ask the Japanese to let us operate their factory for two weeks. We'll man production line jobs and see what happens." Back to Japan. The supervisors worked on the line for two weeks. Then and only then was the division president able to make the change to eight-person lines. In this case, seeing and doing was believing. No amount of talk could get the message accepted. No News Is Not Good News Some managers are ingenious at conveying a message. Others make no attempt to pass on important ideas and information. There is a difference between failing to communicate effectively and a total lack of communication. Employees do not react well when they receive a poorly conveyed message, but they become far more angry when they feel management does not care enough to even try. When people feel they are being purposely ignored, morale is severely damaged. We all tend to communicate most with the people we like. Thus, when employees perceive that their managers are making little, if any, attempt to communicate, they leap to the understandable conclusion that this is because the managers do not care about them. Other executives take the high road and wind up at a dead end. These jovial executives are so eager to be liked, they set about to build positive relationships with employees by avoiding conflict. Solving problems is unpleasant and emotionally trying. So they avoid talking about them altogether. Critical problems go unaddressed and the business suffers. In reality, employees react better to effective problem solvers than to bosses who seem to be avoiding conflicts by not addressing them. Stall Erasers Overcoming Hostility and Establishing Relationships The conductor asked, "Where's your ticket?" I said, "My face is my ticket." So he punched it. --Anonymous Sometimes hostility and competitiveness induce a communications stall. For example, when people negotiate, they tend to be wary and competitive. Professors Roger Fisher and William Ury in Getting to Yes (Houghton-Mifflin 1981) find ways to neutralize these negative influences by asking both sides to try to understand what the other person needs to accomplish. When each knows what the other wants, there is more chance of arriving at a solution satisfactory to both, the proverbial win-win solution. A classic example of competitiveness stalling a team effort occurred at a recent leadership conference. The attendees had been divided into groups and were asked to brainstorm on the same set of difficult questions. The room was full of successful executives accustomed not only to winning but to being the focus of any team effort. Soon everyone was interrupting, shouting, and saying dumb things. One team finally broke the negative barrier by deciding to set ground rules. The most important rule was a decision to "get acquainted." The group members quickly discovered each other's fields of business and specific expertise. Then they turned to the questions. Their initial disagreements dissolved as each expert was allowed to speak in turn. Their ideas and views were then posted on a blackboard. Each executive then felt that his experience was being respected and heard. The team finished quickly and successfully. When time was called, the other teams were still at loggerheads. The lesson here is that you are unlikely to find solutions among high achievers in a group unless you first establish a positive environment for communication. Establishing a relationship fosters communication even across cultural gaps. A correspondent on National Public Radio argued that the French are not impolite as so many Americans believe but instead are misunderstood. In many cases in fact, Americans come off as rude to the French. All too often, they will walk up to a French person and start speaking in English. If you approach a French person for help, start by saying, "J'ai une problème" (I have a problem). The NPR correspondent said the French love a challenge. This will manifest itself in a polite attempt to solve "une problème." Frigidity will melt as it did in his taped encounters using this approach. Stallbusters The most successful managers describe how they can never communicate enough, often enough, or in enough ways. Focus on ways to do this easily, effectively, and efficiently, and you'll soon discover 2,000 percent solutions busting out all over. Build on Success Using sources such as the results of employee surveys and individual feedback you have received, select a few examples where communications have worked much better for your organization than usual. Why do you think that these communications were more successful? One company found that it could greatly improve communications by employing a multipart communications strategy. The first part was to focus significant communications around ways that employees could get promotions, raises, and larger bonuses. Employees liked communications that helped them be more successful and were interested in what was said in such communications. The second part was to provide a videocassette recorder in each work location throughout the company so that all employees could receive information and any required training on the spot. Typically, a cassette would be reviewed just before the regular shift started. Then the employees had the chance to use the new information on that shift. The third part was to have a local manager provide immediate feedback on how each employee was doing with the new information. This meant that during the shift after the new information was received, the manager was there to answer questions, demonstrate in person the proper methods, and correct errors as they occurred during the shift. Another well-known company with a fine reputation for service quality employs a different approach to communicating with employees about what they should be doing. The company starts by selecting employees based on their interest in providing the services the company is selling. Then the company puts the employee through a rigorous training program, starting with two weeks on the company's values and culture. One-third of all new hires drop out or are fired during these two weeks because the fit between employee and company is, in fact, poor. The successful employee is then trained on the job, using a combination of very thorough manuals (often 150 pages long for jobs that competitors train their employees to do in five minutes), for at least six months before the employee is allowed to work unsupervised for even a few minutes. What do you think the average duration of employment is in this operation? You guessed it, only six months. But those who stay do a terrific job of watching out for those who will not stay so that they also do a terrific job. The cost of the extra training is more than covered by the increased sales the company enjoys at premium prices. What these two examples have in common is that a lot of communicating takes place, the communications are obviously relevant to all involved, and the information is conveyed when and where it will do the most good. How can those lessons be carried over for other communications? Consider the contrast between the examples and the way many organizations routinely communicate. A standard internal communications approach is to have the CEO make a speech, report on the speech in the employee newsletter, send out a memo, post the memo on the bulletin boards, and then drop the subject. A more advanced communicating organization might also replay a video of the CEO's speech throughout the working areas for a day or two. Obviously, not all employee communications deserve the amount of attention that the companies mentioned previously use. If the communication is valuable, it is worth communicating in the most effective way. If the communication is not very important, perhaps it should not be made. A large number of items can be covered during the type of question-and-answer sessions that many company leaders hold as they visit various sites in the company. Those questions can also be reviewed for patterns from session to session in order to see where employees want more communication. Another alternative is to use prerecorded hot lines on various subjects. Those who want to know can then update themselves conveniently. Often the same toll-free communications lines can be used with the same messages for employees, investors, and customers. If not overused, e-mail can make quite a large difference for routine information. People can indicate what they would like to be kept posted on. Discussion and working groups can be formed for those with interests in certain areas. In fact, some intranets have virtual offices with virtual water coolers where employees can share information with each other, based on mutual needs and interests. How can the same results be achieved more easily and efficiently in the future? Whatever communication method you use, be sure to measure how well it works so you can see if you need to switch to something more effective next time. A great way to do that is to spot-check what message people have received. If the method is not working as well as you would like, talk to people to find out what went wrong. Then you have a choice between reworking that type of communication to make it better and shifting to another method that works better already with less effort. Whatever your decision is, keep checking on what is working and what is not so that you can run experiments to get better results with less effort. What was missing from the effectiveness of problematic communications? So far, the discussion has been about getting or not getting the message. Another issue is how motivated employees feel to act on what has been said. Typically, even when a message is received and understood, little action follows. The natural tendency is to go back to what people have been doing unless the message is continually reinforced by a personal commitment that the employee feels. Be sure to consider two other factors that influence motivation: the strength of the emotional appeal of the message and the clarity of telling the employee exactly what you want him or her to do. Focus on Effectiveness: Results Are Where the Rubber Meets the Road Who is or was the most effective communicator you have ever heard? Many CEOs will mention either President Reagan or President Clinton. The CEOs observe that each man used simple words in simple sentences to make a few simple points. Compare this approach to the typical communications you send your employees. Many organizations find that their communications have all the clarity, appeal, and immediacy of the latest academic how-to book on some esoteric subject. Why were they effective? Effectiveness is always to be measured by the person receiving the message. You and another person may draw totally different conclusions about the effectiveness of certain communications. For example, many people who have talked with President Clinton in person report being very impressed by the way he totally focuses on the person he is talking to at that time. The listener feels compelled to pay just as much attention as the speaker is giving. Students of the subject also point out that each person has different ways he or she likes to receive information, so the best messages are those that communicate in a variety of ways. The more that each person sees, hears, touches, and feels what is going on, the more likely the communication will strike home and create a reaction and subsequent action. What aspects of that effectiveness can you capture for your organization's communications? Many people would be terrified at the thought of having to be a great communicator like someone whom they personally admire. The idea is not to become a great public speaker; rather the idea is to capture elements of what works in formats that you can execute well. Training, study, and practice can make a large difference. These questions are intended to facilitate creating understanding to help you decide what training, study, and practice would be most helpful to you and your organization. Communications Tips Here is a list of items to consider as key elements for effective communications: Reduce the number of messages. Simplify the messages. Provide powerful experiences along with the messages (like the trip to Japan in the example in this chapter). Establish many more regular channels and patterns of communications. Get more feedback on how well the message is being understood. Increase the frequency of repeating communications. Compress the frequency into shorter periods of time. Vary the delivery by using different formats. Add indications of the area's significance to underscore your message (yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater in the presence of fire and smoke will quickly empty the room). Change the behavior of leaders to provide a more consistent message so that the deeds match the words. Adjust rewards and other feedback systems to emphasize the message. Have more people be messengers (ideally everyone in the organization spends some time communicating--both talking and listening--to everyone else to help reinforce the message). 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