Stories make connections around the globe

Travel broadens the mind, and in my case, the hips as well. The good meals and interesting conversations I had last week in the UK are to blame.

I am struck, as always, by the cultural differences between our polite and charming European cousins and North Americans. I am also, as usual, struck by the similarities. Let me explain: In all nations we face the common challenge of ensuring our people are thoroughly engaged in the organizational journey. In all countries we struggle with the challenges of making our most expensive and most precious resource, people, highly productive.

We have long been schooled in cultural differences. North Americans and Europeans seek eye contact, the Japanese avoid it. In India you indicate yes by shaking your head, in North America that means no. In the rush to honor differences we sometimes overlook the similarities.

I attended a large corporate event in London. It was within a stones throw of Hyde Park, which certainly lent a little grandeur to the occasion. Initially I was so focused on the differences that I couldn't see the commonalities. There were obvious differences in language, humor and culture. For example I have never been to a North American corporate event where the CEO sent everyone off to get a drink before he closed the session.

But in one respect we are the same the world over. We all need to make that human connection; to be acknowledged and build relationships. Whether you are in London, Chicago, Toronto, Tokyo or Delhi that need remains constant. It also seems the hardest to fulfill, certainly within the business context. Stories do it. At the meeting in London, executives and employees used stories to talk about how they met objectives. The real human stories of endeavor and success made it right to the hearts of the attendees. Our language might change depending on where we are; our emphasis and manners might differ. But we all achieve the same result when we tell a story - connections that speak volumes to our common humanity.

Fruits of our labour

Great organizations achieve sustainable growth and profits because they do what other organizations don’t: they maximize the innate, individual talents of their employees to connect with customers. They know that tapping the resources of humans is the only remaining area where significant improvements can--and do--lead to an unlimited source of competitive advantages."

Curt Coffman, Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina, in Follow this Path 2002
My hairdresser is at it again - managing my curls and filling my head with exciting thoughts. This weekend it was Fruits.

Fruits is a Japanese magazine. It is choc full with fabulous images of Tokyo street fashion; young women who are unashamedly devoted to fashion and who relish to opportunity to be creative and display their difference. Each of these women has clearly taken a lot of time to create an individual interpretation of what is currently considered "in-style".

We all yearn to be noticed for our difference and our unique contributions. The hankering doesn’t stop just because we work in a corporate setting with a common set of goals and objectives.

Remember the book "Now, Discover your strengths" by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton?

It focuses on building organizations and individuals based on people’s strengths. The message resonated with many of us who for years have been trying to fix the deficits and fit into the mould.

With more honours students coming out of India and China then we have children in North America, the only true competitive advantage any organization has is the creativity and flexibility of its people. Why would we not use that to its fullest by encouraging individual talents?

Lesson from my hairdresser on making the connection

My mother always said a woman needs two things; a comfortable pair of shoes and a good haircut. She was right, particularly if your hairdresser happens to be a management guru.

My hairdresser is just that. Aside from the obvious hairdressing skills she is a communicator par excellence. She makes a very real and personal connection with each and every one of her clients. And it shows - she has a large and loyal following. I am always royally entertained by her insights and comments. Her latest story is a gem I must share.

My hairdresser has a client (we will call her Jill), who works for a large high tech multinational. She is happy and motivated and loves what she does. But Jill is becoming increasingly irritated by the number of telephone conference calls she is asked to participate in by colleagues across North American.

Jill, who is resourceful, (and has great hair), has figured out how to deal with conference calls; she simply gets on with her work. If there is a pause in the conversation or she hears her name, she says something along the lines of: "I'm sorry you just cut out, would you mind repeating the last sentence."

Smart cookie our Jill. Turns out she's not alone. Jill was at a convention and met with colleagues from across North America. She discovered many of them were doing the same thing.

So what's going on when half the people involved in a continental teleconference are tuning out and putting their creative talents into the 'opt out' process?

Perhaps the person who convened the conference call didn't think through the invitation list; perhaps he or she was tying too hard to be inclusive. Maybe Jill should have said no. Was she afraid her voice would be lost if she didn't participate? Or worse, afraid that people would think she was not a team player? I'm sure all the above are contributing factors.

The technology doesn't improve matters. What with email calendaring, teleconferencing and videoconferencing it's almost too easy to schedule a meeting. Evidence the fact that our calendars are overloaded. Technology is so seductive, it promises so much. And yet once we are over the hurdle of setting up the telephone call, the video or online conference - it's hard to feel connected.

With teams operating around the globe it's easy for employees to feel disengaged, particularly if their interfacing with technology rather than a human being. I wonder how Jill would have handled things if she had a personal relationship with the meeting chair. A personal connection may have allowed her to be honest and say "no I'm not going to be available - I'm too busy - if you need my voice please find another way to connect with me."

My hairdresser will tell you that connecting with people is important and only once you have the connection can you be honest. This explains why, despite my entreaties, I am not ash blonde this summer.

I'd be interested in your thoughts. Send me an email and I will publish your responses in this blog.

Outcomes as the starting point for effective communication

I am fortunate to have the acquaintance of some truly inspiring individuals. Spending time with them is not unlike sharing a meal with the angels. You're up there in the intellectual ether.

I had one such opportunity recently in London with storytelling systems and process guru, Marcus Hayes. What I love about people like Marcus is their ability not only to play with ideas, but their capacity to develop real and workable solutions with those ideas.

Marcus is currently looking at re-engineering some of our standard processes; starting with outcome to stimulate small groups to develop strategy and the corresponding actions. It's a novel approach; we're more accustomed to starting with strategy, then moving to actions and finally outcomes. Marcus however, begins by linking individual outcomes directly to corporate strategy and so providing each of us with the opportunity to dream our own reality. What an exciting idea - every employee writing his or her own corporate vision statement.

Outcomes are of course what we are all after - the gold standard. That's why we invest so much time developing strategy and measuring performance. So beginning with the outcomes you want to achieve is a rather good idea. Provided, of course, that those outcomes support the strategic direction.

In his most recent article, Strategic Connections Inc president, Ken Milloy, talks about our role as communicators in shaping outcomes. (And by the way I happen to believe that anyone with the word 'supervisor' 'leader' or 'manager' in their title is by definition a communicator.) Ken - a pretty sharp thinker himself - is very clear that as communicators our outcomes should be a lot more than product, including:

• Helping employees develop a better understanding of how what they do relates to the organization's vision, strategies, goals and performance.
• Ensuring employees not only get, but understand, the information they need to help guide their day-to-day decisions.
  Recognizing and reinforcing desired behaviors and outcomes through communication.
• Establishing a communication environment that involves employees in thinking about and understanding how they influence business results.

It's the Kens and the Marcus' of the world who help us to build our competencies and dream a little more effectively. What are your outcome dreams?

Doing the corporate nod

Last week I saw the Blue Man Group. One word: singular. I'm not even going to begin to categorize the performance. But in case you are wondering, yes, they are blue.

What interested me was that the performance could be viewed both as fun entertainment, and at a deeper level, as social commentary. The drama of our working lives is not dissimilar, particularly when it comes to how we communicate with one another. We say things because we have to fit in. We do the corporate nod because it's expected. But inside an entirely different dialogue is on the go and that internal dialogue is often reflected in our behaviors.

"Yes, love the idea says one manager to another," while secretly thinking "stupidest thing I ever heard," and s/he quickly rush off to do …..nothing. Well of course employees are not stupid and when they see the leader "doing nothing" they will take their cue from his or her behavior and they too will "do nothing".

All the fine words in the world will be ignored because our eyes tell us what's really important.

Oh the drama of the workplace!

Everyone has a real life story to tell

Every one of us has a real and true life story to tell
"We learned that our life stories are so much more important than our traits, characteristics, leadership styles, or the training programs that companies teach about competencies and skills. Those pale by comparison with the importance of knowing your life story and being true to it."
Bill George, author of Authentic Leadership and True North

Every one of us has a real and true life story to tell. A story that reflects our deeply held values.

When we're given the opportunity to truly share our stories we feel valued and important. And that's good for everyone. It's good for the business because individual performance improves and profits increase. It's good for employees because we have purpose in life - we feel we belong - our life story becomes part of the cultural fabric of our organization.

Storytelling is a wonderful tool, but it's not something we should reserve for "leaders only". Stories are for everyone. To feel valued and listened to is a fundamental human need.

But what do we do when people in positions of trust - say our manager - is not able to listen and really hear our stories?
What happens is people stop telling their stories. And when they do that one of the threads is lost, a thread that enables us to motivate, inform and inspire - no matter where we sit in the organization.

Getting the culture right to catch em and keep em

I’m pretty good at reviewing books I haven't finished reading – see my recent article on storytelling books. I have yet to review a book I have not read and I’m not going to start. But there’s a book out there with an important message that I feel I have to mention, even though I do not yet have it in bookshelf.

The book is Catch Them If You Can!: How Any Manager Can Win the War for Talent in the Global Labor Shortage'>Catch Them if You Can!: How Any Manager Can Win the War for Talent in the Global Labor Shortage Greg Ford and Dr. Sullivan. As you may have guessed from the title, it’s about the worker shortage we will face as the baby boom generation retires. The US Department of Labor predicts a shortfall of 10 million workers by 2010; one in 13 jobs will be vacant.

Actually I lie; I have read a couple of chapters of the book. Greg is a friend and I had the pleasure of a pre-publish peak.

Greg and John have written a book to help managers understand the need to aggressively go after the top talent. They provide practical strategies that can be easily implemented, including a step-by-step recruiting plan that the reader can take away and apply immediately.

But there’s a strong message in this book beyond recruitment, namely that we need to ensure an engaged and vibrant culture to prosper. The world has changed - employees are no longer lining up to work in our organizations. If we want to hire the best then we had better make sure our cultures are open, aligned and full of opportunity.

A lot of people my age have trouble reconciling the attitude of youngsters coming into the workplace today. They see them as entitled. I don’t. I see a very realistic attitude. This is a group of people who knows when they are good and they are not going to stick around and do boring, irrelevant work for 10 years until the boss retires.