Chapter 11
Communicating and Connecting to Inspire

At its most fundamental level, leadership depends on the ability to communicate effectively and in ways that inspire people to action. Leadership communication skills are integral to every step of the Stacking the Deck process. This chapter focuses on the topics of communication and character, illustrating their connection to inspiring action and successfully leading breakthrough change.

Citi's Debby Hopkins emphasized the importance of communication. From her perspective, “to succeed, leaders must bring people along. You must let people voice their concerns, and even voice their dissent. Sometimes you may think to yourself, ‘Are you kidding? I've answered that question 42 times!’ But I suggest you step back, take a breath, and fashion a simple and clear core message that people will take away—and remember.”

If character and genuine connection don't come across in leaders' communications, frequency alone will not engender inspiration. Often the effort required to communicate and connect is difficult and time consuming, even while time may be at a premium. Ginger Graham, CEO of Two Trees Consulting, put some of the challenges front and center. “The change process requires a tremendous amount of communication. However, as they are developing the plan, executives spend time behind closed doors, planning and budgeting. They have secret meetings to consider workforce reductions and who may be involved. They hide from employees, in part because they don't want to be asked any questions they can't yet answer.”

If executives are not putting themselves in situations that showcase their character, how can would-be followers determine if these leaders deserve to be followed? Ultimately, the willingness to follow stems from observing how leaders communicate and connect, how they demonstrate their character, and how they make the changes they are advocating real to their constituents.

Leadership Communication Must Be Authentic

Leading breakthrough change will test every aspect of your leadership abilities; your communication skills are certainly no exception. If you don't have the tools to speak effectively to people, how can you possibly inspire their passion or convince them of the necessity for the change?

There is far more to being an effective communicator than most executives believe—at least when they are starting out. During the first 20 years of my career I thought I was pretty good at speaking to my teams and motivating them. In reality, I was barely scratching the surface on the skills I would need to lead the change initiatives that were waiting for me. After I had been with Schwab for about eight years, my boss Larry Stupski had a near fatal heart attack. To everyone's surprise (including my own) I was promoted to fill his position as president and chief operating officer. Initially, I felt quite capable of handling this elevated assignment. After a few months, however, it was apparent I had assumed a whole new level of leadership responsibility for which I was not just underprepared, but unprepared.

As one of my remediation strategies, I went looking for a speechwriter to help me sharpen my communication within the company. When a colleague introduced me to Terry Pearce, a communication consultant and the founder and president of Leadership Communication, I thought I was getting a speechwriter. I had no idea what was really ahead.

For our first project together, I wanted some help with a speech I needed to give to the 200 top executives within our then 3,500-person company. I'd never worked intensively with a speechwriter and wasn't sure what to expect. Whatever vague notions I did have were soon blown out of the water.

As I finished telling Terry what I wanted him to do, he interrupted me. “I can do that, Dave, but I don't think what you have in mind is really what you want to say.” Truthfully, I was taken aback. He went on. “If we really want to inspire these people, I need you to spend some time talking to me about who you are and what experiences have shaped your life. I need to know what moves you, what your values are, what motivates you when you have won and when you have lost. I need to know who you are and why you care about all of this as passionately as you do. Then we can work on this speech you have coming up.”

I was flabbergasted. I wasn't looking for someone to help me write an autobiography. I wanted a damn speech! My response was immediate. “Terry, I'm a really busy guy. This seems like a lot of busywork for a speech. Can't we just discuss the message I want to deliver and then you find a really clear and compelling way for me to say it?” Frustration was entering my tone of voice.

“Sorry, Dave, that's not really what I do,” was his reply. “There are lots of people who are good with words, and sometimes that works for articles, but that's not what we need right now. Everyone knows the topic because you have been working on this change for a while. It's less about what you say and more about how you say it and whether or not it is authentic. You need to deliver a message that will be compelling because everyone understands and believes your personal commitment to what you want them to do, and that you believe it is not only in your best interest, but in their best interest as well. Once they sign up for the values embedded in what you are suggesting, their actions will follow. Certainly the facts are important, but to inspire, you must be authentic and speak from the heart. After all, they are following you, not just the idea. Both are important—and this is what leadership communication is all about.”

It was quickly apparent that I hadn't hired a speechwriter but a communication expert and a leadership coach. I was incredibly lucky to have stumbled into this relationship, which continued for the rest of my tenure at Schwab, and beyond. We recently worked together on a speech, and once again the collaboration was magic. We were dynamic partners, and at the peak of our work together at Schwab, we wrote Clicks and Mortar, a top-ten best seller on BusinessWeek and on Amazon; it was also a best seller in Germany.

Terry is also the author of a best-selling book on leadership communication called Leading Out Loud, currently in its third edition. I consider it the bible on this subject, and I assign it to all my students. Essentially all my ideas and all I know about this subject come from what I have learned from Terry's coaching and what I experienced while we were working together. When my leadership communication has been most genuine and most effective in inspiring people, it has been thanks to Terry's coaching and to his advice and reminders that have become part of me.

Make Values Visible

Howard Schultz reflected on exactly what Terry and I had so often discussed during our work together: facts are important yet it's values and authenticity that make the difference. Howard told me about guiding Starbucks through a very challenging time. His story is a perfect example of how effective, empathetic communication, a commitment to culture building, and the character of the leader can be a foundation for a breakthrough change project and then contribute to making that change a reality.

He began by explaining, “It was back in January of 2008, at the height of the cataclysmic financial crisis. Things weren't just bad—they were brutal. I created what I thought of as a kind of ‘first 100 days.’ I knew what I was going to do and how I was going to do it. What I didn't know was that things were even worse than I'd anticipated and continuing to nose-dive, mainly because of the economic issues.” Howard had a clear idea of how customers viewed his product in this environment: “Starbucks products are, more than anything else, discretionary purchases. So it is our job to create demand, innovation, and desire.”

By that point, he knew that “the cost structure of the company was not going to get us through the economic downturn.” His first week back as chief executive officer, he gave a speech to the entire company; four thousand people viewed it in person and the rest via webcast. Howard explained, “The first thing I did was stand up and apologize. And I cried. I hadn't gone in there planning to cry, but I was apologizing that we as leaders had let them, the workers and their families, down.” Schultz knew, however, that “we can't rewrite the past. We can only face the future, together. And I explained that we were going to have to make significant cuts and tough decisions to save the company.”

Friends and colleagues had cautioned him to be careful with what he disclosed because the facts could scare people. “But,” Howard said, “one of the first questions about leading bold change and being a leader is, do you tell the truth? Do you parse out information or do you trust your people? When you are asking people to follow you and believe in you, how could you give them anything but everything, in terms of information?” Howard decided “that every time I had information that was important for them to know, I gave it to them. Even if it was hard to hear or frightening.”

Howard also had a clear idea of the one role that was crucial during this time. He understood that “the most important person in the history of the company is the store manager—and I needed a method to talk to every store manager. How could I get ten thousand people in one room?” It was not an easy proposition and bound to be expensive. Naturally, “the board had objections, because the cost would be well into the millions. I asked them: ‘Where better to make an investment in the turnaround of this company? Where else than in our people?’ We debated it, looked at alternatives, and in the end we all agreed that the situation and the opportunity to generate passion and commitment justified the expense.”

As the conference began, in October 2008, Starbucks was “running negative 8 percent comps and our comparable sales statistics were getting worse every week and every month.” Starbucks had never had negative comp store sales in its history. Howard “knew that when we got to negative 14.5 percent, we were going to run out of money—and we were heading for negative 20 percent. That knowledge was in my head as I prepared my speech for the last day of the conference.”

Again friends and colleagues warned him that people would not be able to absorb the information. Howard explained, “Of course I worried about scaring people. But I also knew that if people didn't know just how bad the situation was, they weren't going to be able to understand what they had to do to manage and lead their stores. I decided on full transparency.”

Howard focused his speech on two words: bystander and accountable. “I talked about what it means to be personally accountable for everything that goes on, everything that you see and hear. And I talked about what it means to not be a bystander. I told them, ‘If we get to negative 14.5 percent, we are all going to be out of a job.’ I was pleading for them to understand when I said, ‘What if this was one store? You own the store. And the food on your table is dependent on what happened that day. That is what we have to do.’ Because every single customer, every single transaction, every single interaction mattered more than ever before.”

Howard well understands that his “speech alone did not make the company more profitable right away; but afterwards, it never got worse. It took over a year, but we did turn it around.” His story is, to me, a great illustration of the power of genuine communication. And “genuine” is a key word here.

This book has emphasized that change is an emotional issue. In further elucidating his discussion of change, Terry Pearce explained that “change can seem chaotic, senseless, and frightening—and that is why people hate it. But progress is different. It is change with an underlying worthwhile challenge and purpose.” We both understood that for people to see a change as progress, “the narrative of where we are going has to look better than the narrative of where we have been. It also has to look better than where we could wind up if we continue, without making the proposed change.” We need the stories and retellings of personal experiences that are forward thinking, inspiring, and that appeal to our emotional foundations.

Engage with Stories

As a numbers guy, I needed a long time to fully appreciate that if you want to overcome emotional objections you cannot rely on facts and figures alone. It's a lesson I've had to relearn too many times. When I've forgotten it or discounted Terry's advice to “rely heavily on stories, experiences, metaphor, and image,” my presentations have been relatively ineffective. Numbers may seem a faster way to make a point, but it's stories that people remember. While Howard mentioned a few financial facts about Starbucks' situation back in 2008, his speech mostly comprised stories about what had made the company successful and what needed to change to get it back on the path to future success. He talked about the managers and baristas in the stores who talked to customers every day, who welcomed them into the store and created the emotional connection with customers that makes Starbucks “the third place” in people's lives after their homes and their place of work.

The personal experiences and stories you share with others create the emotional engagement that begins the transformation of “change” into “progress.” It's how you build the purpose behind the change that gives it meaning and allows for buy-in, not just practically but emotionally as well. Unfortunately, executives—even those with the experience to know better—all too often fall into the trap of giving employees reams of facts, statistics, and numbers to create the case for change. This may work with your board, but if you want to encourage those whose lives and daily activities will be directly affected by your change initiative, then stories are the way to begin overcoming emotional resistance and generating engagement.

This need for engagement came up over and over again in the interviews for this book, as well as my own experience. You can't simply demand the support of the people on the front lines who will be affected by your change initiative. You must earn it. And money can buy only a small portion of the support that you will need. Money doesn't inspire; it motivates. That gets you people's hands. It is meaning that gets their hearts, meaning that fuels people's discretionary effort, their thinking, action, and desire to be active members of the project team and their willingness to disrupt daily existence on the front lines to do things a new way. Communicating about change is less about motivation (the exchange of behaviors for rewards) and more about inspiration (appealing to an innate desire to be a part of and contribute to something really important). Hence inspirational communication is a must for leading breakthrough change.

A Gallup survey asked a group of executives to appraise themselves on whether or not they were inspirational communicators. Then their followers were asked whether these executives were inspirational. You may not be surprised to learn that there was something of a discrepancy in the results: executives thought that they were doing just fantastic, inspiring everyone. Of the executives, 93 percent said that they were “very or somewhat effective in inspiring communications.” Unfortunately for them (and for their companies), only 26 percent of their followers rated them as inspirational communicators. Obviously, it is the opinion of the followers that matters here.

Top executives usually get where they are because they have a high aptitude for business and they are skilled in their areas of expertise, such as accounting, technology, marketing, and the like. They take responsibility for outcomes, they speak with clarity, and exhibit emotional control. They are expert at what they do, they are good at managing to drive results, and they get promoted up the ranks.

Less frequently do top executives (or members of boards of directors) achieve their career success on the basis of their ability to emotionally connect with people. You can go very far in corporate life with good technical skills, a clear voice, and the ability—and willingness—to hold yourself and others responsible and accountable. But the leadership skills required for breakthrough change demand more. These initiatives are long and difficult, and the road to success is often paved with setbacks and disappointments. To keep the team moving forward, leaders must connect with those they lead. This means they must be, and be seen as, trustworthy, empathetic, courageous, passionate, and resolute. Employees must admire you not just for your competence but also for your strength of character. You earn the loyalty of those around you by what you do, who you are, and how you talk about what is important to you.

The world is changing. I see that boards of directors, in discussing the relative characteristics of leadership candidates, often focus now on evidence of emotional intelligence and the ability to inspire others, as well as on competencies and other work experience. Perhaps we are all moving toward “and” solutions: leaders must continue to be concerned with outcomes and metrics; they must be competent in all the traditional senses—and they must be trustworthy, empathetic, and able to communicate in ways that inspire those around them. In looking at the impact of these principles, Terry and I determined that competence and connection are the key indicators of the most successful leaders. Competence alone has enabled many successful executive careers. But to become an authentic leader capable of guiding breakthrough change, we must be able to display our competence and connect with the people we hope to lead.

Competence and connection need to be evident. All too often, when we focus on how to communicate, we think of “good communicators” as people who have a certain kind of body language or who plan out their speeches in a specific way. We may be focusing on the wrong issues and aspects of leadership. Being an effective communicator demands much more than showing up at the podium on time and reading a speech without tripping over any lines. That would be easy compared to what's really needed.

Be Fully Present

When I was at Schwab, I had a very specific way of approaching all my speeches. Terry and I would work on what I needed to communicate and on the stories or anecdotes that would add power and authenticity to the speech. Terry would then write out the speech very precisely, word for word, as though I was going to use it as a script. Then I would read it aloud over and over. Eventually, I would boil it down to a few specific bullet points, which I would write out to serve as “memory joggers” to keep me on track. I would use those bullet points to guide me through the actual speech, and if I ever got stuck or on a tangent, I could look at the next bullet point and move toward it. This method worked very well: I knew what I wanted to say, I prepared meticulously, Terry helped with the words and images, and I then spoke from the heart.

There were occasions, however, when I just didn't have the time to go through my normal preparations and practice enough to get to that bullet-point step. In one such case, I asked for a teleprompter so I could read the speech. After all, it was well written and strong; the words were beautifully chosen to articulate the points we wanted to make. I expected to be just as effective reading it as I would have been speaking from notes, maybe even better. At least, that was the theory.

After the speech, I spoke with Jan Hier-King, a member of my executive team, whom I valued highly because I knew I could always count on her to tell me the truth, even when it was a hard truth—and she rarely minced her words. This instance was no exception.

“Jan,” I asked, “what did you think?”

“Horrible,” Jan said immediately. “I hated it. You delivered the speech pretty well, but we could tell that you were reading it. It didn't come from your heart and it didn't sound like you. You know,” she added, “it's about how you make us feel. Your authentic display of passion and emotion energizes us. That's what makes a good speech. This didn't work, Dave.”

Jan was right, and I was wrong in thinking the words themselves would be sufficiently compelling. Terry and I had a metaphor for the error: “You got the words, but you didn't get the music.” No speechwriter can do that; you have to call it from yourself. If you're lucky, you'll have trusted advisors to help you and remind you, as needed.

Having learned that simply reading a speech is not effective (and can be counterproductive), and having relearned that preparation is essential, I was interested to hear Intel's Renée James describe her strategy for communicating with her people in a compelling way: “I write out what I want to say verbatim, long-hand, very old fashioned. Sometimes I have PowerPoint slides with the high-order concept; usually I memorize key words.”

Renée knows exactly where the emphasis needs to lie: “The most important parts of a presentation are beginning high, ending strong, and the key phrases in between. You need to think about the story you want to tell and the things that you want people to do as a result of having heard it.” Renée establishes those key points first and writes them down. She likes “to use alliterative words or use repetition in a motivational role.” She also looks to “other effective speechmakers, like John F. Kennedy or even President Obama.”

Stressing the importance of practice and memorization, she reinforced my experience. “When you are trying to inspire people, the worst thing you can do is just read something. It has to come from your soul. People respond the best in those times when I get up and talk about my belief in what is possible. They don't know about the time I spent writing all this out or the 1,000 times I practiced it. What they hear is my passion and my belief.”

Renée also makes the challenges clear. “The emotional connection is really important. And that happens in the first few minutes of a speech. That's why the first three sentences are so critical. I strive not to get super technical or precise in those sentences, because that's when people are still deciding if they are going to listen to you or not.” Hers is a good point: we have to move people to listen and pay attention rather than simply be in attendance during our speeches.

“Having a relatively thought-provoking, intellectually stimulating comment right up front helps. I don't mean you should start with a joke or anything like that, just a statement that opens up the dialogue and thought: The world is doing X and here's how you are involved. People respond to the personal and individual—and everyone wants to hear about themselves!”

Renée underscores important concepts here. One is that we need to think seriously about what we want our speech to do, the kind of impact we want it to have, the action we want people to take when they leave the room. This is the heart of the issue: what do we want people to feel, to believe, and to do after they have heard our speech? Are people going to leave the meeting ready to run through the wall and take on the whole world? Or are they going to shake themselves awake and trudge over to the next meeting? If you cannot connect with people, then your ideas—no matter how important and how well thought out—will fall into a black hole.

Even if you think your idea is so good it can sell itself, take a step back and remind yourself that sitting in an audience, sometimes for hours on end, listening to a series of speeches is asking a lot from people who are more used to an active work day. And no matter how well delivered those speeches are, the audience members have work waiting for them. Indeed, whenever you are speaking before a large audience, first consider the question, “Is there some reason why these people might not really pay attention to what I am about to say?” For example, was there a recent article or web post or even a broadly circulated e-mail that stirred things up? If so, acknowledging this right up front can be an effective element of your talk. If you're not aware of any specific issue, then even addressing the length of the meeting can help. Starting with something as simple as, “I know I'm the last person between you and lunch, but in the next 25 minutes I have something to cover that I believe is very important to our future success,” can lead you and your audience effortlessly into your topic.

While this discussion has focused on speeches, the same points apply to all of our communication as leaders. A speech is a slice in time, one that warrants extraordinarily thorough preparation. It can have a powerful impact if it resonates, sparks interest, and moves people to action. Speeches are visible and important components of your role as a leader. Successful leaders are conscious of that role in every communication, every interaction, every venue, throughout the organization and beyond. How do you prepare for that?

Leadership Connection Is a Discipline

As part of his consulting work and his book Leading Out Loud, Terry Pearce created a framework that encourages change leaders to develop a “Personal Leadership Communication Guide” in preparation for and as part of each breakthrough change effort. In that process, you think through every aspect of every communication scenario and write about it, just as you would a journal, except you do it in discrete pieces. Like a journal, you add to it with some regularity. The framework appears at the end of this chapter.

Terry and I have used the Guide in our most successful efforts together. It acts as a reminder in any venue or media, in spontaneous as well as planned situations. Further, working on it sets the stage for your internal process to unfold. Terry and I never use it all and we never read it aloud, but we always use some of it. Once you have thought through the Guide's concepts—competence, trustworthiness, context, the future, personal motivation, and commitment to action—and put them to paper, you will find they come automatically to mind when you need them, as will the personal and relevant stories that support them.

On its own the Guide is not going to transform you into a leader any more than playing scales can make you a great pianist. What counts is what you put into it and grapple with as you consider what has shaped you, what is important to you, and what you see for the future. Here is a chance to ask yourself some fundamental questions about who you are and what you see ahead:

• What accomplishments have made you proud?
• What kinds of changes do you want to be involved with?
• What are you doing?
• Why exactly does this matter to you?
• And why should it matter to others?

When you speak about this, what comes through? Is it just the words, or is the music there as well, resonating in others in ways even they don't understand?

It takes discipline to tackle these questions on your own. In fact, it takes discipline to tackle them even in a structured environment, whether at a training or with a coach. And tackling them as you're simultaneously faced with the crushing pace of business can seem impossible. But do make the time. Allowing yourself to ponder the questions will add depth to your perspective and to your ability to connect with others.

Power Versus Influence

The dichotomy of power and influence plays an important role in leadership. Too many people discuss leadership in terms of power. In business, we are told we need to become powerful, have power over others. But is that what leaders actually need? I don't want people to take action or behave in certain ways because they fear me, or just because I am their boss. I want people to take certain actions toward the goals we've set—to feel compelled to do so—because they too believe that these goals are worth striving for.

At a fundamental level, leaders and followers have to be talking about and focused on the same goals. This speaks to a basic idea about communication: you have to consider others' perspective. It's not about what you say; it's about what they hear. And what you think you are saying can often be very different from what others are hearing.

How best to connect with the people you need to lead? We started on this topic back in Chapter 1 with the first step of the Stacking the Deck process. In laying the groundwork for breakthrough change, you have to first establish the need and a sense of urgency. Of course, you must have facts that support you, but for people to get drawn in and be convinced of the need for action, they need to believe you. You therefore need to make it personal, to involve people with stories that make the need real. Ginger Graham made the need doubly real by bringing in people whose lives had been saved thanks to intervention by talented invasive cardiologists who implanted her company's stents. Yet even without enthusiastic testimonials from customers, you will find you can connect more effectively by drawing on your life experiences inside and outside of work.

Personal Perspective

Your perspective comes from how you view the world combined with who you are as a person. It is molded by the sum total of your experiences and your beliefs. Becoming a good communicator requires that you uncover your own point of view and that you share it with others. Warren Bennis makes the point most succinctly in his book On Becoming a Leader: “Leadership without perspective and point of view isn't leadership—and of course it must be your own perspective, your own point of view. You cannot borrow a point of view any more than you can borrow someone's eyes. It must be authentic, and if it is, it will be original, because you are an original.” Describing your point of view can be an intimidating proposition, but authentic leaders understand that it is well worth the effort.

In considering and crafting your speeches and in preparing for all your communications as you work on your Guide, you must ask yourself the following questions: “How much of this am I willing to share with others? How much am I willing to reveal of myself?” Sharing who you are and why you believe what you do can be incredibly inspiring to others. The stories you share are part of what makes you real and gives you believability.

Whenever you mine the personal, you must first decide exactly how personal you want to get. Sharing stories of challenges or failures in your own background can be powerful—if you're willing to reveal them honestly. It can be scary to get up in front of a group of people you need to lead and talk frankly about your mistakes. But it is how you make yourself real to others. I could tell you a dozen stories where I had a lot of success and encountered no major problems, but it is the one story of a total fiasco that will show you I have the ability to admit and analyze mistakes, and learn from them. That one story will do more to establish my credibility than the dozen uneventful tales of triumph.

An added benefit of using stories to establish a connection with people is that in telling these stories you will naturally relive them and feel some of their emotion again. The people you are talking with will see that you are really feeling something, and they will naturally connect with those actual expressions of emotion. This builds the authentic connection you are striving for as a leader. Howard Schultz's story about his speech on returning to Starbucks is a great example of how a leader can cultivate an atmosphere of personal connection in this way.

Howard's commitment to transparency and vulnerability did enormous work in building credibility for him as a leader. In his case, Starbucks' financial situation was dire and being radically honest about the standing of the company also imbued his speeches with a sense of urgency. Finally, Howard's emotional honesty, his willingness to share his fears and pain with the employees, created a sense of camaraderie. They were all in the same boat and the only way to save the company was for everyone to put their oar in.

By committing to transparency and to emotional openness, Howard also indicated certain things about himself as a leader and a person. When you are in charge of a big initiative with many moving parts and lots of people, your behaviors and your attitudes will tell people who you are. People are looking for certain qualities and character traits in their leaders: courage, generosity, humility, integrity, resolve, responsibility. They want to know that you are capable of these personal qualities, and you need to show them, again and again. As leaders we must earn respect for our personal character every day.

Because Howard believed passionately in what he was saying, his authenticity came through naturally. He was putting everything on the line because he believed that the salvation of the company would come from the store managers. If you want to be believable, you have to believe.

Spreading the Message

Communicating to the team and the broader community of employees is not a one-time event. The leader must remain visible and engaged, whatever the circumstances. Dave Barger understands this and acts on his belief that “nothing beats the face-to-face interaction.” JetBlue has a major part of the airline market in Boston, and the company is a sponsor of the Boston Marathon. The day after the bombings at the 2013 marathon, he flew to Boston to spend time with JetBlue crew members, customers, and with the authorities. He did so without an agenda, but knowing the importance of being present.

Dave has made sure that an understanding of the importance of presence has cascaded through the leadership team and into the organization. This explains why he and his team don't just tell crew members about the J.D. Power and Associates award they've won for customer satisfaction, nine years running. They “let it fly. We put it on the airplane, introduce it in the galley, in the cockpit.” It flies everywhere JetBlue flies, and gets photographed with the crew along the way. In addition, JetBlue internal communications—whether newsletters, blogs, or voicemail—are timed so that they “have a cadence that people can count on.” This enables people to trust that information will come to them from inside JetBlue rather than an outside source.

Howard Schultz well understood that one speech, no matter how effective, couldn't turn the tide at Starbucks. So he supported this speech and all his actions with multiple levels of messaging. As he explained, “I also began a series of weekly communications. We laid out a ‘Transformational Agenda’ that we published for everyone in the company to read. Whether you were a barista working 20 hours a week, a store manager, or an executive, this one sheet of paper would tell you what we were doing, why we were doing it and what your role and responsibilities would be in it. Then, every Sunday at home, I penned a ‘Transformational Agenda’ update that I released every Monday morning. We had a series of these letters that went out and kept everyone informed.” Howard's communications were frequent, well thought out, and well received.

Leaders understand the importance of articulating the objective nature of the change and convincing those around them of the urgency involved; they also understand how critical it is to have that certainty on a gut level. If you don't have faith in the change you're proposing, if you don't genuinely believe that it is the best—or only—course of action, you won't be able to convince others.

In today's world of electronic communication it might seem easier than ever to communicate to your organization. After all, it's pretty straightforward to write an e-mail and hit “send all.” Unfortunately, connecting is not that simple.

We earn the right to communicate electronically by the time and energy we invest in communicating personally.

I am not going to suggest you ignore the enormous efficiency and simplicity of electronic communication, but I do caution that you recognize its limits. Electronic communication is a tool for communicating information—not for inspiring passion. There is simply no replacement for standing in front of people and delivering your message in person, speaking from the heart, and never reading a speech.

Sensing the Music

Human beings are wired to read facial expressions and body language. We read and interpret people's movements and expressions, along with the words they speak, to take in what they are communicating to us. When we are deprived of that additional sensory information, when we don't see the person, don't hear inflections, then we can't hear even a whisper of the music (as Terry and I would say) and we have a much different experience of the very same words. It is all too easy to misinterpret tone and emotion when all we have are the words in print or on screen.

We have all seen many examples of e-mails being read and interpreted far differently than what the author had intended. Particularly when the topics revolve around change and asking people to commit to change—concepts that provoke emotional responses—people need as much context as possible. No matter how precise or well intended, the words alone, particularly when transmitted via e-mail, are dangerously prone to misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

Listening for More

Any discussion of communication must include effective listening. As Ginger Graham told me, “There are lots of reasons why listening isn't easy. When you're elevated to a position of leadership, people don't give you honest, candid, unfiltered feedback. They don't say anything good to you because they fear you'll see that as brownnosing. They won't say anything bad to you because they fear losing their job.”

We both knew that this problem increases at the higher levels. Ginger explains, “As an executive, you live in a vacuum away from the truth. We all know that every day in big companies, there are realities about who's performing, not performing, what product's good, what's not good; but they don't ever get said out loud. They wind up as corporate secrets. Breaking that down, creating an environment where everyone, even the CEO, gets and gives open and honest feedback is critical to success.” It isn't easy to do and sometimes people need training and practice to get comfortable with feedback.

But even beyond this, it is not easy to simply listen with a fully open mind. We all know people—maybe ourselves—whose lips are pursed as they mentally frame their response before the person speaking has even finished. Does that behavior leave you with a feeling of having been thoughtfully heard? Hardly.

It's all about coming to the conversation curious rather than simply “giving someone their day in court” and moving on to the next issue. If we're truly open to people's ideas, we don't just want them to feel heard: we need them to be heard. That means we listen thoughtfully; we ask follow-up questions for clarification, depth, and detail. It requires us to show up with the humility to recognize we don't know all the answers, or even all the questions. It requires us to acknowledge that others have important ideas and thoughts to add to our thinking, even if those include objections to our whole idea. Before leaders can help people move forward toward the new, they must first take the time to hear people's resistance and their concerns.

I cannot overemphasize how truly difficult this is. You must prepare yourself to hear—and to want to hear—upsetting, frustrating, and even counterproductive information. Even if this happens right in the moment when your own sense of urgency is telling you, “There's no time for this!” you must make the time and be fully present and aware. This has never been easy for me. I have often stumbled even though I should know better. But I also know that when I muster the patience to engage in this process and be a more effective listener, I learn things I need to know and I am more effective as a leader. For me this will continue to be a lifelong journey.

Q&A Opportunities

Question and answer sessions also demand effective listening and are a very powerful tool if used properly. When you open a presentation to questions from your audience there is an assumption that the answers you give are unscripted and authentic. The truth is somewhat more nuanced, however. Most speeches and opportunities for interactions have a number of fairly obvious questions that you know will be on people's minds. Will there be layoffs? Will there be benefit cuts? How will this affect the promotional calendar? Will locations be shut down? It's not hard to imagine questions like these coming your way.

You can choose to speak to these issues in your presentation or you can leave them for the Q&A session. The point is that you should be prepared for these questions and the many others that aren't so obvious but might pop up. Good preparation means you have already considered a broad spectrum of possible questions that might come your way and have thought through how you would answer them, perhaps even rehearsed this part of your presentation, just as you rehearsed the speech itself.

These sessions are also a chance to build your culture of open and honest communication. I was once conducting a Q&A session in a town hall meeting of a few thousand employees and someone asked me a particularly challenging question that put me on the spot. The question was phrased along these lines: “I noticed in the proxy that you and other top execs received multimillion dollar bonuses last year. How does this square with the culture of economy and expense control you were just speaking about?”

A hush fell. No doubt some employees thought this employee had just stepped on a career landmine. It instantly seemed as though everyone was watching alertly to see and hear my response. Fortunately this was a variant of a question I had anticipated, so it didn't catch me off guard or put me on the defensive, either in my physical stance or my tone. I paused for a breath and said, “I'm sure many of you must be wondering the same thing, so I thank you for putting this issue on the table and giving me a chance to describe how the board's compensation committee process works. But first, let's give this courageous employee a standing ovation for having the courage to ask a question that was on a lot of people's minds!”

This employee gave me a chance to not only clarify the issue but make a deposit to the culture bank and reinforce the value of honest and open communication that we believed in. Instead, had I been combative or dismissive, I would have undermined our cultural values and ensured that in the future no one would trust me enough to offer their truthful opinion.

Ginger Graham describes a similar instance of using her employees' concerns to develop the company's culture as a whole: “We defined very simple words about what we believed were the cultural attributes for the business, including customer satisfaction, a will to win, and accountable results. We asked the employees to help us define those words and what that behavior would look like. And so we changed our language, our performance appraisals, and our reward system to actually align with these behaviors that we wanted people to adopt.”

Ginger had just made some truly groundbreaking innovations in process and product sound easy, and I asked her for some personal background. She didn't miss a beat: “I was raised to believe that you act your way to a better way of being. You don't sit around and say, ‘I'd like to be a nice person’ or ‘Someday I'll be better at collaborating on a team.’ Instead, you actually act on those behaviors and as you practice, you get better at them. Eventually that's who you are. Then what you do is who you are, not what you say.” Hers seems a very direct path to effective and authentic leadership.

If we are going to demand full commitment from our people, we need to demonstrate it for them. We need to be leaders whose character and plans are worthy of being followed. We need to constantly reiterate what we are doing, why we are doing it, why it matters to us. We need to ask ourselves, as Terry once asked me, “Who are you, what do you want, and why?” These were not meant as rhetorical questions but as existential questions. They were the very foundation for how I needed to communicate as a leader.

I was enormously fortunate to have been coached by the best. Terry Pearce's Framework for Personal Leadership Communication Guide^©, which follows, provides an objective map so that you can create your own Guide for a subjective experience. If you have completed the action items that were provided at the end of Chapter 3, you might wonder if you need the Guide. The action items presented the more concrete steps of communicating about breakthrough change. When you are leading breakthrough change and the innovations that result (as discussed in the next chapter), those action items will help with the practicalities of moving forward, on track and engaged. The Guide takes your preparation to a much deeper level.

The Guide itself is akin to meditation instructions. You can follow them for life and never reach the state of illumination known as satori. But if you consider the Guide thoughtfully and use it as a tool for your own authentic self-examination, then you will find that you have a strong foundation for every communication situation you encounter. Although the document you create is personal and private, and you will rarely if ever use all of it, the effort you put into constructing it will cue your mind and emotions to enable you to tailor your communications appropriately for your audience. In doing so, think carefully about the impact your words can have, whatever the venue or the format. And remember, as Maya Angelou has often been quoted as saying, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” That gets to the heart of the issue and is a lesson for leaders at all levels.

The work you put into the Guide will help you approach communication authentically. As Terry explains, the Guide can be thought of as “biography with a purpose.” Even if your goal (like mine) is to move forward, which hardly includes taking the time to write an autobiography, you will find the self-reflection involved in creating your personal Guide to be crucial to your ability to connect and inspire. The Guide's purpose is both internal—exploring what is important to you and why—and external, explaining what your group needs to do to arrive at the clear and vibrant future you are proposing. What you write in the process of developing and supplementing the Guide will be “biographical as well as situational” and will become the foundation for your communication. Your Guide will evolve over time as you modify and supplement it with relevant new experiences and material. The work you put into it will enable people to sense your passion and conviction and have a sense of your character.

In considering your personal Guide and writing about your history, your experience, and your conviction for the need to bring about the change, you will demonstrate and make real your trustworthiness as a leader, and as the leader for this particular change. Understand that the Guide, as presented here, is simply the bare bones and no substitute for Leading Out Loud, in which Terry devotes an entire chapter to each of the four main sections of the Guide. In my opinion, Terry's book should be recommended if not required reading for anyone who aspires to lead. The advice and background it provides is critical to authentic leadership.

Framework for Personal Leadership Communication Guide©

1. Establishing Competence and Building Trustworthiness
   • Competence
     • Clarity of purpose
       1. Problem
       2. Specific change advocated
       3. Evidence of compelling need
       4. Broad implications; value represented
     • Credentials and vulnerabilities
   • Trustworthiness
     • Displaying empathy
       1. Expressing gratitude
       2. Acknowledging resistance
       3. Finding commonality in purpose
     • Willingness to be known
       1. Personal motivation, personal value
2. Creating Shared Context
   • History
   • Priority
   • Current reality (include barriers)
   • Reinforcing competence and trust
   • Articulating a broader perspective
3. Declaring and Describing the Future: An Act of Creation . . .
   • Vivid picture, sensory-rich images
   • Stakes (If we do . . . If we don't . . .)
   • Values expressed either way
4. Committing to Action
   • Steps (organizational)
   • Personal commitment, personal action
   • Request for action (specific)

 © Guide copyright Terry Pearce, 2013. All rights reserved.