Painting the 'big picture' - leadership & intentional communication

Effective communication by leaders with their organisation's employees helps to create engagement, motivation and a shared direction. What can sometimes happen though is that corporate communications fail to create a clear picture of the organisation's strategic direction, tending to focus more on day-to-day operational matters, exhortations to better performance and trying to beat the rumour-mill to the punch. 

In 2007 HBR research found that a clear minority of employees reported that their managers communicated a clear strategic direction to them. Interestingly, in connected research this year, senior managers when asked believed a minority of their employees had a good grasp of big-picture strategy. So, if managers believe employees don't have the strategic picture and employees believe their managers don't inform and engage them, just what is going on and who is responsible for communicating or connecting with the big -picture? 

In our experience, the most effective leaders tend to paint the 'big picture' readily and ably in their communications. Similarly, we've found that engaged employees connect themselves to the big picture messages and make connections between their roles and the strategic direction. 

HBR went on to suggest that to raise the level of strategic understanding "leaders must learn to be intentional about the way that they communicate with employees. In other words, they must work to align what they say — and how they talk — with a clear pattern of strategic intent." HBR called this "organisational conversation." 

In traditional leadership models the leaders treat employee communication as a distinct entity from the organisation's strategy. HBR suggested that leaders who engage intentionally place a premium on integrating the strategic direction into their regular messaging.

They go on to offer four ideas to help us become more intentional leaders:

"1. Think ahead. Before they can cultivate a strategic conversation within their company, leaders need to develop a conversational strategy. 

2. Paint a picture.  Smart leaders get creative about how they communicate this kind of information. They tell a story.

3. Ask for help. One way to ensure that people have a clear view of their company's strategic priorities is to give them a role in setting those priorities. 

4. Watch what you say. In talking with employees, effective leaders use consistent, well-thought-out language — language that aims to keep everyone's "eyes on the prize" 

The full article with more about the 4 ideas can be found here:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/07/to_resolve_the_uncertainty_in.html

Courage and authenticity in times of change

Peter Drucker once remarked that “my greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.” It was a self-deprecating quip. But it also contained a grain of truth. He also said, "“I can only ask questions. The answers have to be yours.” So it is now, whether as a facilitator, consultant, or adviser, it's the power of the questions we ask that can illuminate complex change and transformation efforts. 

Once we think about questions, we also need to consider what sort of questions, e.g. are they deficit-based, i.e. what's the problem here, or are they appreciative questions, i.e. what's the best of what we do here that we need to carry forward into the future? Whatever the focus, what we inquire into is fateful, i.e. we will find evidence and examples to answer our questions and illustrate the topic. This doesn't mean we shouldn't inquire into what makes our organisations or individual performance weak, it's more that too often we find our attention drawn all to readily to the worst of what is and not the best, e.g. what isn't working in a change effort rather than what is, what we can influence, shape and co-create. 


Balance, or re-balancing towards the appreciative and strengths-focused, provides leaders and followers with great opportunities to catch people doing things right, capture stories of positive experiences and allow for different conversations, particularly at times of uncertainty.  


It's not easy - no one says it is or has even been - but as managers and leaders we must demand of ourselves higher standards of contribution and involvement, no matter how difficult the circumstances. Not to the exclusion of all reason, but certainly necessitating courage, authenticity and energy. If it isn't us in formal leadership positions who do this, then those who follow will shift their attention to those who do and, in their absence, to those who role-model other, often inappropriate behaviours yet who nonetheless provide some form of rallying point. That way only lies deeper anxiety and uncertainty of success for our change efforts.


To read more about Peter Drucker, the Drucker Institute has just released the January/February 2012 issue of The Window, which features:

·         Great minds asking: How can management regain its legitimacy in society?

·         Peter Drucker prodding executives at a big investment bank to answer the question: “What should our business be?”

·         Thousands of university students in China learning about effectiveness, Drucker style

http://www.druckerinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Jan-Feb-12.pdf