Lean Communication for Leaders part 4: Delivering Value |

When you rise to a position of leadership, you need lean communication more than ever.

First, you communicate more than ever before. According to one study, leaders spend 80-85% of their time communicating, and I suspect that a good part of the remaining 15% is spent thinking about what to say and how to say it.

Second, your position magnifies your power to produce both value and waste. Therefore you have a corresponding obligation to do it more effectively and efficiently than ever before—to pay even more attention to lean communication.

And the general purpose of that communication is still the same: to get things done through others by communicating useful information that they can use to drive effective action and valuable outcomes. As Steve Dakolios, CEO of Federal Packaging told me: a leader’s job is to convert potential energy into kinetic energy. Your communication crucially affects both the measure and direction of that energy.

I will use the next two podcasts to explain how lean communication is different for leaders. In this one, I will talk about delivering value, and use the next podcast to address brevity, clarity and dialogue.

Value

What are a leader’s responsibilities and opportunities when it comes to communicating value? To answer that question, let’s re-visit our value-test checklist:

When you communicate, you deliver value through one or more of the following:

Improved business outcomes
Improved personal outcomes
Relationship is respected

So far, so good. But, what’s different about leadership communication?

Improved business outcomes

As a leader in a business organization, your first responsibility is to improved business outcomes. By definition, the leader is responsible for something bigger than a single person—bigger than any single follower and certainly bigger than yourself. You are the spokesperson and cheerleader for the big picture. If you don’t speak on behalf of the larger purpose and group goals, who will?

In lean terms, that means that you should explicitly explain the WIFU, or “What’s In It for Us?”. What’s the business reason for what you’re telling them? Don’t assume they already know; don’t assume they don’t need to know; don’t assume they don’t care, because they do. And if they don’t, it’s your job to give them reasons to care.

Some leaders play things close to the vest, and tell subordinates only what they need to know to do their jobs. Maybe they buy into the outdated ideas of scientific management, where Frederick Taylor said: “You’re not supposed to think. There are other people paid for thinking around here.” Maybe it’s because they’ve fallen into the ethos trap, and think that “because I said so” is good enough reason. Maybe they think it’s more efficient; because it saves time not having to explain their rationale.

But there are good reasons to share the big picture and provide the “why” in your communications. As I mentioned in the previous podcasts, complex and dynamic environments present novel situations to front-line employees faster than the leader can react, so the person on the spot can benefit from having a clear idea of how their decisions may affect the larger enterprise.

Second, they also feel more connected to the purpose of the enterprise, so they are more likely to put in discretionary effort. It may make the difference between a front-line employee telling a customer it’s not his job, versus taking the initiative to make sure the customer is happy.

Third, when they know your thinking, they may have other pieces of the puzzle which they are more likely to offer up if they know they’re important. As Steve Jobs said, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”

Improved personal outcomes

Even though WIFU takes precedence, you may still have to appeal to personal self-interest, or WIFM. It may seem unnecessary, because there is always at least an implication that they will do what you say if they know what’s good for them.

But there are three levels of agreement: compliance, commitment, and leadership. Compliance means that they go along with your idea. They may say yes, or agree not to block your efforts. At the next level, they take an emotional and personal interest in the idea and commit to seeing that the idea gets implemented become enthusiastically committed to it. This is the difference between following the letter of your request and promoting the spirit as well. At the highest level, they make the idea their own and take an active leadership role in promoting and extending it.

If simple compliance is all you’re after, it would be wasteful to say anything more, but if you want more, you need to address their self-interest, both extrinsic and intrinsic.

It’s easy to appeal to your listeners’ extrinsic self-interest; you’ve got plenty of sticks and carrots at your disposal. But appealing only to extrinsic motivators can actually create more waste in the long run, in the sense that you may be leaving a lot of effort, engagement, and creativity on the table if that’s all you rely on.

As a leader it makes much more sense to appeal to intrinsic motivation than pure extrinsic self-interest. It‘s the difference between having followers who are “coin-operated” vs those who are self-motivated. It’s the difference between transactional leadership and inspirational leadership. Leaders who inspire through their communication are about as lean as can be, because they create more value through motivating greater effort, and they greatly reduce the need to constantly keep communicating, checking and reminding people what they should be doing.

Relationship is respected

Business and personal outcomes are about results, and relationships are about people. Leaders can benefit from the proper balance between the two. According to a survey of over 60,000 employees, leaders who were primarily results-focused were rated as “great” 14% of the time; people-focused leaders 12% of the time; leaders who focused equally on both, 72% of the time! If that sounds obvious to you, reflect on the estimate by David Rock that only 1% of all leaders do this.[1]

Relationships based on mutual trust and respect create value in two ways. First, everyone feels happier and more engaged, and second, because that translates into better business performance in general. A study by Gallup reported that companies in the top quartile of engagement are 21% more profitable and 17% more productive than companies in the bottom quartile. (Of course, if you need studies to convince you to treat people well, you’ve probably already stopped reading by this point.)

Sharing information about the big picture and appealing to your followers’ self-interest show respect to your followers and enhance the relationship in and of themselves. But there are also so many ways to foster good relationships that it would take many more articles than this one. I just want to mention one very useful approach that is easy to remind yourself to do: try to always bring a social gift to every communication opportunity.

There are three social gifts that you can bring to every communication opportunity: appreciation, connection and elevation.

Appreciation: Make people feel important. You can do this easily by simply paying attention to them, soliciting their input, praising them sincerely and specifically, and giving generous credit for success.

Connection: Connect with people on a personal level and find things you have in common. Some companies, such as Southwest Airlines, make this feeling of “family” a powerful part of their culture.

Elevation: One thing about leadership is that you can’t not communicate. Even when you’re not saying anything, people are watching you closely and reading your mood. There is such a thing as emotional contagion, but it usually works in only one direction: from the more powerful to the less powerful. As Daniel Goleman reminds us: “Everyone watches the boss. People take their emotional cues from the top…even when leaders are not talking, they were watched more carefully than anyone in the group.”[2]

You have to take special care to project an upbeat, elevated attitude even when you don’t feel like it—especially when you don’t feel like it!

Lean Communication for Leaders part 4: Delivering Value

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