Tedded - Business Book Review

I have quite daunting two weeks. My Amazon order has not arrived after a month, I could not figure out where my six books are at the moment! I could not write a book review because I have not finished “Planet Google” by Randall Stross. I won’t say it is a bad book but I will never pick it up again! Instead, I’m enjoying “Business Stripped Bare” by Richard Branson. The book review will be here next week.

Anyway, I’ve written about communication in the past few weeks. The last week of mine (and this week) are the two weeks of total communication. The reason is that I’m resigning from my job so I had to construct a plan of the division in 2009. The hardest part is how to communicate the plan.

Balance Scorecard

Balance scorecard or the strategy map is a useful business tool to construct a plan or a strategy. It focuses on the alignment of units to the coherent goal. Anyway, I will not go into details of the balance scorecard but I will focus on the communication part. The photo below is the photo from my mobile phone capturing the balance scorecard I wrote on the white board.

Don’t mind the content of the balance scorecard. It is quite confusing without the full explanation. I also have the full explanation and key performance index (KPI) of each box. This thing gave me terrible headaches for several days straight. The construction of this thing is difficult. It started with the workshops (multiple ones) in the division of roughly twenty people. We derived the key theme and goals from the workshop.

However, the most difficult part is to communicate this confusing balance scorecard to other people. I tried hard to make this thing simple. At the beginning, I failed badly. I could not make other people believe in the benefits of the tool and some people even humiliated me. Fine, I tried harder to explain the balance scorecard in depth. No such luck.

At last, I came to conclusion that I was in the pitfalls of communication. The two most common pitfalls in communication.

Two most common pitfalls in communication

1. Curse of Knowledge

Taken from the book, “Made to Stick” by Dan and Chip Heath, this pitfall, the Curse of Knowledge, is horrible. It is dreadful and horrendous. I cannot stress enough hatred towards this pitfall.

Especially when it is the communication pitfall or error that I, far too often, make.

From the book “Made to Stick”:

“People tend to think that having a great idea is enough, and they think the communication part will come naturally. We are in deep denial about the difficulty of getting a thought out of our own heads and into the heads of others. It’s just not true that, “If you think it, it will stick.”

And that brings us to the villain of our book: The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.

Here’s the great cruelty of the Curse of Knowledge: The better we get at generating great ideas—new insights and novel solutions—in our field of expertise, the more unnatural it becomes for us to communicate those ideas clearly. That’s why knowledge is a curse. But notice we said “unnatural,” not “impossible.” Experts just need to devote a little time to applying the basic principles of stickiness.” [emphasis mine]

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Back to me, I read a lot on balance scorecard and strategic planning and have more experience compared to my colleagues. Thus, I became a lousy communicator in strategic planning field.

From the book, “Winning” by Jack Welch;

“It’s not that I don’t understand their [the experts'] theories about competitive advantage, core competencies, virtual commerce, supply chain economics, disruptive innovation, and so on, it’s just that the way these experts tend to talk about strategy — as if it is some kind of high-brain scientific methodology — feels really off to me.”

That was when I was disconnected from the audience. That was when I thought people should automatically know what I say. That was when I was a lousy communicator. That was the Curse of Knowledge.

To make the matter worse, I made the other common communication pitfall.

2. Four Autobiographical Responses

From the famous book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey, the four autobiographical responses are evaluate, probe, advise, and interpret.

“Because we listen autobiographically, we tend to respond in one of four ways. We evaluate - we either agree or disagree; we probe - we ask questions from our own frame of reference; we advise - we give counsel based on our own experience; or we interpret - we try to figure people out, to explain their motives, their behavior, based on our own motives and behavior.”

The bottom line of the autobiographical responses is that we do not understand. We read chapters from our autobiography. We tried to make ourselves understood without understanding.

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When I communicated my plan, I questioned colleagues. I guided them to my conclusion. I made them agreed.

I did not understand.

And I thought they were not capable of understanding the grand plan I presented. Matter of fact, it was me who were not capable of understanding them.

Reset your brain

The two most common communication pitfalls, the curse of knowledge and four autobiographical responses often come together. The root cause is the same, “experience“. And the experience is yours, not theirs. Put your experience away when you try to communicate. Use your experience wisely when you do things on your own.

To avoid the communication pitfalls. Reset your brain. Start from scratch.

(FYI: thank god, I reset my brain and started again and my colleagues understood and supported the plan altogether)

“I can’t understand my kid. He just won’t listen to me at all.”

A quote from the book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Steven R. Covey, states the disconnection in communication. His chapter “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” insists that “listening” must always come before “communicating”. Emphatic listening is the key to understand the other person. According to Steven R. Covey, emphatic listening “gets inside another person’s frame of reference. You look through it, you see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm, you understand how they feel.”

Your Duty as a Listener

I mentioned the role of mitigation in the communication process as a speaker in this post. I listed the checklist that a speaker has to understand before making communication. On the other end of the process, a listener must also be prepared in order to yield the most effective outcome of communication. Similar to the duty as a speaker, a listener must always seek full understanding of the context of the message.

Listener Checklist

There are things that a listener must be prepared prior to the conversation or communication. I take the concept from the article by David R. Gavin, Amy C. Edmondson, and Francesca Gino; “Is Yours a Learning Organization” in Havard Business Review, March 2008. The author wrote about the idea of a learning organization that it requires three building blocks. The first building block is “a supportive learning environment”. The concept is for an organization and for individuals. A duty of the listener is to learn from the other person’s viewpoint as well as understanding the message.

1. Psychological safety

“To learn, employees cannot fear being belittled or marginalized when they disagree with peers or authority figures, ask naive questions, own up to mistakes, or present a minority viewpoint. Instead, they must be comfortable expressing their thoughts about the work at hand.” [emphasis mine]

2. Appreciation of differences

“Learning occurs when people become aware of opposing ideas. Recognizing the value of competing functional outlooks and alternative worldviews increases energy and motivation, sparks fresh thinking, and prevents lethargy and drift.” [emphasis mine]

3. Openness to new ideas

“Learning is not simply about correcting mistakes and solving problems. It is also about crafting novel approaches. Employees should be encouraged to take risks and explore the untested and unknown.” [emphasis mine]

4. Time for reflection

“All too many managers are judged by the sheer number of hours they work and the tasks they accomplish. When people are too busy or overstressed by deadlines and scheduling pressures, however, their ability to think analytically and creatively is compromised. They become less able to diagnose problems and learn from their experiences. Supportive learning environments allow time for a pause in the action and encourage thoughtful review of the organization’s processes.” [emphasis mine]

In sum, as a listener, you must be prepared for differences, new ideas. And you must offer psychological safety to the speaker and time to reflect.

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What Do You Have To Listen To?

75% of the message is non-verbal. When you listen to the other person, there is more than words to listen to. In order to fully understand the speaker, the listener must understand the verbal and non-verbal messages. I take the list of non-verbal elements from an article by Mike King from his blog, “Learn This“. You can have a free pdf of his series “Better Communication” among others, from his blog. The elements you need to listen to and the meaning of those elements I interpret are;

Tone of voice: tone of voice shows “intent” of the speaker. Different tones of voice are used for different purposes, to coerce, teach, cooperate, request, etc.

Speed: speed reflects “urgency” and “importance“. This element is ambiguous, speedy conversation can mean either high urgency or low importance. A listener must understand by listening to other elements.

Body posture and gesture: body posture often symbolises “engagement” a speaker needs. Leaning towards the listener often means that the speaker needs high engagement and interest in the topic while negative body postures such as leaning back in the chair or crosses arms and legs often means “authority” the speaker poses.

Eye moment: eye movement exhibits “certainty“. It is obvious that looking straight to the listener’s eyes often means high certainty in the message. Most of the times, looking high is abstract, looking low is depressive, looking here, there, and everywhere is a lie.

Facial expressions: facial expression is directly related to the “mood” of the speaker. Facial expressions are automatic and biological response of the speaker. Together with the eye movement, they are elements that are difficult to manage or forge.

Hand gestures: hand gestures of the speaker is the “intensity” of the message the speaker is trying to convey. They are often used to amplify the context of the message.

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These are the non-verbal elements that you need to understand during the conversation. Non-verbal elements work both ways. A listener must also convey the non-verbal elements to the speaker appropriately.

Happy listening!

I would like to continue writing about communication and one of the most boring things in the corporate communication is presentation (and it shouldn’t be!). I know it because I have also been the one with the ugly slides. It has been a norm in some organisations that you need ugly slides for your presentation.

Ugliness

Worse, my current company uses slides to explain things from vision, strategies, action plans, etc. instead of formal written reports. People in the room struggle to stay awake. They brought labtops to the room and mind their own business. When audiences try to listen, they don’t have a clue because those ugly slides always make simple points complicated. The presenter sit (yes, sit!) in front of the laptop connected to the projector and narrate (read) the slides.

Most of the times, the presentation takes an hour or two and it contains around fifty to hundred slides (or more).

Rules

I read the article by Guy Kawasaki in his blog, How to change the world. The article is “The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint“; it is one of the most popular articles in one of the most popular blogs. You can read from his blog and get the full and simple concept on how to construct effective slides. I’ll explain to you in ten slides paraphrasing Guy Kawasaki with his ten topics you ONLY need in your slides!

1. Problem

2. Solution

3. Business Model

4. Underlying magic/technology

5. Marketing and sales

6. Competition

7. Team

8. Projections and milestones

9. Status and timeline

10. Summary and call to action

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I hope they are self-explanatory

I am reading “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. I will write a book review as soon as I finish it. The book is amazing.

Today, I’d like to write more on communication. Malcolm Gladwell, at one point in the book, wrote about the miscommunication between two colleagues that led to a tragedy. In our normal setting, miscommunication between yourself and a colleague or a boss might not lead to a life and death situation but it might reduce your productivity at work.

I will tell you the simple concept and techniques to have a better communication especially at work.

I will focus on one on one communication.

Communication Mitigation

Malcolm Gladwell referred to the study of the linguists Ute Fischer and Judith Orasanu that when trying to persuade another person, we have six levels of mitigation.

Gladwell wrote and gave examples of the life and death events in the book but I’m not going to spoil it. Instead I’ll give you an example of a less vital event.

(When trying to persuade your boss and colleagues to go to McDonald’s for lunch because we are running out of lunch time. Suppose there is no other fast food restaurant around)

1. Command: “Go to McDonald’s”

2. Obligation Statement: “I think we need to go to McDonald’s”

3. Suggestion: “Let’s have something quick, like McDonald’s”

4. Query: “What would you like to have in 20 minute?”

5. Preference: “I think it would we wise to have fast food”

6. Hint: “Oh, we have little time for lunch” … This is the most mitigated statement of all.

The communication mitigation, as the author pointed out, is heavily related to the Power Distance Index (PDI) of culture. In a low PDI culture, people rarely mitigate the message. People in low PDI culture, think of Americans, talk straight. On the opposite end, people in high PDI culture, think of Japaneses, rarely say things directly; they hint.

People from the Western countries (predominantly low PDI) probably think that “hinting” is a bad idea and a sign of weakness. On the other hand, people from Asia (high PDI) will often think that “commanding the boss”, even in the life and death situation, is rude and totally disrespectful.

The difference of the two cultures is that for those in low PDI culture, the responsibility of the communication relies on the speaker. The speaker has to make him/herself clear. On the other hand, in high PDI culture, it is the job of the receiver to think through and understand the message.

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Your Duty as a Speaker

Most contemporary businessmen, business books, ideas, theories, and so forth stongly support “candor”, friction free communication, flat organisation with free flow communication, honesty, etc.

As a speaker we need to aim for two things;

1. Full Understanding

2. Willingness to Implement

Understanding is not only the understanding of the content of your message, it also includes your intent, your sense of urgency, your emotions, and so forth. “Commanding” often lead to the understanding of the content but sometimes, the receiver might misjudge your intent and other factors. The receiver might translate “straight” as “rude”, “urgent” as “dictatorial”, and “passionate” as “picky”.

To have the receiver of the message implement, willingness is a must. Implementing by force is not acceptable. Human nature dislikes command and order. A clear message with a blunt “do this” will not persuade the receiver wholeheartedly.

On the other end of the scale, “hinting” will not neither give the receiver full understanding nor drive willingness to implement (because the receiver normally do not know exactly what to do).

Now, you might say that “Okay, we’ll be in the middle. We’d better use ’suggestion’ or ‘query’.” Well, that’s not the case because ANY of those levels can be implemented depending on the situation.

Speaker Checklist

1. What’s your point? What exactly are you trying to communicate. There are times when we have more than points to communicate. Don’t. Don’t try to communicate more than one point at a time. The receiver might not be able to prioritise the importance of each point and how they are related. Or worse, the receiver might not understand any point you are communicating at all.

2. What do you want? What is the outcome that you want to see. In the best case, what is your most desirable event that will happen after the conversation. It can’t be more annoying when a person is arguing for an argument-sake. You can use it in a brainstorming session when the question is open-ended. However, when trying to persuade anyone, you need to know what do you want.

3. Who are you talking to? It’s cool to say that you talk to anyone similarly; you never change your message; you are honest. Wrong. You need to know who you are talking to in person. You need to know the preference of the receiver whether the receiver prefers plain and direct approach or something more humble and soft. You need to know the PDI of the receiver. You need to know the behaviour of the receiver. Even better, you need to know the current mood of the receiver.

4. What are the options? From the zero-mitigated statement to the most mitigated statement, what is the most appropriate? Is there only one way or there are multiple options.

5. What will the receiver hear? This is one of the most important steps. It is the step that you have to listen from the receiver’s side. The outcome that you need to get from the step is to check whether the receiver understand the content or not. First of all, study it by yourself. Think of a statement and change it to the six levels of mitigation. What do YOU think of each level? How will YOU understand? I did that for the “go to McDonald’s” myself and I think of each level. I changed my role and see how will I react to different level. The result is profoundly different and startling. The different levels of statement make me think, feel, and understand ultimately differently. Try it and you will know that simple deviation makes you understand differently. You receiver will too.

6. How should the receiver feel? When you select the best level of mitigation and approach, that is just the first half (or less) of the story. Unless you communicate by e-mail or a letter, body language and your voice is more significant to the outcome of the message than the content per se. Taylormade your body language and the tone of your voice that will foster the best outcome, read “highest willingness to implement”.

7. What’s the best place and time? It is apparent that communicating exactly the same message in the same way can have dramatically different outcome in different places and times.

8. What’s the worst case scenario? What if the consequence does not turn out to be as planned? What will you do? You need to prepare for different consequences apart from the most likely case.

If you have thought through all of them, you are prepared to communicate persuasively. However, in reality, you don’t always have the prestigious time to think of all the eight steps. If you can, good. If not, identify your past failure and learn from it.

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Learn From The Failures

What are your failures? What is the pattern?

You might often fail because you don’t always know what to say, or say too many things at a time. Focus on the step 1

If you are talkative and often speak of things you don’t know what should the outcome be. Focus on step 2

If you talk to EVERYONE similarly or on the other extreme, you can’t talk to any person that you are not familiar with. Focus on step 3

You might find yourself using the same pattern all the time “hinting”, “suggesting”, “commanding”, etc. Focus on step 4

If, most of the times, the receiver misunderstood what you are trying to say. Focus on step 5

Maybe you think that I did all the things right but they don’t like me or never follow me. Focus on step 6

If you don’t say the right thing at the right time, all your effort is meaningless. Focus on step 7

Sometimes, you did great communicating but when the outcome is not what you expect, you switch off and don’t know what to do. Focus on step 8

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For me, personally, I often miss step 3. There are times when my communication is ultra-effective with one kind of people but have zero effect on others. I need to understand my receivers more. What about you? What is your communication failures, flaws, or weaknesses?

I looked at many succesful CEOs in the business world. There is a shared characteristic that they all possess, communication.

“A key, perhaps, to leadership … is the effective communication of a story.” - Howard Gardner

How do we master an ability to communicate?

Firstly, I’ll look at those who are “the masters” of communiation.

And I will look at how they did it.

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I thought of many great and successful businessmen who are great communicators. However, there is a person that stands out. He is ahead of others in terms of communication especially public communication.

Steve Jobs

It is not necessary to write too much on what a great communicator he is. I browsed through many sites in search of the ingredients or the elements of his communication power.

I read:

1. An article by Carmine Gallo in BusinessWeek (here). The author wrote that Steve Jobs 1) Sell the benefits 2) Practice 3) Keep it Visual 4) Exude Passion, Energy, and Enthusiasm 5) “And one more thing” (how he adds the drama in the ending)

2. An article by the same Carmine Gallo in BusinessWeek one year later (here). Gallo added that Steve Jobs 1) Build Tension 2) Stick to One Theme Per Slide 3) Add Pizzaz to Your Delivery 4) Practice 5) Be Honest and Show Enthusiasm. They are basically similar to the previous article.

3. An article in a blog called “Communication Nation” by Dave Gray (here). He stated that Steve Jobs 1) Prepare carefully 2) Create Drama 3) Use Pictures 4) Make It Personal 5) Have Fun

4. An article by Guy Kawasaki in his blog (here). He summarised into 10 points mainly about Minimalism, Visual, Guests, “But wait, there’s more” Moment, Human Touch, etc.

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It is easy to detect the pattern from everyone’s view that he’s enthusiastic, energetic, passionate, dramatic, and make it visual. He connects. He understands the audiences. He knows how to make them (us) feel excited. He puts massive energy into the room.

So, what should we do? Should we be more enthusiastic in everything we speak out? Should we use more pictures in our presentation?

The answer is yes; we should do what Steve Jobs does in order to communicate to other people better. However, we might not have the opportunity of Steve Jobs everyday. I’ll tell you a simple (very simple) concept from a book and I’ll connect Steve Jobs to the concept. The book is Made To Stick by Chip and Dan Heath.

I have my book review method based on the idea of this book and I will show how an ability to communicate of Steve Jobs is made to stick. The book outlines the characteristics that make ideas sticky which are SUCCES (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotion, and Stories)

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Simple

Presentations of Steve Jobs are always simple. He always started with a “theme” of the presentation. The 2008 Macworld is themed “There’s something in the air.” and that simple concept is linked with the product he presented.

This video from youtube.com is the first introduction of iMac in 1998. He clearly spoke out that iMac is for the number one use that customers were telling them what they want the computer for. Which is to “get on the Internet, simply and fast.” And that’s what “i” stood for, Internet. He later listed out other advantages of iMac but the core is simple, the computer that connects, simply and fast. Keep everything minimum.

Unexpected

The famous “one more thing” Steve Jobs love to say is one of the tools he used to drive the “unexpectedness”. Actually, it is not hundred per cent “unexpected”. It is rather that people “expect” to see the “unexpected”. The “unexpectedness” is created through long hours of practice and practice and practice.

This video is the first introduction of iPhone in 2007. Steve Jobs knew that most customers knew what was coming. However, he built tension. he made twists. He diverted customers psychologically. From the video, he tricked audiences that he was going to introduce three products, and iPod, a phone, an an internet communication device. He then built up the atmosphere of the place and hinted until the audience found out (mostly unexpectedly) and he said “Are you getting it? These are not three separated devices, this is one device. And we are calling it, iPhone”. Twist the plot.

Concrete

We all know that Steve Jobs’ presentations are highly visual. You can always see it. He showed you how to use the product. He maximised the image and visual of his products. All of us do not have that priviledge. However, from a different aspect, he can communicate in a wonderfully concrete way like the video below.

The first iPod introduction in 2001, Steve Jobs started a music industry revolution with

“1,000 songs in your pocket”

The phrase “1,000 songs in your pocket” is not only simple, but also highly concrete. People understand it right away. People know what they will get. People know what he is talking about. Make audiences understand.

Credible

Matter of fact, when Steve Jobs says anything, you should better believe that he is telling the truth. Credibility is earned by trust. Credibility is also gathered by references but Steve Jobs could not just say “Bill Gates told me that…”.

This is the video of the first iPod nano in 2005. He showed audiences that previously the original iPod and iPod mini could be in your pocket. He then pointed to the little pocket on the sides of your jeans and said that he did not know what it is for. He then cheekily said “Well, now we know, because this…” and he picked iPod nano out of that little pocket. “Is the new iPod… nano”. He demonstrated that this thing is really thin. Don’t just say it, show it.

Emotion

Steve Jobs always presented with enthusiasm and energy. The reason is that he “understands” people. He knows the audience. He exactly knows what the audience “want”. He speaks to the heart of people. He tells them what they want to hear. He connects. However, from the video below. I want to show the opposite.

The introduction of Macintosh in 1984! He did not speak much. He let Macintosh communicate! Only a man who was a genius in communication could make a computer communicate for him, well, 24 years ago. And look at the standing ovation at the end of the video. Tell me that those people were not emotional! Understand your audience.

Stories

“It is now 1984. It appears IBM… wants it ALL. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers initially welcoming IBM with open arms, now fear an IBM dominated and control future. They increasingly and desperately turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom.”

“IBM wants it all and it is aiming its gun on its last obstacles to industry control, Apple.”

This video is more like a war cry than a corporate keynote speech. He used this speech, this story, to lay out the theme “1984″ the year he launched Macintosh. He used this story to create the sense of ownership and freedom of customers. He made customer feel that the product was not just a personal computer. It was a revolution and a symbol of freedom. Don’t talk facts, tell stories.

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Although I picked each video for each element, each video has ALL the elements. His presentation or public communication is always simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, and with emotion and stories.