Since before Moses and his people started walking, communication has been the glue that unites people across the world. Regardless of who we are – irrespective of our color, creed, nationality or education each of us interacts with our wider environment in a uniquely personal way. Communication is central to every aspect of our lives – the way we connect with each other, the way we interpret and shape our understanding of the constantly changing world. We talk, we see, we listen, we respond to things around us – the uniquely personal experience that sits at the heart of human communication.
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Image source: Simon Blackley
Living, Breathing, Vivid…Communication
Communication is neither static nor monochromatic but offers an infinite variety of rich, compex, vibrant, pulsating movement and color, with every individual person seeing a situation in their own unique way. Every phrase, every image will be interpreted by someone within their own contextual frame of reference – no two people will see the same situation of interpret the same message in quite the same way.
As Project Leaders, we have a unique opportunity to tap into this rich, pulsating, living patchwork and use it to flavor the way we engage with the people around us, to shape situations and issues in our favor. The most successful understand that they cannot use a static, one-size fits all approach to managing communication. Instead, they immerse themselves in the richness and vibrancy of the people around them and use a dynamic approach to get on the front foot and engage with key people at a personal level.
In this post, I invite you to step away from thinking of communication as just written words on a page and to acknowledge human communication as being simply too complex to be documented in a Project Communication Plan that is all too often, written into a template document and filed away. Instead, I want to reflect on how we can really tap into communication and engage with our people at a far more personal level. If we can do this effectively, we are on the path to capturing our stakeholders’ imaginations and turning them into our strongest and most committed champions.
“I Am Yoda, Master Communicator”
My experience has been indelibly shaped by having worked for a time with a truly master communicator – lets call him Yoda. Yoda was a wonderful Project Leader – a wise old guy who lived by the bedrock principle that successful leadership hinges on communication, grounded in personal relationships. His starting point was that “if you can’t bring them to your side in 10 minutes, you have it wrong”.
I have always loved that idea and want to share a simple story that highlights the value of Yoda’s approach.
The team was managing a tender process to select a vendor for the long term provision of hardware components. Our analysis made it clear – the client could save significant money IF it invested in a long term relationship with the preferred vendor – an approach that needed a large upfront funding commitment for the next 5 years. On the face of it, this was a good outcome – we found the best vendor, identified the best benefit opportunity and set out a logical roadmap.
All of which was doomed to failure.
In Yoda’s view, it was foolish to put forward an outcome that required large, long term capital investment when the Sponsor clearly had no such appetite. Of course, he was right. Yoda recognised that our Sponsor didn’t actually want a vendor, he wanted a procurement approach - an investment model that was flexible enough to trade off these benefits with a fluid appetite for capital spending. Our real role was to find a vendor that provided long term savings without the need to commit large amounts of upfront capital.
Facing certain failure, we gathered around Yoda and listened carefully. “Understand the Sponsor’s needs”, he mumbled quietly, “give him a solution he can claim as his own, that meets his needs rather than yours”. So we did. We did not change any analysis or modeling, but we focussed on the message – we made sure it targeted HIS objectives and gave him an outcome that HE could connect with and indeed, own. It was not about manipulating data, but about understanding what the Sponsor’s needs and objectives were and presenting the information in a way that connected.
With Yoda’s advice, our recommendations were adopted in full – a great outcome, deemed unthinkable just a few days earlier.
So how did he do it? How did he reach that particular audience at exactly the right time, in the right manner, with the right message? How did he know what was needed when no one else on the team could see?
4 Ways to Bring Communication to Life
The beauty of Yoda’s approach was that he brought communication alive and used it to engage his stakeholders at a very emotional, personal level.
Four key lessons jump out at us.
- Know your audience. Really, really understand them.
Yoda knew his audience seriously well. He stepped way past the usual confines of a template communication plan and invested the time to understand them from the inside out – their business drivers, strategic objectives, lines of communication, direct reports, accountabilities, ROI targets, communication styles, likes and dislikes – he knew what they were looking for and how they liked to be engaged. He knew how to catch their interest within that all important 10 minutes.
Great Project Leaders do this. They know and understand their key people, they recognize that each is different and needs to be engaged differently. They communicate WITH them as individuals, not AT them as stakeholders.
- Work with the influencer’s influences
Yoda understood that senior stakeholders are often difficult to engage with – they can be busy, constantly juggling priorities and dealing with strategic problems that transcend any one project. He knew that a really effective way to tap into these key influencers is by building a relationship with their influences – the people in their organizations with direct access.
Remember the old adage that the most important person in the company is the CEO’s Executive Assistant? This is similar in many ways. The Sponsor may drive the overall decision, but getting enough one-on-one access to form that living, dynamic understanding can be problematic. A creative way to overcome this is to work with the Sponsor’s direct reports. Understand what drives THEM, how they work with the Sponsor, how they provide influence or are influenced. Watch the way they communicate with people around them – appreciate what works for them in that sphere, what sort of messages they pass to the Sponsor, how they pass messages back down the line.
Want reassurance that your message to the Sponsor will be heard? Make sure the direct reports are all saying the same thing. Want to understand how the Sponsor likes to be engaged? Watch the direct reports do their thing. These relationships give you a richer, more multi layered understanding of the Sponsor. They help you see his/her communication style in action, providing signposts that direct your own communication approach.
- Give the audience a sense of ownership
The magic of Yoda’s approach shows through here – he knew that we were doomed if we presented a proposal for which the Sponsor had no sense of ownership or participation. He knew that real, active communication thrived where both parties felt emotionally connected and that the best way to bring the Sponsor around was to make him feel part of the process – to give him a stake in the outcome.
There is absolutely nothing to be gained by being a hero and trying to bring the perfect message to the table first time. Although you may have the message word perfect, without that intangible sense of ownership that comes from having been actively involved, the audience will always feel just slightly removed and never quite as passionate about the subject as the speaker. They may listen to what you say and admire the words, they may nod in appreciation, but they will only believe it to their core, be truly committed to the outcome, where they feel part of it.
Give the audience that emotional attachment and real commitment to the message by involving them in the discussions. Consult with them, engage them in the detail… make them feel like they have an important role to play in the broader team. Bring the communication alive – rather than talking at them from afar, immerse them in the topic…help them to not only be familiar with the issue at the superficial level, but to sense it, to feel an innate, unconscious understanding that comes from deep-seated familiarity.
- Give the audience a message they can engage with
Communication comes alive where the audience feel that they can engage with the message – where they have an active role in building the outcome, rather than just being passive recipients. Yoda understood this – he knew that by really understanding the audience’s drivers and objectives, we could kick the engagement up a gear by giving an outcome that allowed the recipient to fine tune the end result.
This strategy worked brilliantly because it presented the message that the Sponsor could engage with at that all important personal level. Rather than a prescriptive recommendation that read like a finger pointing message from up high (“You must spend $X next year and you must engage with Company Z”), we tweaked our message to give the Sponsor room to craft an outcome that he could call his own. THIS ensured his total engagement – that deep seated sense of ownership that came from having communicated at an active, personal level.
Our message became far more personalised (“We understand that it is difficult to commit large amounts of capital in the current environment and so we do not want to direct you down that path. Instead we offer you a strategic framework that allows you to chart a course for future growth, at a rate that suits your appetite for spending and with a clear understanding of the cost/benefit opportunities at your disposal”). It acknowledged the Sponsor’s critical constraints and allowed the Sponsor to determine his own cost/benefit outcome.
Yoda showed clearly that the best outcome is not always the one that offers the biggest financial result, but rather the one that the audience can best engage with at that personal level.
Finally…
All to often, we treat project communication as a two dimensional chore – we fill in a template plan, we send out a weekly status report and then we wonder why people pay no attention or forget what we are trying to say. The truth is that EVERY Project Leader can drive better outcomes, higher levels of engagement, greater commitment and stronger support from their audiences where they bring their communication to life – where they immerse themselves in the rich, dynamic tapestry of human connections and shape their strategies at a unique, personal level.
As always, I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences – I encourage you to drop me a line, send a tweet or leave a comment.
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