An intensely frustrating personal experience recently has focused my mind on its implications for how we connect and relate to others.

I locked myself out of my house.

Never done that before; but as I went into the front garden to talk with the engineer from my broadband provider, the front door clicked firmly shut.

I had no coat, phone, cards, cash, keys (obviously) or any way to get back into the house.

Calls, meetings and work awaited, it was freezing cold and my husband was in the City of London; an hour away.

We’d changed our front door locks a mere 24 hours early, and with high security keys, the normal spare key that is hidden outside was not yet in place.

I don’t know my husband’s mobile number off by heart (because it’s in my phone under his name).  I borrowed the engineer’s phone to dial his work number… a tedious rerouting process which proved absurdly unhelpful then ensued.

A tale of woe for sure.

Here’s my point.  The first 5 strangers I called (using the lovely engineer’s phone), in an attempt to get them to help me in some way, laughed.  They laughed.  What’s so funny?  Why laugh when someone is genuinely in a difficult and frustrating situation?  I simply don’t get it.

Secondly, listening skills were incredibly poor.  Each individual offered (after getting past the hilarity of the situation) to take my number and call me back.  Did I mention that I’d locked myself out and my phone wasn’t with me?

Thirdly, it got me thinking… was that just an odd day and these were odd responses?  Or is it reflective of a more common trend?

Here’s my conclusion.  Empathy is powerfully conveyed in the first, immediate moments of our response to others.  How we respond dramatically impacts the perception others will have of us, the emotion others will feel about us and the long term memory that others will hold in relation to us.  I’m also reminded of the fundamental need we as human beings have for empathy… especially in moments of vulnerability large and small.  I’ve yet to meet a professional who doesn’t think that they show empathy, however I’m equally certain that we can completely miss the moments to show it, meaningfully, wholeheartedly, humanely, kindly.

If we want individuals to grow, if we want teams to evolve and strengthen trust; if we want our best people to really love working with and for our business, if we want them to achieve that which seems impossible at work, we need to encourage our people to take risks, get things wrong, learn from their mistakes, regroup and go again.  That will require courage and vulnerability in spades. 

So, when they do take that leap, my question for leaders is very simple.  When it comes to empathy, how can all of us dial it up?

Until next time…..

For all of us today we work in the business of translation.   Wait, what? 

All of us are in the business of translation whenever we need to influence those who don’t have the same technical expertise as us.

In a fast paced, global, matrixed, changing business world, evolving through the consequences of a pandemic, professionals everywhere continue to drive performance amidst rapid change and challenge.  We do so within a business climate which is trying to ‘fast start’ 2023, navigate a hybrid working environment, and where executives are trying to work out what their policy is regarding encouraging employees to come back to the office. 

What Often Happens Is:

• The habit of ‘can you just put a few slides together?’ is a commonplace, reasonable, but often not useful request that comes our way when meetings appear on our calendar… and we readily comply.
• The purpose of the conversation isn’t clear or agreed, in order to help manage the scope of the discussion.
• The virtual environment has reinforced an over reliance on too many slides to enhance presenter confidence and bring more control to the way in which we manage the audience.
• Slides are eye wateringly dense, data heavy and without a clear message.
• Remote audiences can readily, openly and often disengage because either they don’t understand and/or care about what is being said.
• Alternatively, our audience can gloriously – and without rancour – disrupt and derail what we wanted to communicate.

To Translate Our Expertise We Must:

• Be far more rigorous around what the objective of what we share on slides.
• Provide context immediately.  Why this topic?  Why now?  Why should your audience care about what you’re talking about?
• Embrace this fact: credibility does not come from sharing lots of detail, data, expertise.  It comes from the clarity of your message.  This means we must learn to let go of the ‘the audience needs to know all this’.  Often, they don’t.
• Organize your message first.  Notice this post is in 3 clear parts and reflects the narrative arc from storytelling.  It enables the message flow to be quickly, readily, easily understood.
• Hone soundbites.  Soundbites have a personality, pack a punch, leap in the ear and stay there.  We want our audience to remember and repeat key phrases, soundbites, conclusions which resonate and persuade.
• Translate our expertise means leaving out a lot of content.  This is uncomfortable and difficult to learn to do; and yet it is essential.  For your message to have clout, you need to leave the density out.  Get to the point, refine the essence, be more crisp.
• Realise that ‘FYI’ is not influence.  That’s sharing information.  I’m talking about influence.  Your audience wants to know: what do you want from me?  We need to be absolutely unambiguous with our ask.

Everything about communication is easy – in theory.  However, doing this effectively, consistently and persuasively is not.  It takes focus, practice, experience, repetition, rigour.  We must assume that our colleagues believe we have expertise.  Our challenge is to hone the skills which translate that expertise into impact and influence.

Until next time….