Six New Guiding Culture Principles

The last year has brought a significantly renewed focus on culture in companies and organizations. Through some combination of bad PR and leadership mis-steps, and nearly every organization thinking about how and when people may return to offices post-pandemic, there's been a lot of talk about how to define culture and how to shape it.

In my own work with clients, creating and maintaining a culture that is thriving, inclusive, and meets the needs of the company's mission is the single most common set of issues leaders are grappling with today.

Now more than ever, culture isn’t set at the top — it’s determined by employees wanting to be in a place where they feel they have a voice, they can do work that plays to their strengths, and where they feel cared for.

Last year, I shared 10 key questions leaders should ask when evolving their culture. The pandemic and a wholly new way of working created an opportunity -- wanted or not -- to focus on culture. Since then, the focus on culture has only intensified at just about every organization I’m aware of.

Today, based on a lot of conversations with clients and observing what I'm seeing in the workplace, I’m sharing six guiding principles for how you can think about creating the culture that you want -- and that the people you work with want.

First, WHAT do WE mean by ‘culture?’

Culture is really how we work. How do people within a system work together, interact, communicate, and collaborate to achieve the organization's objectives? It's not the food, the swag, or just a set of aspirational slogans.

Culture is everybody's job -- not just the job of the HR team or a single leader. Leaders can set expectations, lead by example, and importantly, empower employees to be their best, but it's set by employees and how we work and interact collectively.

Six New Guiding Culture Principles

1. Culture is ALL people, ALL the time. As I wrote in Honestly Speaking, everything you do — every email you send, every meeting you lead, every interaction you have — either makes the culture better or makes it worse. Nothing is culturally neutral. It's about people and our actions. And culture is relevant to consider through the entire employee experience. The way you recruit and interview people is as important to a thriving culture as is how you treat people on Day 1, Day 1000, and in when they are exiting the organization. Those moments signal what you care about and how people feel welcome, safe, and can contribute.

2. It matters less what you SAY, and more what you DO. In Honestly Speaking one of the main takeaways I share about communication is, "It matters less what you SAY, and more what people HEAR." A similar formulation works for culture: It matters far less what you SAY, and far MORE what you DO. It's great to say that you have a culture where people are cared for, where you value diversity and inclusion, where people can advance in their careers regardless of their title or family obligations.

   But how do employees experience your culture? How do you show people you care about them? How do you create and keep an environment where people feel included? What does your promotion system demonstrate about how people advance in your organization?

   Without aligning your words and your actions, what people experience rings hollow and undermines your long-term credibility and makes it harder for people to feel they belong and want to contribute in meaningful ways. As organizational psychologist Adam Grant recently wrote, "The most direct way to figure out what's valued in a culture isn't to listen to what people way is important. It's to pay attention to who gets rewarded and promoted into leadership roles."

   Most people experience a culture and the connection between words and outcomes primarily through their direct manager. This is why investing in communication and management training is so important for any company that wants to be effective. Most managers aren't great, or didn't become managers because they are good at managing and leading. We all need help here, and so training and focus here is really important, especially because the vast majority of us WANT to get better.

3. Culture is about Action and Behavior. The best culture values are clearly linked to behaviors. Values won't matter unless they help guide people to know how to make hard decisions, and how to behave. Values like "be open" are great, but you need to define what you mean by "be open" and how you want people to be open. It might be both in terms of transparency in information-sharing, it might be open in being receptive to different ways of working. Values don't matter if people don't understand them or what's expected of them, or if they don't feel like they apply to them. Similarly, values like “We are a Family” are not helpful and I’d argue harmful — because work isn’t a family, the incentives and power dynamics are different, and so it strains credibility that the company would treat employees the same way a loving family might. It’s also harmful because it’s not clear what you want people to do or how to behave — just about everybody’s conception of family is different, and not all people even like their families or come from one where they felt supported or safe. Align your values with your mission and to help guide decision-making and collaboration in the best and clearest way possible.

4. Treat people like adults. This means setting out clear expectations and communicating as openly and reasonably as you can. People can handle bad news or hard news better than you may think, as long as they feel like you are leveling with them, and trust them to be an adult. It's reasonable to say as a leader that you expect people to act respectfully and to collaborate and not just complain. But treating people like adults who belong at a culture and encouraging them to contribute is a key part of the mindset of any effective leader in a thriving culture today. Rarely does telling people they cannot do something land for your audience like you're treating them like an adult. In a world where more people speak and interact outside of work the same ways they do inside, leaders need to manage this better rather than just clamping down and expecting it will go away. Charlie Warzel wrote a great, longer piece on this last week, "Executives Don’t Decide if the Company Culture is Good. Employees Do".

5. Help people feel cared for — we need to feel safe. If the last year of pandemic has taught us anything, it's that people need a wide berth in how they experience hard situations relating to their health and family. No one person's situation is the same, on one person's feelings and comfort level with re-opening and vaccinations are the same. Making sure that you show care and allow for some flexibility in how you return to the office, communicating that you understand some people may feel safer than others, allowing adequate time to listen and hear how people are feeling is really important. In an environment where competition for talent is fierce and many people can go elsewhere -- and live elsewhere -- any plans for re-opening an office and shifting ways of working should be led first by people feeling safe and feeling cared for, and then understanding the reasoning behind the decisions you make.

6. Interactions aren’t always about winning. It's not about who's right and who's wrong, Rather, it's about growing and improving. The most effective managers and leaders elevate the debate. The best leaders focus less on "being right" in the moment and winning the argument, and more on conveying empathy and care. They push people to get better together.

One last point on timing: culture starts before Day One. Your recruiting and interview process, as well as the way you welcome and integrate people into the organization through both formal and informal on-boarding are all critical points around developing and keeping a culture where people feel they are welcome and can do work that plays to their strengths.

The way you communicate and engage with people during an interview process speaks volumes about how you function as an organization and the values that guide how you treat people, and how they will enter the organization, especially in a competitive hiring environment.

How you set people up for success on Day One is really important. This recent Harvard Business Review article has some great ideas on how managers can help new employees feel both welcome and prepared especially in a time of remote work.

What would you add to this list?

Communicating in Real Time when the Stakes are High

When I wrote Honestly Speaking, I developed frameworks and strategies to make it easier for all of us to communicate better, by dialing up the empathizing and dialing down the intellectualizing. They are meant to be easy-to-use, especially over time as they become more ingrained ways of approaching communication overall.

Yet in talking about those frameworks and the lessons I shared in the book in workshops, trainings, and speeches with thousands of people in the last couple of years, I've come to realize one key addition I would make based on a lot of the questions from you: help communicating in real time, in the moment, when you don't have time to rehearse.

Often when we think about communicating, especially anything of importance, we think about it in a formal or planned setting. A conversation or a presentation that we've played out, prepared for, and maybe even rehearsed.

But more frequently we need to communicate more spontaneously, or without the benefit of a lot of time to practice and prepare. Just think about a conversation you didn't plan to have, but suddenly find yourself in, or some work-related crisis that came up and you have to deal with it.

What can you do to set yourself up for success here? Stop and consider three things: Principles, audience, message. 

• Principles: This is like your own personal communication brand. What words guide your words and actions, even when (or especially when) you don't know exactly what to say? Examples might be honesty and simplicity. Related, think about what are the words you would use to describe how you want to come across? Examples might be humble, confident, calm, warm. This is something you can think about anytime. Think about it now so you're ready when the moment calls.

• Audience: Who are you talking to? What do they know or not know, and what are you wanting to relate to them? What makes this a hard issue for this person or group right now? When emotions run high we often forget that it matters less what we say and more what others hear.

• Message: What are you trying to convey? The best communicators convey information and empathy. Especially in a crisis or an unanticipated conversation, it's likely you won't know all the information. So be honest about what you're trying to get across, even if it's that you're hearing the concerns, balancing competing priorities, and you'll come back soon with more information.

A key point on style: be human. Ask yourself, "what would a reasonable person say or do in this situation?" If I were on the other end, what would I want or need to hear?  

Too often when we don't know exactly what to say or feel unprepared, we just start talking. A better instinct is to talk less, and listen more.

Train yourself to be ok with silence. These tactics can help:
 

• If you don't know, say you don't know. This buys you time to find out and learn more, and also removes the pressure you might feel to have to respond or speak, so you can instead really listen to the other person without the distracting mental chatter of anticipating and figuring what to say.

• Ask more questions. You can buy yourself some time to think and strategize here too, and the answers to those questions may be especially clarifying. Asking questions is a good way to develop rapport and too often when we feel like our back is against a wall, we feel our only choice is to respond. A question here can be transformative.

I'd love to hear what you think. What works for you in the moment when the stakes are high?

Mastering Virtual Presentations

By now many of us have had lots - AND LOTS - of practice communicating virtually. In the last year, many of us have had to give presentations through an online platform that we'd otherwise give in person.  

But are we presenting well? In my experience, both delivering them and being on the receiving end of them, many of our virtual presentations are falling flat. The format is unforgiving and most of us aren't doing what we need to create an emotional connection through the camera -- to convey trust and relatability. 

Anything that's worth communicating is worth communicating because you want someone to know, to feel, or to do something. Especially in these presentation format, it matters less what you say, and more what people hear (and see) from you.

The good news: with a couple of tweaks to how you prepare in advance, you can make sure that you nail your online presentation and connect with your audience. Even the very best presenters I know spend time on this -- no matter how seasoned we are, we can always get better.

Here's how:

(1) YOUR CAMERA. Look THROUGH it, not AT it, and especially not NEXT TO it.  Too often really thoughtful, accomplished leaders give presentations by reading their notes or looking at the slides they are presenting rather than the camera.  What the audience experiences is someone looking off in the distance in some other direction, which is both boring to watch and seems like you are more engaged with your own words than with the people you're speaking with.

So, locate your camera, and focus on looking THROUGH it as though there were an actual person (preferably one you like) on the other side of it. It may feel a little artificial at first, but a small tweak makes a huge difference.

One thoughtful expert I know, Rebecca Goldsmith, has a few specific suggestions that I love, like posting a photo of family right above the camera or minimizing your presentation window and putting it right by the camera. Check them out here.

(2) YOUR PREPARATION. Change how you prepare your presentation. Here, I'm talking less about rehearsing it, and more about actually creating it. What is the process you use to develop it? 

Whether you're writing it yourself or you have someone doing it for you, your goal should be your own mastery of the material you are presenting -- to know it inside and out well enough that you can have a conversation about it.  It's not to create the perfect written document. 

In other words, have a plan, not a script.

More good news: for most leaders giving most presentations today, it's on material we are familiar with already, so it should be easy. 

Being too scripted increases the perception of disconnection and formality, when we really need a more informal and more conversational approach when we can't be in person. Often, especially when we perceive the stakes are high, many of us have a tendency to over-edit, pre-script and wordsmith the presentation in advance. This is especially dangerous on teams where we have lots of people giving feedback on it in advance.

Over-editing is a connection killer. The more imperfect you can be in a virtual format, the better the connection you'll make. The more you can run a preparation process that allows you to internalize what you're going to talk about in advance, the easier it will be for you to relate the material in a personal, personable, relatable way rather than strictly adhering to the wordsmithed script. 

A few tactics that might work for you:

• Rather than scripting, try outlining. What are the key points you want to jog your own memory to make, and in what order? What words or phrases are key to land, without having to write out the entire sentence? It might be something like:

  • WELCOME (Thanks, excited, theme for today)

  • CHALLENGES (hard, important, growth)

  • OPPORTUNITY A (growth, care, long-term)

  • OPPORTUNITY B (culture, business, leadership dev)

  • CLOSING (Call to action, theme, thanks)

• Are there a couple of key dates, facts, or figures that you want to remember that just by seeing them can remind you to talk about the overall context? Put them on a sticky right next to your camera.

• Is there any way you can make it interactive, rather than just a one-way talk track? It can be as simple as asking people at the beginning how they are feeling or what they want to get out of the session, or including some kind of call to action /rally point at the end. Some of my favorite ways to make online forums interactive are from the team at Play on Purpose. Check them out.

• Practice. Don't just read through your script or click through your slides. Spend the time to talk through your outline in advance so you know both what you want to convey, AND how you want to convey it. So that it's well paced and well spaced, and not just a recitation of paragraphs of words.

(3) YOUR INTERRUPTIONS. What are the ways you can interrupt your own tendency to be robotic or disconnected?  I don't mean interrupting others, I mean your own habits. This is about making your own personality and charisma come through as the primary feature of the presentation, more than the content. People are tuning in -- and stay tuned in -- to see you!

Here's how: 

• You can interrupt yourself with a quick aside, or a personal story. Insert it at the top, in the middle to break things up, or toward the end - as long as it's connected to the main point you're making.

• If your child or your dog interrupts your meeting, run with it. It's ok.

• When you go off script, when you talk TO people, the audience responds.

• Ground or center yourself before you give any presentation. Entire schools of executive coaching focus on body awareness and grounding. It can be as simple as closing your eyes for 10 seconds, taking three full breaths, and simply noting where you are and what you're about to do, how you want to show up. Works wonders, I promise. I even practice this sometimes when I get in the car, before I turn it on.

• Interrupt your own nervousness or desire for perfection with openness and warmth -- that very lack of polish, lack of perfection is what will make you far come across as more relatable and trustworthy over time.

Lastly, be as personal as you can be.  Use phrases like "you" rather than "you guys" or "everybody." Cite examples of colleagues by name.  

I hope you find these tips useful. I'd love to hear what you think. What's working for you - and what do you want more help with?

I Have A Question

One question can change your life.

Especially now, in a time of almost purely virtual connection, it's harder than ever to prioritize authentic connection with the people in your life. Misunderstanding is more common, relatability is more strained, and it's harder than ever to really get a read on who's on the other end of what you're communicating. 

In most strained situations or Zoom calls, our communication instinct is to speak more and to project MORE, or to withdraw. That instinct is made more extreme in virtual settings. Whether it's your first day in a new job or your 92nd meeting with a team about the big project you've been working on, confusion and misunderstanding can lead to agitation and frustration, minus the compassion and empathy that come far more naturally in in-person settings.

The solution to up-level your way of leading and communicating is found in the power of questions.  Asking good questions -- coming from a place of inquiry -- allows you to be more genuine and counter the instinct to perform. It allows you to investigate and to learn. It allows you to be seen as collaborative and not confrontational. 

Starting with a question means you talk less, create less noise, and find more common ground. Listening to the answers gives you a lot of data -- about how you're perceived, about where you're misunderstood, about what someone else's motivations or assumptions are.

Forcing yourself to start with a question is a way to short-circuit the disconnection so many of us feel in this weird, challenging time. It forces a more collaborative communication approach, and it disciplines us to really stop and listen and try to understand our own behavior and our own motivations first.

So, start with a good question.

Here are three questions that you can start by asking yourself in hard situations:

1. What do I want in this situation? What's my ideal outcome? Am I avoiding?

2. What words would the other person use to describe me based on how I've been speaking or acting toward them?

3. What could I say or do to show the other person that I'm being respectful toward them? To make them feel heard?

Here are three questions you can ask others in challenging situations:

1. How can I help you do the best work of your life here? (Manager to team member) OR How could you help me to do the best work of my life here? (Team member to manager)

2. What am I missing or where am I on the wrong track here?

3. What is one thing you like about this situation and what is one thing that would make it even better?

(Thanks to my friend Chip Conley for the first question on this list - one of my favorites.)  There are lots of good resources for up-leveling your questions game. One of the best I've seen is Change your Questions, Change your Life by Marilee Adams.

Leaders: Speak the Truth

Like you, I've been thinking a lot about the events of the last 24 hours, and what it says about us as a country, a people, and about leadership and communication.

I've had both a sense of helplessness and a deep sadness as I saw the seat of our democratic institutions attacked by terrorists fueled by lies and mistruths -- and a failure by their leaders to speak honestly about so many issues, chiefly the results of the last election. And one overriding principle keeps rising to the surface: bad things happen when you don't speak the truth. Honesty matters. We must commit to the truth always.

My most formative professional experience was working as a communications director in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives in the years just after 9/11. Seeing yesterday's attacks hit home because we see how fragile and idea of self-government is especially when you're doing it. And because I know how hard and well-meaning the vast majority of Congressional staff are, and how scary it can be to have your offices and your elected representatives threatened and attacked. Never could I imagine the day the floor of the US Senate would be disrespected in the way it was.

As communications professionals and as leaders, this is an important and teachable moment for us, especially. Yesterday was a prime, vivid example of what happens when leaders don't speak the truth, when we are not honest and when we don't confront the realities of the world we live in.

Words matter, and honesty matters. Even (and especially) when it's a hard truth or one we don't like. Leaders speak the truth even when it hurts. That's what leadership is. It's why I titled my first book, "Honestly Speaking."

The best leaders -- of politics, or any industry or organization, are clear and unequivocal in denouncing hate and violence. Many leaders have done this in the last 24 hours.

The best leaders show empathy and care for their people. They express understanding and acknowledgement that people feel and internalize events like yesterday deeply and differently. They don't obscure, or obfuscate, or omit.

And the best leaders speak honestly always. Even (especially) when you don't like the truth or you don't feel comfortable with it.

I hope that in 2021 every leader I am blessed to work with and every leader out there recommits to being honest, clear, and truthful in speaking and communicating with every supporter, detractor, employee, and colleague alike. In big moments, in small ones, and every conversation in between.

It starts with me and it starts with you.

End of Year Reflection with a Purpose

"Be the reason someone feels welcomed, seen, heard, valued, loved and supported." I saw these words posted to a neighbor's fence recently.

I love them because they reflect what's at the root of leadership and communication: each of us has the power to determine how we speak to and connect with others. 

And because they are the ideal outcome of the reflection many of us tend to do this time of year. (And this year is a year for some serious reflecting).

2020 has been a year of real consequence for everybody I know -- for some, great challenge and heartbreak, for others, incredible joy and love, and for most, a little bit of all of the above. It's also been a once-in-a-lifetime pause from the frenetic pace we had become so accustomed to.

Reflection is especially potent when that deeper pause and contemplation lead us to speak and act in a way that's more in tune with who we really are and what we aspire to be.  

When I think about reflection, I think not only about what I see in the mirror, but also the meaning of reflection that is said to have first surfaced in the 1640s: a remark or an action made after turning one's thought on some subject.  

The reflection we do as leaders and communicators is especially important because it helps us make sense of hard times, of dissonant experiences, of competing demands, and to see clearly the habits and thought loops we tend to get stuck in and the expectations we hold on to. And then to choose.

When we look back on 2020, a question many of us will be asking is some variation of, "How did you show up during the pandemic?"  Employees will ask of future employers, "What did you do to help your employees during the pandemic?"

This question can easily and best be answered by that sign in my neighborhood: how I connected with others in a most disconnected time.

For me, reflecting on this year has meant evolving in a few ways: I can do with less, focus more on what truly brings me joy, and let go of everything else. I have enjoyed the time to slow down and pause, and to notice my surroundings and the more nuanced things like the slight smile my dog brings to a stranger's face while on our daily walks. It's meant learning to be far more forgiving of people, whether the exciting potential client that promises but doesn't deliver, the talented, handsome man I started to date and really like, after he grew silent and became involved with someone else early in the pandemic, my friends and my family. And to be far more forgiving of myself. It's meant reflecting on the kind of work that is most rewarding to me, who I want to be doing that work with, where I want to do it, and what career success really means for me. It's meant a conscious choice not to take for granted any aspect of my health. It's meant learning to be far more purposeful and intentional about who I will gather with and how after the pandemic is over (thanks Priya Parker for some inspiration here).

When times were hard, stressful, different, challenging, unknown, how did you show up? How did you support or acknowledge others?

This practice of reflection is needed now so we can show up better and more powerfully as we look to 2021.

___

Self Reflection Questions

• In the beginning of the pandemic in late March, on social media I posed 10 questions meant to spur some self-reflection at the beginning of lockdown. I re-posted the 10 questions on my blog. I recently revisited these questions. When I did, I found them even more helpful to answer now than then.

• In Honestly Speaking, I devote the entire second chapter to the importance of self-reflection for anyone communicating about just about anything. Here are 3 easy practices I included.

10 Questions for the End of the Year

In March, I started the #10Days10Questions challenge to help myself make sense of how I was showing up in an entirely new pandemic world. I recently revisited the questions and wanted to share them here, during a time of year when many of us have the time and often are in the head space of reflecting:

1. What do you appreciate more now?

2. What are you noticing more now than you did before?

3. What have you found you can do without?

4. What and who are you grateful for?

5. What are you feeling? Name it.

6. Ask someone how they are today. Really listen to them.

7. What do you learn about yourself last week/month/year that you want to change or keep this week/month/year?

8. What have you notice about how you interact with other people? Partner, kids, friends, colleagues, students, strangers…

9. How are you taking care of yourself?

10. When you look back on this time, what do you want to be proud of?

Three Tools For Managing Life during the Holidays in Lockdown

Life in lockdown can be tough, especially as the end of the year approaches. Here are three tools to help you manage life well:

• Mindfulness: Develop a gratitude practice. I love the idea of a gratitude rampage. In a journal, for two or five minutes, write down everything you can think of that you're grateful for without stopping. Everything and anything that comes to mind. Doing this regularly in a journal means you can go back to it later, and it also means you're carving new grooves in your mind's gears for what you focus on -- and there's a lot to be grateful for if you look for it.

• Movement: Make sure you find time to move. Even walking has huge benefits, including enhancing your cognitive state and finding joy and connection with others, as best-selling author Kelly McGonigal explores in the Joy of Movement. Also, Seattle-based performance coach Paul Clingan's new podcast series gives competitors in sports and in life a way to learn about mindfulness tools to improve mental health and mental performance.

• Communicating During the Holidays: Mastering hard conversations with family is especially important for the holidays. Last year I published an article with four key tips on managing difficult dinner conversations over the holidays. Finding ways to be clear about your ideal outcomes in advance, and managing what's going on in your own head in advance of these gatherings is really important. The mindfulness and movement tips above will help.

Enoughness

Enoughness. What does it mean to have enough? To do enough? To be enough as you are?

In this time of Thanksgiving in the US and the end of a year in which so much and so little has happened, I am thinking a lot about the concept of enoughness. For me, this time of year is about focusing on all that I do have, and not on what I don't.

Whether from an Amazon or Facebook ad, or under the pressure to meet a year-end goal at work, we often get caught in the powerful messages and thought patterns that tell us happiness comes from accumulating more -- gadgets and gifts, accolades, promotions, gold stars -- and doing more.

Yet the end of the year gives us a moment to pause and choose for ourselves: what really is enough? In a year of slimming down for so many -- whether we face slimmed down holiday gatherings or slimmed down bank account balances: what really is enough -- to have, and to be?

Another part of enoughness comes into play in our interactions with others. In a divisive period:

When is it enough to stop arguing and stop focusing on my winning and someone else losing?

When is it enough to arrive at my destination without hurry, without cutting people off in traffic, or to just let someone go ahead of you in line?

Or to leave a biting comment go un-responded to?

So often in our polarized world, we have a hard time letting go of the fight and the drive to WIN -- even if we've won. What is it to maybe let go of some of the habituated ways of communicating, posting and arguing, and to let it all be simply enough?

This year has been hard, and many of us are more isolated than ever. Enoughness means giving yourself a break, not needing to host the perfect elaborate feast or travel all over the world or work 16 hour days.

Maybe the best gift sent you can give yourself and those closest to you is the present of presence.

While many of us are physically distancing from family and many others, it doesn't have to mean emotional distancing. Maybe enough means instead to check in loved ones, family who are isolated, and single friends.

With more presence, quieting the habit to achieve more and to accumulate more, I'm focused much more on all that I do have and my own power of presence. Focus, attention, love where it matters.

Showing up for my colleagues, my family and my friends in the ways that I can, more open to receiving what is and finding the joy and happiness that comes from a little bit less.

Leading and Speaking During Unprecedented Times

Rarely if ever, in most of our lifetimes, has there been such a collective sense of anxiety and stress. A defining election following one of the most divisive campaigns ever comes to a head tomorrow. A global pandemic continues to plague all of us and our families, with businesses and industries forever changed, more countries closing down again, and more of us resigned to working remotely for the foreseeable future. 

In the last several years, it's usually been that come December people are tired, exhausted and the final sprint to the end of the year is met with a respite of the holidays. This year is different. The collective stress and fatigue in every person I talk to, every company I work with, is intense and real, and it's come far earlier than usual.

For those in leadership positions, now is the time, more than anything, to show care and concern for the people who work with you and communicate with vulnerability and purpose. Here are four principles to guide you: 

(1) BE HUMAN.Be kind, be patient, be understanding and show care above all else. Stress and exhaustion manifest in a variety of ways, and often it shows up at work in unexpected ways and makes us do crazy things. This is a time to cut people a bit of slack. Explicitly encourage people to take time away, to take care of themselves. Be explicit in recognizing how hard people have been working, and about the successes achieved under really hard circumstances. Often this goes unspoken, but now is the time to be clear.

(2) COMMUNICATE IN BURSTS, NOT ALL THE TIME.Research from Harvard Business School shows that remote teams that communicate in spurts are the most productive. Higher performance comes from dedicated time to communicate with teams, not a constant stream of Slack and text messages, or an endless slew of Zoom meetings.

People need time to do work, to think, and to process. Setting aside specific, dedicated time for communication, and expectations around response times is something for every manager and leader to think about more. The same concept applies in your personal life, with one study showing that emails, texts and social media take up 10% of our free time, and fragment this time in ways that make it hard to focus and enjoy life. 

(3) COMMUNICATE WITH A PURPOSE.   Now more than ever, it's an important moment to be honest with yourself and clear about the purpose behind every communication you send, every presentation you give, every meeting you have. It's really important to remind people of expectations and guardrails for what you expect of them -- both in terms of behavior and in terms of output.

When people are tired and stressed, emotions run high and the risk of misperception is high. Being really honest with yourself about what you're trying to achieve is critical for everybody, especially leaders right now. Key questions to ask:

What is my goal here? What is my motivation? What makes this challenging? What tone do I want to convey?  Where should I communicate this?

Using a grid or a checklist like this one can help for many of our hardest situations.

(4) BE HONEST, BE VULNERABLE.  People are starved for meaningful connection, especially at work, especially in a divisive time like this. Being vulnerable takes bravery, and it builds connection rooted in authenticity.

I wrote a post on Facebook and Instagram last night about how I'm feeling going into the election. In it, I shared why, despite being anxious and feeling tired, I continue to find power in taking a deep breath and a break. I try to widen the aperture of the lens I view the world through and see that so many of the obstacles that are in my way are really a result of my own mis-perceptions or limited view. And I shared what motivates me to keep going, to keep showing up, and to keep communicating and leading with purpose.

I was surprised about the big reaction -- I received a lot of personal messages and texts following that one post -- most you wouldn't see in a "like" or a comment. It struck a chord and it reminded me again of the power that comes from being honest, vulnerable because it's the root of how we connect.

___

I’d love to hear what you think. Be well, and take care of yourself and each other.