Struggling to Align Your Team? Discover Effective Communication Strategies.

Struggling to get your team on the same page or drive your organization's vision forward? What if the key lies in mastering the art of communication? If you're ready to unlock the secrets of effective communication for leadership and organizational success, this episode is for you.

In this episode, we are joined by Audrey Camp, a renowned communication expert, to discuss the critical role of effective communication in organizational success. Audrey emphasizes the importance of aligning intention with impact, distinguishing between information and communication, and tailoring messages to the audience for successful outcomes. We dive into key objectives for leaders in communication, such as articulating the vision, fostering collaboration, and achieving shared goals to drive positive results within organizations.

Imagine leading a team where your vision is clearly understood, collaboration flourishes, and shared goals drive outstanding results. 

By listening to this episode, you can:

1. Enhance Leadership Communication: Learn how to effectively convey your vision and mission through storytelling, creating an emotional context that resonates with your team.
2. Foster Team Collaboration: Discover strategies to overcome challenges between different teams, using empathy, role-playing, and goal-setting to promote teamwork and shared objectives.
3. Cultivate a Positive Workplace Culture: Understand how to bridge the gap between abstract visions and actionable steps, creating a coherent, responsible, and successful organisational culture.

Three Benefits You'll Gain:

1. Enhanced Communication Skills: Develop your ability to align intention with impact and tailor your messages to resonate with your audience.
2. Improved Team Dynamics: Learn techniques to foster empathy and collaboration within and between teams, promoting a more cohesive and productive work environment.
3. Clear Vision Implementation: Understand how to effectively communicate your vision and goals to ensure they are understood and embraced by your team, driving organisational success.

Are you ready to transform your leadership communication and foster a more collaborative and successful organisation? Scroll up and click play to join our enlightening discussion with Audrey Camp. 

Gain practical insights and strategies to enhance your communication skills, drive collaboration, and achieve your organizational goals. Start your journey towards mastering communication for leadership success today!

Bio:
Audrey Camp is an American writer, teacher, and communication expert living in Oslo, Norway. As a mission-motivated “People Pro” with 15+ years experience, Audrey’s purpose is to accelerate healthy, people-first growth in European companies by making leaders and teams better.

Between 2018 and 2023, Audrey supported the rapid growth and vibrant culture of Cognite, Norway’s first unicorn. Today, she is an independent consultant, offering organizational development services, with communication at the heart of everything she provides.

Contact:
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/audrey-camp-6bb155b/
Website: 

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Transcript

Transcript 

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Music.

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Back to It's an Inside Job podcast. I'm your host, Jason Lim.

Now, this podcast is dedicated to helping you to help yourself and others to

become more mentally and emotionally resilient so you can be better at bouncing

back from life's inevitable setbacks.

Now, on It's an Inside Job, we decode the science and stories of resilience

into practical advice, skills, and strategies that you can use to impact your

life and those around you.

Now, with that said, let's slip into the stream.

[0:36]
 

Music.

[0:44]
 

Hey folks, welcome back to It's an Inside Job. I'm your host, Jason Lim.

And for my regular listeners, well, welcome back to the top of a fresh new week.

And for those who are new, well, welcome.

I hope you enjoy what you hear today and that you will subscribe to the podcast.

Well, this week, folks, I am joined by Audrey Camp.

She's an American writer, teacher, and renowned communication expert living

here in Norway. Now, Audrey brings over 15 years of experience as a people pro

with a deep-seated mission to accelerate people-focused development across European companies.

Now, between 2018 and 2023, Audrey supported the rapid growth and vibrant culture

of a company called Cognite, which is Norway's first unicorn.

[1:26]
 

Today, she's an independent consultant offering organizational development services

with communication at the heart of everything she provides.

Now, Autry has also partnered with the previous guest of this show,

Anakin Day of Corporate Spring, to help clients catalyze innovative company

cultures and deliver extraordinary business results.

In addition to this, her writings have also graced various magazines and anthologies,

enriching readers with her insights and narratives.

And when she's not consulting, well, she cherishes her role teaching English

literature at University of Oslo, where she emphasizes the importance of empathy.

A crucial skill cultivated through reading and understanding diverse perspectives.

So in today's episode, we delve into how the level and quality of communication

not only reflect the health of a company culture, but are fundamental to its very essence.

So join me today as we unpack the ways in which effective communication acts

as the backbone of organizational success.

Now, with Audrey guiding us through the intricacies of building a culture where

what we do and how we talk about it are seamlessly integrated.

So without further ado, let's slip into the stream.

[2:35]
 

Music.

[2:49]
 

You, Jason. Excited to be here. That's brilliant. That's brilliant.

We could actually find this time to connect.

I was wondering, could you or could we kick off the interview or our conversation

today by you introducing who you are and what you do?

Yeah, I'd be very happy to. So my name is Audrey and I'm from California originally,

but I live in Norway now and I've been here in Oslo for more than 13 years.

So I'm one of those international wanderers, a person without a home.

When I say I'm going home, I could mean California. I could mean Norway. We figured that out.

I came to Norway originally as part of an adventure with my husband,

who's also from California.

[3:27]
 

And, you know, when I think about who I am, I try to tie my identity closer to my family.

I'm a wife and mother and I'm also a friend and a daughter.

But what I have a great deal of passion about is

making sure that people who meet

with me are better for the meeting that companies

that I work with are better for having worked with me I like to engage with

people on that level in personal life and professional life what that means

for me today professionally is that I have my own consultancy so I work Audrey

Camp Consulting and at my slogan that I came up with because I also have a marketing

background is I make leaders and teams better.

But where that rests for me is often in the discipline of communication because

that's an area that I have a great deal of expertise with.

And it is something that I think is a skill that applies to everyone,

no matter what industry they're in, no matter what level they're at in their careers. So...

[4:20]
 

I take that individually, with teams, with organizations. And what's nice is

that because I have a creative background and I've worked in a lot of different

capacities within organizational development, marketing, communication,

when I come into a client, I get to sit with them and sort of evaluate what

is the pain point versus what are they asking of me. So I don't come in with a menu of things.

I just say, you know, let's talk about what your needs are. And then we try

to see if there's a good match between us. And I like to find creative solutions

and find ways to make leadership teams work better together,

organizations execute better.

And I'm very connected to this idea of cultural health because we spend so much of our time at work.

I feel like work should be a place that when you're there, you understand what

you're up to, why you're valuable, and you feel like you're doing something that's worth your time.

[5:12]
 

So that's a bit about what motivates me. On the side, I also teach literature

at the University of Oslo.

This is something that I am also very passionate about because I come from an

education background, too.

I have a couple of master's degrees in writing and literature,

and I got my second at the University of Oslo.

So it's fun to be back there in a teaching capacity and working with young people

to appreciate reading and how it can affect them and have a positive impact on their lives.

So that's a little about me. Well, it sounds like you have a very dynamic work

life and professional life and a lot of that is poured into passion.

So I guess sometimes work is not so much a work as it is maybe a hobby or a

vast interest of yours. A bit of a joy.

A bit of a joy. Qualify with a bit. It sounds like a lot of joy.

But perhaps what I'd like to discuss with you today and explore is communication,

because I think it is the connective tissue, as you said, quite eloquently across

industries, across businesses, organizations, what have you.

[6:13]
 

And I think what you're talking about, you called it cultural health.

And for me, for me, it sounds like the lifeblood of cultural health would be communication.

But from your you've been in the game 15 20 years

um yourself but you

know a lot of companies talk about communication you hear it about it all the

time books and articles are you know written ad nauseum about it but from my

experience again anecdotally i always find communication something we always

come back to we talk a good game but it's not always.

[6:52]
 

Well, perfected is maybe a too strong a word, but I always find that is one

of the biggest minefields in a lot of corporations.

I was wondering if you could riff on that or what your experience is with communication,

even though there's so much invested time and money and effort into it.

Yeah, I think that I say this to my clients, too, where when it comes to communication,

like I'm not here to invent anything.

I'm not going to come up with the new thought on this. What I really try to

do is help organizations understand where communication shows up in terms of

culture and then let them feel out for themselves where are the places that

we can improve actively,

like really take a functional action on to improve the communication, to improve culture.

So for me, communication and culture are one and the same because culture is

what we do and how we talk about it. And when you really boil it down, it's that simple.

And when you walk into a new company, a new organization, and you want to get

a sense of their culture, you look for indicators around, you know,

what are they celebrating?

What are they proud to share? How do they collaborate?

Who gets elevated when they do a good job? How do leaders treat people?

[8:08]
 

If there's a change ongoing, how are the people who are being directly impacted

by that change, how are they being treated? Those are all communication challenges.

And yet the way that we behave in those moments, you know, people think,

oh, well, then that's the culture. Well, most of that behavior comes to communication.

It's, you know, are we collaborating? Are we celebrating? Are we admitting our

mistakes? Are we sharing lessons learned so that we can scale those learnings?

So when I think about communication and culture and all, as you say,

that has been written about it and spoken about it,

what it comes down to is something that's much more personal for me,

because I think that we also, depending on how large an organization is,

we overcomplicate the problem.

We say, oh, we need to do a big diagnosis and come up with a new process and

bring in some analysts and bring in some consultants, and we need a program,

and we need a shift, and we need a management. And you're going, wait, go back.

Start again. Fundamentals.

[9:06]
 

What is the problem? why are

we having it who can impact the change like let's

start there and usually it comes down to somebody's not

speaking to somebody uh somebody hasn't actually been

speaking to themselves to understand what they're thinking about

um it's very often a communication uh foundation um to the to the issue um and

i and i i will say like we're we're sitting here kind of casting this in a uh

you know diagnosis and and a um like a negative area also in the positive area

when When you are in growth mode as an organization,

taking the time to stop and understand your communication habits and tendencies

and preferences, like that will be the make or break between whether or not you succeed.

So you want to scale good stuff. You need to stop and take that moment.

So that's what I'm thinking about as you begin to talk to me about this is,

you know, the interesting part of communication is how human it is.

It's something we do every day. So there's a great deal of common sense.

But do we take the time in a corporate setting or in a startup setting to really

evaluate it, understand it,

and do something about it? And there's always something that can be done.

[10:14]
 

And what I see is that usually people have an intent of what they want to communicate.

But a lot of the times their oblivious may be too strong a word.

They're not cognizant as to the impact they want to leave in that communication.

So there's a misalignment between intention and impact.

And thus you know if if

i want to be my intention is to be assertive and

to not waste your time and be straightforward and let's just get down

to business but the way i do it my

mannerisms my inflections my my approach or

my even my lack of choice of good

diplomatic civil words you take

it as as being in an attack or being overly aggressive

and what does that do to audrey that shuts her her down and

i'm getting frustrated why doesn't she understand what the

hell i'm saying right but again maybe it's it's just that it's it's again when

i work with communication i'm not as in-depth as you of course but that's what

i find is a misalignment between intention and impact and i try as best as i

can to make people cognizant of those two and how they can align.

[11:21]
 

Well, and there's something, you know, the very first lesson that I like to

teach about communication everywhere.

And so I'm happy that your listeners can hear this now because it really is this simple.

The very first lesson I like to teach is the difference between information and communication.

So you having something to say and get out into the world is different from

you having something that you want someone else to take and do something with.

And so so often that gets confused

people say well i have something i need to share or i need

everyone to understand this but the understanding

you know that's that's the tree falling in the forest you're

not going to know whether that landed and somebody did something with it unless

you follow up and you're not you're going to increase your chances hugely if

the first question you ask is not what do i have to say but what did they need

to hear so it's a big shift it's it's It's reminding people that being a good

communicator, actually, the words,

the talking is actually second.

The understanding your audience is actually first. And the best communicators

I know are not necessarily the ones who are like me and love the spotlight,

can diagram their thoughts, can persuade.

[12:30]
 

That's not what we're talking about. I mean, those are great skills.

Skills, but the best communicators I know are empathetic, high emotional intelligence,

come into a room thinking, I want to achieve an outcome with the person who's

going to sit across from me.

What do I know about that person so that I can succeed in achieving the outcome together?

And that doesn't, you know, that's, it's all different kinds of skill sets.

You'll get there a variety of ways, but that initial understanding of communication

means we successfully arrive at the same place together.

[13:00]
 

It's not ever on just the person who's got something to say. It's a shared journey.

And so as you're speaking about, it's this idea, you know, how can I make sure

that we have this aligned understanding from the beginning?

And I think, you know, it's so easy when someone's got something to say,

they're like, I know exactly what I need to get out in the world.

It's like, yeah, but how do you know whether they're going to arrive there with you? you.

And that's usually something, again, common sense.

It's usually not so complex for people to understand. They just haven't taken

the time to think about it. And I said before, it's a discipline.

You have to remind yourself to do it, check in with yourself to do it so that

you never really forget.

Eventually, it's like riding a bicycle. But in the beginning,

when you haven't done it a lot, you arrive everywhere with a big roster of things to say.

[13:48]
 

No, I find that fascinating what you're saying. Because as you were talking about it,

I was thinking back to my own training in clinical psychology and a little bit

of the neurosciences and you know when and when you have to I mean again it's

humans talking to humans but in a therapeutic setting if we can just characterize

it as that we learn specific.

[14:07]
 

Skills you know such as listening and relating and

understanding and echoing we have to be super

aware of how we ask questions

right you know how the words we choose because

it can become mind feeling especially when you're dealing with someone with trauma

or something you again it's about understanding it's

about relating it's understanding that sometimes those silences you

know you don't have to fill the gaps but those silences for you it feels like

an hour for that person it might only be 20 seconds and so it's it's learning

how to ask neutral based questions because a lot of people that i i know because

of lack of training they will ask loaded questions

right that will tilt in a certain way and people

get it but people don't sometimes realize it so

i just find there's a lot of sort of overlap in

what you're talking about and it makes me reflect you know rewind 20 25 years

just aging myself back to my own training right to understand and how even myself

you know there's always improvements to be made so i just really I really like

that because you focus a lot on communication outcome, right?

And not obviously the skills, but the outcome.

What are the results of all this training, all this learning, all this insight? Yeah.

[15:24]
 

When I'm speaking to clients, and I will say, you know, I work,

again, at the individual team and organizational level, so I try to make it

match up with what the need is.

But when it comes to an organization, you know, when I'm thinking about when

I go in, I kind of help them to understand how well they're communicating.

[15:45]
 

I have my bag of tricks.

I've got my standard lessons. I've got these things. But the outcomes piece

is really important because I have a set of sort of standard outcomes that I

would expect a healthy organization to want.

But what those look like specifically for that organization depends on the industry

and the size of the team and the seniority and the experience and the market.

Right. So when I'm coming in, I try to really get to understand what they're trying to achieve.

And I speak to it, I think of communication in this sense as a place for leaders

to see they have a huge role to play in getting their company from X to Y.

And in order to do that, they need to achieve a few specific outcomes.

I have six. I won't go into all of them. But what I'll say is it's things like

you want your team to understand your vision.

So that vision becomes the responsibility of the leader to communicate.

That doesn't mean that they are just up there repeating it ad nauseum until people get it.

It means that they understand what their organization needs in order to align behind the vision.

So it does take a great deal of listening, care to the feedback loop,

not allowing the distance to grow too much between the leader and the rest of the org.

[17:03]
 

Another outcome that they want is collaboration. You want healthy teams who

are aligned on similar goals and working together to achieve them.

The number one pain point I see going into companies is collaboration.

They're like, oh, we're not collaborating well enough. Oh, these teams aren't

working well enough together.

And so I go back to, you know, you can have structure, you can have processes,

you can have systems, check, check, check.

But what is the leadership responsibility into that?

How do people understand how they're supposed to work together toward their goal that they share?

Do they each understand what their value is within the system?

So these are the kinds of things where if you start with the outcome focus and

really get them to say, oh, specifically for us, this is what that looks like.

It really helps them to sit back and say, oh, you know what?

I could do better because what I'm doing right now is not working well enough is.

And they can meet that need in a more specific way. I do feel like we're like

kind of in this concept space, Jason.

I'm wondering if we should like try to button this down for your listeners.

Yeah, because I think that's very important.

But I think it's also important to sort of generally talk about communication, some of the challenges.

And then I would like to filter it down into some specifics because,

you know, doing some research and what you've also contributed to me is those

communication outcomes.

And just to clarify, that was vision, context, collaboration,

growth, execution, celebration.

[18:28]
 

So maybe we can just explore each of those to the depth you would like to.

And maybe we can take each of

those down. Because outcome-based is what everyone's looking for, I think.

It's sort of, if I can paint a picture, then I can see it. People can understand it.

How can leaders ensure that their vision is both sort of understood and embraced by...

[18:51]
 

I don't know, everyone involved. I mean, what are some specifics a leader or a manager can do?

Yeah. So usually where I go with this, and I think really quick,

just for the sake of like aligned definitions.

So for me, you know, vision, and we'll talk about in the company context,

but an organizational vision is the world that you believe can exist,

that you want to be part of creating.

And this world is bigger than what your company or your team can achieve on

its own. but it's still something worthwhile.

And it really gives you that sense of purpose because you're like,

this is a better place to be.

This is something that I want to have a positive impact in creating for everyone

else. I think a lot of people benefit. That's the vision.

And then mission and goals sit underneath that. Mission is the part that you

play, the value that you bring in that equation.

And then goals are the way that you measure your progress toward the mission.

So when I think about the way that leaders have this responsibility for conveying

vision and making sure that it resonates with the organization.

It can happen in a lot of ways.

There is this idea of being able to paint that compelling picture,

be really able to speak authentically to the why. Why is this matter to me?

What excites me about this? Why do I think it's possible?

Who will it have an impact on? That's that inspiring piece.

[20:09]
 

But it's also about bringing that down from the abstract and concept into story.

So in storytelling is an

essential skill in communication for especially for

leaders but for anybody who wants to get a point across because

if you start in the abstract you know people will try

to meet you there and maybe they're prepared and able to

meet you there but the the um you know

we were talking about the successful communication is when

you've said one thing and the other person arrives at that

same place with you it's so much harder in in that

abstract because you have an abstract idea and

they're trying to paint that abstract picture in their own head and they might

be getting close but it's going to be different where the

power lies is in concrete details and that's where storytelling really serves

so when a leader is able to say you know in terms of impact for example we have

a new technology and pharmaceuticals and we believe that we can create a landscape

to where you know wherein everyone has access to this because it will,

and it will give them a better quality of life. That's very abstract.

If they can then take that and say, what this technology will allow is for somebody

who's in their 50s or 60s, your father,

your mother, and they're feeling about this and they're feeling a little at

ease about their ability to be home alone with this. Maybe their memory is starting to go.

And this technology will allow

them to feel safe again and you won't have to worry. And they start to.

[21:33]
 

Pull that abstract concept down into story

with details where you can actually pull a person's face

up or an experience that means something to

the person across from them so i i do uh coach

on storytelling for this very reason when we're reading when we're listening

to people it's always the details that stick with us the abstract concept we

might carry that too that's really important but the thing that we're most likely

to remember and then triggers that understanding of concept is the detailed

story, the thing that felt personal to us.

And I think that with vision, that's sometimes where leaders can get a little

lost because they're often very excited about their vision.

And they're like, this means tons to me. I can get anybody standing behind me.

But a leader is only a leader if they have followers.

You actually need people to feel like it matters to them too.

So when you're crafting your why and speaking to it, putting it in a sense of

story that matters to your audience, to your employees,

to your middle managers, to your partners, to your customers,

very important to understand the audience and try to pull that down into a concrete

set of stories that matters to them.

Yeah, so story, understanding story arcs. And so that would suggest to me,

you know, things become much more memorable if we in the stories create emotional

tags based on the story so people can relate.

And so does this lead to your second communication outcome of context?

Is it broadening the picture? Is it creating emotional context around the communication?

[22:58]
 

Yeah. So I think, so if you have the vision is this the world we want to achieve

in the future, and then you kind of have your mission and your goals to get there.

[23:07]
 

Context building is another really important piece wherein, you know,

the team, any team within the organization needs to understand the part that

they play within that larger system, how they connect to other teams.

This is where you open up opportunities for collaboration or unblock problematic

collaboration collaboration, uh, uh, issues and, uh, and also feel empowered to take that action.

So one, one thing that I think happens is that, um, when leaders,

uh, are within an organization and they say, oh, I buy into that, I buy into that vision.

I understand the part that our whole company is playing and here are the goals.

And they go into their team and they say, here are the goals.

We're working on these now. And the team goes, well, that seems roughly this right for us.

Those are the, you know, we care about these marketing things,

or we have this, uh, you know, JIRA backlog.

We could totally act on that. But what happens then is that they operate within

the silo, which is, of course, the death knell of good communication.

And they're within sort of a bubble where what's happening in the rest of the

organization or what's happening in the larger marketplace outside doesn't enter the picture.

That doesn't mean that it doesn't affect it because those are effects that will happen regardless.

But the people within that bubble are just like, well, we're totally focused

on these very clear goals and we're going after them.

But somehow we're struggling to get what we need from this other stakeholder

or we're getting a lot of pressure suddenly from this sort of random team over here.

[24:35]
 

The context, that higher level overview of how things work together and why

it's important and prioritization, those are the context pieces that leaders

need to understand, not just what they are, but how to make them matter to their teams.

And that's the communication challenge there. And in that, you know,

I think that leaders need to work together.

If you are a leader and you've got a little silo bubble that's kind of grown

underneath you and you are trying to bring context in, often you try to solve

that problem by yourself. You're like, I will explain everything.

[25:06]
 

Actually better, fling open the doors, reach into the teams to either side,

pull these people in, and you go visit them.

Move horizontally through the organization and tell your story, your team's story.

Bring the stories of the other teams into your own. And so that's another piece

where, you know, context is a very important component of execution.

If you don't have that, you will get a much more limited progress on a series

of goals than you will if you actually open those doors and give people an understanding

of why and maybe what could come at them. I think that's the other thing.

[26:09]
 

Your third uh communication outcome is collaboration

is being able to communicate horizontally or

whatever vertically through the organization to make

sure that these roles and responsibilities are well

defined and where the handovers are or whatever the vernacular is is that what

i understand you're saying yeah being able to identify those opportunities identify

the challenges like that's that high level responsibility of the leader but

then what action do you take and i think that this is where people get a little

caught up in like communication it's a skill i'm building, but how do I know

if it's working? It's like, well, it's all outcome.

So if you have your, you know, you know that context is your responsibility,

collaboration is your responsibility, and you're working actively on both of

those, what you'll see is that your people have their clear understanding of

what their responsibility is in the situation in their role,

but also that they get access to enough information to do their job well.

They know who they can go to for collaboration.

They're not going through you necessarily.

And you understand, you look at this person, you're like, I have an understanding

of this person and this team.

What information do they need access to to get their jobs done well next?

[27:13]
 

What are they motivated by? Because that's also context, right?

It's not just what the world is.

It's what that person needs in order to feel motivated, in order to actually

overcome the obstacle, to get the recognition that they need.

Or not, if they're an introvert and they're like, please don't pull me up on

the stage in front of everybody.

These are the kinds of things that when a leader is being proactive about these

responsibilities, these communication responsibilities you see.

And that horizontal movement of the leaders across between one another is so

helpful in the collaboration space because, as I said before,

it's like if you're operating within your bubble and you tell somebody,

well, now you need to go figure out how to work with Team X over there.

And that person's thinking, I've never talked to anyone in Team X.

I don't even know exactly what they do. They seem to have so many resources.

Why Why are we feeling strapped? You know, and it's like, there is context.

There is information there that has not been well communicated yet.

And so those are the kinds of things that I look at with my leaders.

And I think with the collaboration piece also, just the listening piece is so

important because there's a tendency sometimes as a leader to say,

well, I have that high level overview. I have access to all this information.

[28:28]
 

Taking the second to really understand what are people needing to hear?

Ask them open questions so that you understand what's missing.

Don't make assumptions.

[28:36]
 

Ask, listen, then meet the need. I think that that's the other thing,

because you, as a leader, need to not overwhelm people with information that's unnecessary to them.

And when I've come out of scale-up organizations, that's a danger,

where people think that they should have access to so much more information

than they need, and that you can have passive access, but what do they get?

It's noise after a while.

So that's a leadership challenge as well. well, how much do they need to get their jobs done well?

You know, one of the most common challenges I see, you know,

and this is unintentional silence coming back to that, is between sales and operations.

You know, it can be whatever. You know, sales is driven by promising clients,

you know, the best possible deal, what have you.

And operation says, and they don't always communicate with sales.

Sales is driven because they need to make the money, and then operations has

to follow up to deliver on those promises.

But because sales is not constantly collaborating at the level it should be,

I'm not blaming sales, but this bridge between sales and operations is that

they're not collaborating as much as they should be.

They probably are collaborating, but operations is going, we can't meet this. What are you promising?

And so there's this back and forth. Well, sales Well, I think you're just you're

focusing too much on this and so there's no one to blame per se but it's just I.

[30:02]
 

They're all connected to the vision and the mission, and they understand their

roles and responsibilities.

But because they're apples and oranges, that you have this internal conflict

that comes up constantly.

I mean, again, this is very nuts and bolts, but that's just one example.

There are many more. But how does the sales director and the ops director,

I mean, what are some of your recommendations as to how they can align better?

Because they're driven by two different goals, even though they are umbrellaed

under the same vision mission.

[30:38]
 

Oh, that's such a common one. And it's so true. And every time I see it,

I think to myself, there has to be an easier answer.

And unfortunately, there's not in my experience yet. If you get somebody on

this podcast who has an answer to that question, I want to meet that person.

But here's what I'll say from my side.

Sure. Where I tend to go with it is with empathy.

Because i see that if the

goals are in place if the goals have been set up well and

maybe we actually should start there but i'm going to go to empathy first because it's more fun

um the the goals piece is important but the empathy piece i come into organizations

of different sizes and maturity and i see the same pain and this idea of we're

we're driving out there we're promising the world and also we're trying to build

something over here that's worth selling.

And somehow sales is always going to be six months, a year ahead.

And engineering operations, they're like, hey, you're not dictating to us what we're building.

We're the smart ones. We're the ones who are building the thing.

You're not building the thing. And there can be so much.

[31:44]
 

Unintentional resentment and animosity that grows there. And it's in that crack

between where the mold grows, right?

So you're just like, okay, so how can we make sure that we approach this in

a the way where we feel like we're trying to achieve the same thing together.

Goals are important, but the empathy piece is really...

Especially for smaller and younger companies where you can still make choices

where this can grow organically from the beginning, as opposed to trying to

fix this later, still worth fixing.

But empathy. So one thing that I advise leaders to do is to get their people

to sit back and do a little bit of role play.

Take on the coat of that other person and say, what are they trying to achieve?

Like let's spend an hour being in the

shoes of the salesperson and i will go so

far as to send people out and make them shadow each

other because they don't know the engineers don't

know or the sales people don't know what's the pressure of that

moment when you're making a key a core technology decision

that's going to require an investment of software you

know millions of dollars that's going to eat into your product it's like this

is the sales understand that question that they they can't do that without engineering

being there but if they get to sit in the room and take on that understanding

and say wow what these folks are up against trying to develop this technology

to do this new thing that nobody's done before and i'm out there.

[33:05]
 

Selling something that hasn't been built yet hmm i understand i'm not helping

this person be their best selves i'm not putting i'm not lighting a fire under

them i'm actually slowing them down I'm making this harder and vice versa.

Having engineers who are willing to go out into the field with salespeople,

with technical salespeople, that's so eye-opening.

And what I'll say is like as a bonus, when you can send people into different

parts of the organization to learn either in a shadow mode or to just kind of

spend a day in somebody's shoes,

what that does is it also opens up a learning and development opportunity for

you because you have these these folks who are on a track and they're in their

matrix and they've got their growth pathing or whatever you've got at your org.

But this idea of this tangential learning, you get to bring in skills they never thought they knew.

You get to, I'm not just talking about the soft ones, I'm actually talking about

the hard ones. They can pick up.

[34:02]
 

Customer-focused skills. They can pick up customer-focused perspective,

product development perspective, product feedback perspective, and vice versa.

They can come back in and say, what does it actually mean to develop a technology

from within? What does that innovation require? What kind of collaboration?

So it's a win-win. However, it's going to take time. And these organizations

often don't want to take the time.

So where I've seen progress is usually where companies have invested a bit in

the empathy building piece.

And then structurally it's the

goal piece i am working at cognite

for for the five years that i did and being a core part

of the way that they developed and delivered uh their okr structure

objectives and key results one of the things that uh that we did after a while

we realized the power of it was to say that our objectives as a company and

at a division level needed to be collaborative so we couldn't we didn't allow

that parts of the organization could come up with goals that they could solve by themselves.

We said, if we're going to have an objective at a company level or a division

level, it needs to be something that requires that you work well and play well

with somebody else in order to achieve it.

And what was fun about that was that then you would see these cross-functional

teams get together just to focus on moving that ball forward.

And you couldn't get there if you'd said ownership rests entirely in one part of the house.

[35:22]
 

And so it really did open up this opportunity to again,

walk the mile in one of their shoes, but also you're tracking and then celebrating

or learning from the same objective

rather than having parallel objectives that achieve the same thing.

[35:36]
 

Music.

[35:41]
 

In part one of the episode, Autry dived into the connection between communication

and organizational culture.

She begins by establishing that the level of communication within a company

is not just a reflection of its cultural health, but fundamentally shapes it.

She highlights several key indicators that reveal a company's cultural dynamics.

What employees celebrate, what they are proud to share, how collaboration is

structured, who is recognized for achievements, and how leaders engage with their teams.

These elements provide tangible insights into the health of the workplace environment.

A common theme Audrey addresses is the over-complication of solutions to communication issues.

She advocates for a return to basics, understanding the core problem,

and identifying who can initiate meaningful change.

Often the issue boils down to gaps in communication between individuals,

particularly in periods of growth.

Understanding and addressing these communication habits is crucial for success.

Audrey also emphasized the distinction between merely transmitting information

and achieving effective communication.

[36:52]
 

A former involves sending out a message, while the latter, well,

it ensures the message is received and acted upon.

Now, this involves follow-up to confirm that the message has not only been heard,

but has also had its intended impact.

To be an effective communicator, Audrey suggests that people should focus less

on what they want to say and more on what their audience needs to hear.

This approach shifts the focus from the sender to the receiver,

making communication a shared journey rather than a one-way broadcast.

Throughout the discussion, Audrey points out that good leadership involves understanding

and aligning with organizational needs through active listening and creating feedback loops.

She also touches on the critical issue of collaboration, noting that many companies

struggle with this, that it's a major pain point.

She argues that being outcome focused and using storytelling can greatly improve

how teams work together, making the goals more tangible and relatable.

Now, by bridging the gap between abstract visions and concrete actions through

effective communication, well, organizations can enhance their culture and operational success.

You know, Audrey's insights provide a roadmap for building a more coherent,

responsible and ultimately successful workplace.

So now let's slip back into the stream with part two of my conversation.

[38:17]
 

Music.

[38:22]
 

How can leaders create an environment with better feedback or better sort of

situational awareness or however we want to define it?

[38:32]
 

So, and again, not saying anything really new here, but hopefully just kind

of drawing it together with what we're talking about.

So a feedback, feedback comes more naturally in a place where people feel like

there's trust that they understand that the feedback is there to help them to grow.

Um so i and i do find that the

idea of like you know we want to make a feedback culture we

want to make sure that everybody is giving feedback all the time like i understand the

impulse for that but i almost feel like it's the uh the

cart before the horse or or or feedback as

an output rather than thinking about what the outcome is the outcome

is that people are growing that's why i think

i listed there like that is that the the growth is the outcome

feedback is just one of of the ways that we do it as a communication way

um but that uh and also in terms of building relationships because when two

people trust one another they're able to give one another that feedback and

they also solicit the feedback because if you get it if you go into an organization

and say i want everybody giving more feedback okay but if nobody's asking for that feedback.

[39:36]
 

The amount of receptivity is quite low and it's going to bounce off and you

don't get the outcomes that you want.

So actually having a more self-reflective, seeking, growth mindset kind of an

approach will lead you toward a place where everyone understands the value of

the feedback for themselves.

And we're selfish creatures. We need to believe there's value for ourselves.

So if we start there and we say, so ultimately we want our organization,

we're in growth mode, we're in scaling mode, or we're up against a challenge,

we need to improve. So the organization needs improvement.

[40:07]
 

Our leaders need to improve in this, this, this, and this ways. Great.

But employees, team, what do you see that you need to learn in order for us to get better as a team?

When you improve in X or Y area,

How does that help us, right? And you put it into this context of not just about you.

It's about all of us. It's about you and your team. Is it a competence?

Is it a way of working? You know, there are so many different possibilities,

but you cast it as this is a gross opportunity.

[40:41]
 

Then you have people, you get them to ask for the feedback, and you have to

have the feedback training for the people who are going to get the requests.

Because I find that when you tell people like, here, I'm going to train you

to give feedback. back now, go give it whether or not you're being asked.

It just doesn't seem to lead to that nice outcome that you're looking for.

But if you get it the other way and say everyone's in growth mode and you know

that means the person to the left, right, above, and below you are also in growth mode.

If you can achieve that, then when you're asking somebody, I need feedback,

they're going, oh, this is in service of you growing so that we grow.

There's a different set of, there's a different alignment.

And then if you've provided training for people, then they actually aren't just

sitting there with big eyes going, oh, I think you're fantastic at your job.

I can't think of a single thing. Or it was just a small thing once. It was like this.

They can actually say, you know what? Give me a second.

Let me think about that last project specifically that we worked on together.

What's one thing that you could improve there?

And actually, Adam Grant had a thing on this recently where I read his wonderful

book, Hidden Potential.

And he talked about the importance of not just saying, I need feedback.

How do you think I can get better? But rather asking in specific,

what's one thing I can improve?

Or based on your interaction with me last week during this time,

what is one thing I could do better?

Like really kind of centering it into a specific. And that goes to what we were

talking about earlier, right?

[41:59]
 

Bring it back to the thing that matters. Bring it back to a memorable moment.

So I do feedback training, but it's feedback training in absence of a growth

mindset is is it's just a hamster wheel like we need to in order to have progress, we need to have both.

And I tend to put the growth mode as primary. Yeah.

[42:18]
 

One of the things that I, when I'm doing training per se, is that there's the

communication skill set.

But I think what's even more than the communication of how to receive and give

feedback is understanding the psychology of feedback.

[42:34]
 

And I think sometimes we don't do enough exploration because there are people who are conflict shy.

And it doesn't matter how much training you give them unless they understand

perspectives between short term and long term.

And what I mean by that is that in clinical psychology, when we have to give

feedback in whatever context, just say general context, is that sometimes it's a short term.

And the short term is that when I'm facing with someone and I'm going to have

to have a difficult conversation with that person, they are there in front of me.

And so the emotional significance, the emotional weight is there.

The gravitas is there. And what happens to most of us, if people don't understand

the psychology of how to handle difficult situations like that,

is that they get so fixed up on the being benevolent that they cut down on the

honesty because they don't want to hurt the person.

And we all understand that because it's this social, social rewards,

a social, we want to treat people with respect, of course.

[43:35]
 

But I always find if you teach the psychology of feedback, because people have

different levels of how they want to take conflict.

And some people take it very personally. And I think you need to take this into

account without getting so specific, nitty gritty.

But if you look at the long term and you think about, okay, what is the feedback in general?

If you've built trust, transparency, or psychological safety,

as the buzzword is now, then you can be both honest, yes, but you understand

you're going to create short-term social pain, but the long-term benefits because

that person understands the nobility of what you're saying.

You're coming from a sincere place and you want to help them.

And so I see it as the same coin.

[44:16]
 

Communication skills on one side, but understanding the psychology of how people

react and how, and a lot of the times, it's like the first difficult conversation

I have usually is with myself.

Can I get my boy up or cowgirl up to have that conversation,

to find the confidence or the fortitude or tenacity to have that?

And so I see that growth aspect of what you're talking about is such a integral

part of what did you call it?

[44:46]
 

Cultural health and i and

i really appreciate that because i think i am

i'm speaking to this like the environment has to be right and

you're speaking to it's like what is the psychology the psychology is our internal

environment you know it's like is that right for this moment and that's both

the person who's receiving it am i am i ready for this can i do i understand

that we're in this together and where i this is about me growing and and that

piece and then it's also the other person,

how well do they understand what this person needs?

And also that short-term versus long-term perspective.

[45:19]
 

In the moment when you're speaking to somebody eye-to-eye, especially face-to-face

and you see all the cues, it's so hard to maintain the perspective when you're

like, oh, I see this person is squirming. They've got blood in their cheeks.

They're looking away from me. And it's like, so being able to maintain that perspective.

And that's, again, again part of the discipline of leadership

it's part of the discipline of communication and i

think that um the the best communicators are

the ones who do care about the psychological component first if

you if you walk it again and that's the i think that's what

i was talking about with you know coming with something to say versus coming

with something you need someone to hear it's like it's a different thing and

uh and i think that starting that's so foundational um but i'm now Now I want

to pick your brain and I want to know if you're trying to get somebody to care

about that, what trick do you give?

What's your go-to to help somebody, a leader in this case maybe,

to keep that perspective in mind when they're going to give feedback so that

someone does achieve growth?

[46:24]
 

Well, I think first of all, it'll probably come from a coaching session we've

talked about, where we might not so much role play, but we'll talk about how different.

[46:37]
 

Permutations or different outcomes of this conversation they have to have.

And so they talk about it.

One thing you understand about psychology is that when we get lost in that,

let's say we've talked about it from a theoretical and practical level,

and then the next day they have to actually have the conversation.

If they don't have some sort of physical anchor, they're going to get sucked

into the emotional vortex.

Text so i always tell them okay bring something some piece of paraphernalia

something that stands out maybe a little stone from your local brook your local

river and just put it on the desk no one's gonna really notice it but when you

look down at it it becomes the physical reminder.

[47:22]
 

To pull back and think about what we've reflected

about or it could just be a simple post-it note a pink post-it

note with nothing on it but to have that trigger but

but that's just the trigger what what's very

important is the conversation right and it's

asking the well-engineered questions to create that mindset for that individual

to get into that mindset and once that they're in that mindset we've already

talked about it so their brain has already you know the brain can't tell the

difference between reality and fantasy the only thing that allows is this It's

been, we call it the conscious mind.

So the brain already thinks it has, it's created a cognitive map of how they're

going to deal with certain permutations, not all permutations, of course,

but that lends a sense of control and certainty and confidence to the situation.

So when they go in, they have that. So that's already established in our,

whatever, one or two sessions.

But then I think the physical trigger, whatever that may be,

post-it note, whatever.

[48:24]
 

Then that reminds them to stay okay this is what we talked about this is where this is the game plan,

And so there's not, that's what I do. And I found over doing this for whatever, two decades plus.

Keep dating yourself, Jason. Tell them how old you are. Yeah,

I'm an ancient wise man. It's credibility now, right?

[48:46]
 

No, but that's just something that I found that has worked well over time. And even with myself.

So, I mean, that's what I do. That's one of probably many things that,

you know, this is just one way of doing it. And it maybe complements someone's

skill set as they already have.

I think it's a great practical thing to do.

I'm a big fan of having a physical trigger with you if you're going to make

a behavioral change, especially the first couple of times.

And I also do public speaking coaching.

And so one of the things that we talk about when you're trying to improve with

public speaking is like, how can you make sure that you're advancing on one or two things?

And I'd use the same kind of trick because people are like, ooh,

I know once they've kind of gone through an evaluation, I'm good at this. I'm not so great at that.

It's like, okay, last thing you do before you get on stage is you look at what

am I good at? What am I not so great at? And both of those things will be good.

Like, it's so interesting how psychologically just that last physical trigger

can help you so much. So I love that as a practical tip.

And now all your listeners have it too. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for asking.

Just considering time, I'd like to move on to your fifth communication outcome

on execution about goal setting and tracking.

I guess my question is, we can define execution, but I'm always curious what

communication techniques or skills that a leader or manager can use to...

[50:11]
 

Keep a team effective and aligned on those goals.

I think this has become even more interesting. It's always been interesting,

but it's become even more interesting in a hybrid age because being able to

execute on a collective goal requires so much more orchestration and alignment.

So one thing that when it comes to execution, the responsibility for the leader

is that the team together delivers on a goal and achieves an outcome.

So there's different kinds of communication.

There's the communication that you have, you know, verbally and in interactions

one-on-one or one-to-many with your team.

There's also written communication and documentation so that people can look

to a single source of truth, for example, so that they can track progress over

time. They can see what's being reported.

And this is where I think consistency is extremely key.

And I coach this a lot because leaders will come up with all kinds of creative

ways to demonstrate, you know, progress on goals and here's how the world looks

today. And I'm like, so what did the world look like yesterday?

What has everybody been looking at? You've come up with this beautiful new picture.

What was the picture before? So trying to, when it comes to execution,

the best thing you can do is remember the things that you want to repeat,

making them clear and meaningful and knowing, again, psychologically.

[51:25]
 

We need repetition in order to get things under our skin.

If you want people to understand this, something really well and have it embedded,

You have to repeat it and you have to say it the same way many times.

And that can include both the paraphernalia or the materials that you use,

the illustrations, the slides, which internal wiki page you point to,

what kind of arenas you're speaking to it in.

No matter what, trying to come back to the same picture of progress.

So that's one big thing. And then the other thing is the piece where it's around

making sure that people are motivated toward the goal.

Because over time, people lose interest in goals, especially if they're hard ones.

So you have to make sure that there's something along the way that you as a

leader, even though you're super motivated, it's tied to your mandate.

It's tied to your potential for promotion.

It's tied to your bonuses. It's tied to all these things. For your people,

that might not be the case. So you need to make sure that in trying to achieve

that goal and trying to execute on it, everyone is still motivated toward it.

And that's a communication check-in that first happens one-to-one and then demonstrates one-to-many.

What do you do for your team and with your team in order to motivate them toward the goal?

That can be around recognition.

That can be around making sure that you bring in external learning.

It can be so many different things that you take action on. but it requires

that you kind of lean in and listen to understand what will motivate them toward the goal.

[52:52]
 

That's very interesting because it's such a salient point that you make because

I think that's, you know, if the manager's bonus is linked to the team getting

it, but the team itself doesn't get a bonus because they're not at that level of management,

completely two different motivations, right?

And then they're thinking, okay, what happens to the psychological safety there,

right? A hundred percent.

And I've actually seen it in organizations where very senior leaders will come

in and speak to a financial goal that has nothing to do with the vast majority of the company.

And you're saying to these people, well, we're all trying to achieve this.

Okay, but why? That doesn't matter at all to me. And again, I joke we're selfish

creatures. We are selfish creatures.

We care about our own survival. We care about whether or not we're thriving.

And the better parts of ourselves, our better angels, mean that we care about

the people around us too and want to do the good work and collaborate, et cetera.

But that motivation doesn't always come from within. We need an extrinsic motivator.

The intrinsic motivator that is inside of us, it can be positive,

it can be negative, but it's across personalities.

You know this stuff better than I do. I'm not even going to try to go there.

But the extrinsic motivation that managers do have influence over,

really understanding what those are and being able to sort of read the room.

[54:12]
 

What matters to these folks at this level? And also, what will demotivate them?

Let's not stumble or put our foot in our mouths or put something in our path that's unnecessary.

Understand the context, right? And then provide an extrinsic motivator that

makes sense for that audience.

[54:28]
 

Yeah, and I've seen it. I've seen both. I've seen managers who are incredible at that piece.

They really get their people. And they're like, let's speak to this.

Let's make sure we're all on this. It can be around.

Some people are motivated by building the next cool thing. And some people are

motivated by working with the smartest people.

And some people are motivated by a compensation or a benefit or a perk,

or we all get to go to a barbecue together.

There are different things, but really leaning in and asking the questions,

listening, and getting ideas from your fellow leaders.

Again, don't stay in a vacuum. If you're in a leadership role.

[54:58]
 

It is essential that you move horizontally and connect with your fellow leaders,

if for no other reason than to pick up their ideas.

There is something so powerful about just crossing the

organization to talk to a fellow leader and saying so

how do you motivate your group you know it's like that's a

that's a fantastic way to connect and to get those ideas and

brainstorm and you both come out of that uh that connection point better

and it's better for the organization yeah i think it's

a really good idea because it brings me back to what you were talking about cognite that

you know it's not one single group or department that's focusing

on the goal but it's goals that are cross-departmental where

they have to collaborate where you know that's the

natural way we need to come out talk to each

other we need to communicate and then they cooperate across across

disciplines in order to achieve this goal so i think that's very important as

you said when we were talking about sales and ops that was just one example

yeah so if when uh when i think one of the most important outcome goals is the

last one you talk about is celebration i was wondering if you could.

[56:01]
 

Maybe expand on that and why it's important and how

we can you know generally boost morale

and encourage people to because i

don't think that's i see that a lot there's not a lot of celebration okay we

made it let's go on to the next case yeah and and that's a function or a byproduct

of speed i suppose and we live in such a fast-paced world and i do work a lot

within technology and robotics and you know these other industries that they

do move very fast um but the trade-off for speed is

often quality and the trade-off for speed is often the opportunity to actually

build the healthy culture that's required to scale something good.

So celebration, I go to very naturally because you can tell a lot about a person

or an organization by what they celebrate, right?

You only celebrate what you value for an organization.

You have to choose what you celebrate, right? You can't celebrate every little

thing, especially as you get big, it's just not feasible.

But also just like you choose what you celebrate and what you celebrate will say a lot about you.

It's going to communicate to your employees, this is what's important to us, okay?

And so the obvious setup is we set goals and when we achieve the goals,

we celebrate the achievement of the goals.

Okay, that's very standard and good luck with that. And I hope you achieve every goal.

But I think that there's something about saying, what are some of the other

things that we need to celebrate along the way.

And to me, the biggest ones are often personal and team growth.

Like you've learned something new.

[57:30]
 

Phenomenal. Let's celebrate that. And then another, collaboration.

[57:35]
 

When two teams have come together to achieve a project, it should be valued

more highly than somebody who did something in a backroom somewhere.

Because the person who did the thing in the backroom is probably intrinsically

motivated to do that the next time as well. well, these two teams who did something

together need that confirmation that what they did was right.

And they need to be held up as an example for other teams.

[57:56]
 

This is what this organization values. If we want to get the job done,

we need to work across the aisle or between the doors or across the conference

room to achieve it because the organization is going to celebrate that.

And it's this idea of lifting things up to show what you value.

And the reward and recognition piece is so key. I do a lot of work with engagement.

And so one of the major drivers for engagement is around recognition and

reward and for for people it's often they go

straight to like a compensation package and what are my benefits and total

rewards and and and it's like okay but let's

let's take a step back what makes you excited about

coming to the this job doing this work at this office with these people and

so frequently it actually comes back to well i like working with my manager

they i feel like i learn a lot from them or i like working with that group over

there because they helped me to find the best part of myself.

I get to use my skills to the best of my ability.

There are these different things that are actually motivating to us.

So when we celebrate that stuff, when we say, here's a leader who has been a

fantastic role model for their team, and we elevate them over someone who made

a KPI, it's like, this is what you're telling or you're signaling to the organization.

[59:07]
 

So one thing when I'm doing planning work with clients is I always ask what

are your opportunities to celebrate in this process?

And, and you're right. So many people are just like, I don't know,

let's just blow past that. Let's just keep moving. I don't buy some cupcakes. Like, okay, hold on.

[59:24]
 

Instead of that, maybe we think about, and I do, I go back to storytelling,

but I also say like, because again, outcomes, like you want this celebration

to achieve something and that is recognize and reward the people who did something

cool or scale learning, right?

You don't have to celebrate just your wins. If something gets screwed up or

you hit a major roadblock or you lose a client and somebody is the person who

figures out why, those are also things worth celebrating.

You don't have to do party streamers. A celebration just means we're going to

take a beat to look at this all together and end in a positive place on it.

And so for me, I kind of expand the definition of celebration so that people

can see it's like, what do we feel

positive about what do we lift into the light is more of the question.

And then you can set up your processes to accommodate that, to help you remind

leaders who aren't natural celebrators to stop and take that beat.

But you can also look around your organization for champions,

people who are fantastic at celebrating, because this is a personality thing.

Some people are awesome at it. And you say, hello, sir or madam who's sitting over here.

You seem to have a bit of a gift for recognizing when people have done something

cool and taking a moment.

Can you help us with that within our organization in a larger way?

Can you step over here and work with our people in our organization team or

with our senior leaders to make sure that we're recognizing and rewarding people

in a way that's meaningful?

[1:00:52]
 

People who care about that, they're going to rise to that challenge in a hot

second. And it says so much about your organization that that matters to you.

So when it comes to celebration, that's what I mean by that.

And these are communications, of course, that are outward and internal.

But the ones that I'm focusing on for this are the internal celebrations.

I mean, when you think about it, it's a no-brainer. I mean, it does not require a lot of investment.

But I think the key words you said, it's meaningful and genuine.

It's not just some sort of superficial,

you know, party hats and cake on a Friday night kind of thing.

But I think it's so important because you hit so many important social awards, recognition,

feeling valued, knowing that my contributions have

seen right because too often like

you know a lot of accounting departments they do an awesome

job at what they do right to make sure everything

but they never hear about a lot of the good things they do they just hear oh

there's that one problem this became a headache and that's all they hear it's

it's con i'm just pulling one example no but it's a negative right and it's

we remember the negative so much more easily yeah so celebration that i I think

that just having that recognition, that social reward,

that respect and being understood and valued, it brings so much more.

Yes. And there are a couple of things that occur to me as you say it like that,

too, is like if you're in an organization where people are like,

I don't need your celebrations, just give me money.

[1:02:16]
 

Then that organization has an unhealthy culture. And there are things that it's

not as effective, impactful, or exciting as it could be.

To me, when you have an environment like that, where somebody is like,

I don't know, just give me my money, you know you're not getting the most out of that employee.

You know that employee is not feeling like they're getting the most out of themselves.

And if you do reward that behavior that way, then you're not going to improve as an organization.

So there's again this like this long-term perspective

the investment of the time to celebrate first

this goes back to the psychology of having the

tough conversation too you are so much more likely to

sit comfortably in the room to have the hard conversation if the person across

from you has accurately and genuinely recognized you for the good stuff first

at other times like it don't wait for the moment that you're going through an

evaluation mode to give people bad hard feedback,

if you haven't invested in, hey, you did that.

That was great that you did that today. Oh, you followed through on that.

That came through early. That's fantastic.

I got this nice note about you from these people over here. If you don't take

the time to do those little mini celebrations along the way,

that hard conversation gets a hell of a lot harder.

So I find that people underestimate the value of these celebrations.

They also maybe overthink them. It's like it can be small and the payoff is enormous.

[1:03:39]
 

And genuine and authentic is absolutely essential.

It's why when you think about celebrating the achievement of goals,

it's kind of rote and people sort of go, okay, yeah.

I mean, even if they're excited about it, even they're like,

we did that. It's expected.

It's the unexpected stuff that makes people sit back and remember and go,

oh, this is why I like to be part of this team.

Wow, they really made sure that that person and got their due you know

and it's not always about you we remember how other people

are celebrated as well this is the exponential power of

celebration now i'm really getting into it no no but i think it's

a whole area i think it's very important because you know most businesses are

not constantly pumping out bonuses with every project but celebrating so i'm

not i don't mean to detract from bonuses bonuses are important financial reward

is a measure of our contribution and that is significant.

That's a no-brainer. I completely concur with that.

But celebrating these milestones, these important milestones,

they're going to happen at a more frequent basis, I believe,

with the industries I work with, than the bonuses. They don't get...

They don't get pinged out all the time. I think you said it also.

I mean, you can have a healthy culture that is bonus.

A lot of gravitas is placed on bonuses.

But I think at the same time, if I look forward.

[1:05:01]
 

If you broaden the context and look beyond just the financial reward,

that I have a job that I look forward to going into, that I don't wake up on

a Monday morning with anxiety and a pit in the bottom of my stomach thinking,

oh my God, I got to go in again, right? Right.

[1:05:15]
 

And I might be getting huge bonuses, but I think what you're saying is striking

a healthy balance or an integration between bonus and celebration or however celebration is.

Because celebration, if you look at it, it has a much more, again,

back to another word you've used, context, right, in which we feel valued and

our contributions and just respected and recognized for our efforts.

So I just wanted to kind of. No, I think it's an important clarification.

And I will also say one thing on celebration.

You can have too much of a good thing.

This is where I'm speaking to balance a bit, too.

The idea of celebration, again, genuine, etc., but it needs to be tempered with

real humility, learning, speaking to things that really didn't go well.

When I speak to companies about internal communication and I say,

you need to be paying attention to all of these outcomes, one of the things

that people are allergic to is inauthenticity, disingenuousness.

So if they feel like you're celebrating constantly and you never talk about

anything going wrong and you never talk about the things that you've learned

and you don't acknowledge when something is going slower or you haven't met a challenge,

it's like then you totally eliminate the value of all those celebrations.

So it has to be done in balance with sharing about the other stuff.

And this is where, you know, when I'm working with a client.

[1:06:42]
 

I often will say, you know, don't think about these as the antithesis of one another either.

The moment of learning can be a moment of celebration. You can,

by lifting to the light something that you learned as an organization through

a hard time, you're celebrating that thing.

It's just not done in this, again, party streamer's way, but you help people to see.

[1:07:01]
 

We're humble in this. We were fallible. We fell short.

Let's learn from this together and scale the learning. Because that's the moment

when people really appreciate their leaders.

And they say, ah, this is someone who knows who they are and how much they have

to offer and also how much they need everyone else who is smarter around them.

That's the exciting moment for organizations, right?

But yeah, and I do love a good celebration. And I love a good cupcake.

I didn't mean to say anything about cupcakes earlier. I know I did that. Cupcakeist.

[1:07:32]
 

But let me ask you this. Okay, we've gone through a huge laundry list of important

communication outcomes.

But if I had to challenge you, what would you say are the most important communication

skills a leader should invest in developing if you had to pick and choose based

on everything you've shared with us today, Audrey?

You know, if I really have to boil it down. So I do think that to go back to

this idea that quality communication, successful communication requires that

you understand your audience.

So that ability to check in and say, I not only know what I want to say,

I know who I'm speaking to and what I need them to think or feel or do coming out of that room.

[1:08:19]
 

That's a discipline piece that so many people miss that is also easy.

Easy you just set back and you and you don't

even have to start there you can have your i need to say x y and

z in your head first but then stop

then check in who is my audience this is

something that you know in in marketing and in writing you

know people know because people will not read your

stuff unless they have been identified well as an audience by the writer um

when it comes to spoken communication verbal communication and and internal

comms uh you know for a company it's the saying you have a lot of different

internal audiences you have the full organization you have leaders who have

a different scope you have you know functional leaders who have to do their

tasks you have employees who are all different seniorities often in highly international

companies you know cognate we had more than 60 nationalities on staff i see

other companies here in norway who are doing incredible international work and

covering you know time zones you have all these different audiences to speak to.

You can't afford to kind of come out slapdash with the thing that you just want to say.

[1:09:26]
 

So best, most important skill is being the person who understands the value

of audience and can identify the audience in their communication.

[1:09:35]
 

So that would probably be first. And then for me, the next piece is actually

something that we haven't spoken about specifically.

But for successful communication, you only know whether it succeeds if the information

that you shared has landed and then is being acted upon. acted upon.

So there's actually a follow-up step that the best communicators do.

And you never assume everybody just got it. And that's establishing the feedback loop.

So not the feedback in terms of growth, which is what we were talking about

earlier, but in terms of, did this land with you? How did you use it?

What part of this mattered? And I think that that's a step that at an organizational

level, it's impossible to go to every individual person and ask, you know, however,

it is easy for a CEO or a head of

marketing or a leader of a very large engineering team to focus group it.

If you've put out a large message and you've kind of had that interaction,

take half an hour the next week, do 10 minutes with three people in your organization

and see how did that land for you?

What was the thing that you remember most about it? And you ask open questions.

You don't just go, Hey, did you get it? You know, give me a thumbs up,

but you have to ask an open question, see what was memorable.

And if it turns out that it didn't land, take that on yourself.

You don't get to say, oh, well, they just don't understand.

[1:10:56]
 

That's on you. And that's where that question of like, what is a successful communication?

I always come back to that. You have to remember, did the person understand

what you wanted them to understand?

Did they go and do, did they think, did they see, did they feel what you needed them to take forward.

And so that X step follow-up, that's the gold.

And when that's done well, I see it do remarkable things for organizational

health, leadership development, and also just the way that people feel valued in an organization.

When a person within the team gets that follow-up from their leader and they're

like, oh my gosh, they really did care whether that message landed.

They did ask me what I thought about that thing.

That builds the trust that is so pricey, you know, in today's environment.

Uh, yeah. So I think it's those two things.

Well, Audrey, we are at the top of the hour, a little over the hour.

Um, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge, experience,

and your wisdom with us today. A delight.

Thank you so much for having me, Jason. I hope I get to do it again.

[1:11:59]
 

Music.

[1:12:05]
 

We wrap up this episode, I'd like to spend a little time to revisit the key

insights from our discussion with Audrey and her focus on exploring the six

vital communication outcomes that all leaders should aim to achieve.

Well, the first was vision. A well-communicated vision gives team members a

clear understanding of the direction and purpose of the organization.

It's not just about having a vision,

but ensuring that it's effectively communicated, understood by all.

The second was context. Providing context helps team members understand truly

the why behind decisions and changes.

And this can include the bigger picture of the industry, the company's position

within it, and how the individual's roles contribute to that broader objective.

The third, well, that was collaboration, which is essential for any thriving organization.

Effective communication, well, it fosters an environment where collaboration

is seamless and productive, leading to better outcomes and innovation.

The fourth point was growth. Communication

should facilitate personal and professional growth within the team.

And this means not only communicating tasks and expectations,

but also providing feedback, encouragement, and the opportunities for development.

The next, well, that was execution.

[1:13:19]
 

Well, communication is key to this flawless execution. And leaders must ensure

that teams have the information and the motivation needed to execute you plans

effectively and to meet organizational goals.

And lastly, well, that was celebration.

It's crucial to recognize and celebrate the right achievements at the right times.

This not only boosts morale, well, but it also reinforces the behaviors and

outcomes that align with the company's values and objectives.

And I think it's important to remember that communication is so much more than

the message sent. It's about what is actually received and acted upon.

So for a leader's communication is clear and purpose-driven,

well, then their team will understand their roles, they'll collaborate more

effectively, grow together, develop, and execute tasks more efficiently.

You know, this episode has left me thinking about a number of things that will

complement what I do as a consultant, as a coach myself.

And Audrey, a personal thank you from me to you for spending some time with

us today, sharing your experience and knowledge. I found it invaluable.

[1:14:22]
 

And folks, if you're a leader or a manager or you run a team and you're thinking

about making some improvements in the company culture and understanding communication,

well, Audrey is your person.

I will leave all her contact information in the show notes.

And folks, if you like what you hear in this episode, as in previous episodes,

I would highly appreciate if you

could take the time to drop into your podcast app there and leave a five-star

our review and what you think as always it helps me to spread the word of this

podcast and so here we are at the tail end of another episode i appreciate you

spending some time with me today and allowing me to be part of your week and

until the next time we continue this.

[1:15:03]
 

Music.