The topic in my leading change class today was integrity and its impact on a leader’s ability to effect change.  Integrity was defined as honoring your word and doing what you said you would do by when you said you would do it and if you are not going to do what you said, to communicate fully to everyone affected as soon as you know you won’t be going what you said so that they can make the appropriate and necessary accommodations.  During the discussion, several students told of job situations in which projects they were working on were not going to get done when promised, but were told by their immediate managers not to tell the project clients.  The reasoning was that if the clients were told before the due date, they would question the manger’s competence.  However, once the deadline was missed, other factors could be blamed.

Although managers may think this “don’t tell them” strategy protects them from looking bad, it actually undermines their integrity and reputations.  Each of the students involved in these situations said they lost respect and regard for the managers involved.  This is unfortunate since all the managers needed to do to maintain their integrity was to have closure conversations with their clients.

Having one closure conversation, even if it may be a little uncomfortable, seems like a small price to pay for keeping one’s integrity and the respect of others.

Unfortunately, in none of the recommendations offered for improving “soft skills” is there an explanation of how project managers translate these personal capabilities and understandings into other people taking effective and appropriate action in a timely manner.  Rather, it is assumed that having these capabilities will somehow magically translate into project managers do the right thing, at the right time, in the right way.  Now that’s a big, and erroneous assumption.

Getting other people involved, engaged, and continually contributing requires communication.  But not just any communication.  I recently led a training program to a Master Black Belt group in which we explored why they were having difficulty getting projects accomplished.  Interestingly, none of them ever said anything like “I am having problems because I am ineffective in my communication with other people.”  However, by the end of the class, they began to see that one reason they were having difficulty is because they were either using the wrong type of conversation or the conversations they were using were missing important elements that reduced their effectiveness.

It would be nice if there was a direct link between personal qualities and attributes and effective communication.  However, as such books as Difficult Conversations, Crucial Conversations, and The Four Conversations point out, there is much more to effective communication than simply talking.  Until project managers realize that the results they get are a direct product of the appropriateness and completeness of their communications, communication skills will continue to be missing and projects will continue to fail.

A second kind of talk is what we call “unproductive talk”. Unproductive talk is the social sharing we tend to do with each other, such as “how is the weather”, “where are you going on vacation”, or “who won the game?”. Unproductive talk is a very important way for people to experience being related to each other. But there are some types of unproductive talk that can have a negative impact on getting things done. We identify three types of unproductive talk: blaming, gossiping, and complaining. The most damaging is gossip.

Gossip is defined as “talking about someone behind their back in a way that does damage to them or their reputation.” When we talk about someone in a way that has other people think less of them, or have a negative opinion of them, or have less affinity toward them, we have gossiped. When we say things about another that we would not say if they were present, that’s gossip.

Gossip, along with blaming and complaining, is a key contributor to poor morale in organizations. People who are interested in being productive in their organization know that some types of unproductive talk are not your friend, as shown by this poem from The Wall Street Journal:

Nobody’s Friend

My name is Gossip. I have no respect for justice.
I maim without killing. I break hearts and ruin lives.
I am cunning and malicious and gather strength with age.
The more I am quoted, the more I am believed.
My victims are helpless. They cannot protect themselves against me, because I have no name and no face.
To track me down is impossible. The harder you try, the more elusive I become.
I am nobody’s friend.
Once I tarnish a reputation, it is never the same.
I topple governments and wreck marriages.
I ruin careers and cause sleepless nights, heartaches and indigestion.
I make innocent people cry in their pillows.
Even my name hisses. I am called Gossip, I make headlines and headaches.
Before you repeat a story, ask yourself:
Is it true? Is it harmless? Is it necessary?
If it isn’t, don’t repeat it.

1. We have a real communication problem here.
2. They don’t tell us anything, and when they do tell us, it’s not much.
3. They never give us enough information.

The absence or inadequacy of communication is one of the most frequently voiced complaints in the workplace.  Perhaps the only complaint more frequently voiced is some version of “there is no leadership”.  Interestingly, the complaint is always from people on the receiving end, never on the sending end.  In fact, if you talk to leaders and managers, they are likely to tell you they are “always communicating” with people.

So, when it comes to communication in the workplace we have this interesting conundrum: leaders and managers insist they are communicating, but people on the receiving end insist they are getting no or poor communication.  Is this simply an issue of misperception?  In some cases, but misperception does not account for all of it.  In fact, my research and experience indicates that misperception accounts for very little.  The bigger factor is that managers don’t distinguish among the types of conversations they are using and whether they are using the appropriate conversations.

There are numerous articles that offer recommendations on how to improve workplace communication.  One article, for example, proposes that managers change the style, method, content, timing, and frequency of their communications.  Another article recommends such things as avoid gossiping, getting overly personal, or raising controversial subjects.  Although these recommendations all contribute to more effective workplace communication, they all ignore one simple fact – not all conversations are the same.  If managers use the wrong type of conversation, or use the right one inappropriately, getting the style, content, etc. right won’t make any difference.  They will still be ineffective.

Many people erroneously believe that understanding is the source of action.  Understanding may be necessary for action (e.g., you can’t sum a column of numbers if you don’t know addition), but it is not sufficient to get people to act (e.g., knowing how to add doesn’t mean you will tabulate the column of numbers).  A result of this belief is that considerable attention is given to trying to improve the chances people will understand our communications.  The assumption being that if people clearly understand and comprehend the communication, then they will behave in the desired manner.

Check it out for yourself.  How many times have you “explained things again” when people didn’t do what was expected?  Or how often have your heard (or said) something like “What didn’t they understand?” or “How could they not understand this?”  I have found in my work with managers that when they don’t get what they expect, their explanations frequently become longer and more detailed.  They earnestly believe that people didn’t do what was expected because they didn’t understand something.  And if the longer explanation doesn’t work, managers blame the other person for being lazy, stupid, uncommitted, incompetent, etc.  Rarely do managers consider that they may be using the wrong conversation to get what they want, or that if they are using the right conversation, they are using it inappropriately. Understanding is only one of four types of conversations used by managers.

There is only one type of conversation that reliably gets people into action and that’s a performance conversation.  Performance conversations involve making requests and getting promises.  Although there are a variety of ways (styles?) one can go about making requests and getting promises, they all boil down to asking the other person to take an action or produce a result within a specified time period.  For example, “Will you schedule a brainstorming session of our lead designers for the last week of April?”

If what you want to accomplish is people taking a specific action or producing a specific result within some time period, then the appropriate conversation to use is a performance conversation.  On the other hand, if you what you want is to inform people, develop a plan for accomplishing a goal or objective, or have them understand something, then the appropriate conversation to use is an understanding conversation.  However, if you use an understanding conversation on the assumption it will lead to people taking specific actions or producing desired results, you and the people with whom you have the conversation are likely to be very disappointed.  They will not know what actions or results you want or by when, and you will not get the actions and results you expect.

And what do you think the result of this disappointment will be?  Well, among other things, they are likely to say “We weren’t told”, “The communication wasn’t clear”, or “We weren’t given the right information.”  In other words, they will blame “poor communication”.  You, on the other hand, may say something like “I don’t get it.  I told them everything they needed.  What more do they want?”  In other words, you will say there was sufficient communication.

Sounds like the very conundrum we started with, doesn’t it?

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