Power Up; Speak Up; Be Heard by Kay White - HTML preview

/ Home / Career / Power Up; Speak Up; Be Heard

PLEASE NOTE: This is an HTML preview only and some elements such as links or page numbers may be incorrect.
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.

part 2

It’s the dilemma that’s so common now—when you’re “Out of the Office”, how “Out” of the office are you? Fol owing on from Part 1 and the importance of putting some helpful structure to your email ‘out of office’ bounceback, a simple-to-fol ow formula of Acknowledge/Inform/Guide is useful and hits the spot. It’s also the safest bet to show your clients, customers and col eagues how professional, helpful and thoughtful you are.

Depending on how you’ve decided to handle being away by doing one of the following:

• Read your emails regularly whilst you’re away, twice per day for example

• Have someone read them and then sort out the ones you need to read when you return or

• Read them all but only when you return. You can just slot your information in and then lean into enjoying your holiday.

Here are a few simple samples to slot your words into: Reading your emails regularly whilst you’re away

• Acknowledge: Thanks for your message and I’m away from the office until August X.

• Inform: I will be reading and responding to my emails in the meantime and will do this twice per day.

• Guide: If your message is urgent and you need immediate assistance, please email John Smith, Title, who will help you. You can email him at — or call him on 123 456 7890. Thanks again, Your Name.

Someone reads them, sorting out the ones you need to read on your return

• Acknowledge: Thanks for your message and I’m away from the office until August X.

• Inform: My col eague, Jim Smith, Title will be accessing my emails during my absence and will make sure any which need immediate attention are handled.

• Guide: If you want to speak to Jim Smith or call him direct whilst I’m away, he can be contacted at —– or you can call him on 123 456 7890

Read them all but only when you return

Acknowledge: Thanks for your message and I’m out-of-the-office at the moment.

Inform: I will return to the office again on August X and in the meantime I have no access to my emails

Guide: If you require immediate assistance, please contact Jane Smith, Title, who will be happy to help you. You can email Jane: ——- or call her direct on: 123 456 7890. Thanks again, Your Name.

There’s always a balance to achieve and to weigh up how your emails impact on your time away is a decision you have to make yourself. There’s always a rub.

If you decide to read them and respond to them whilst you’re away, agree you’ll read them and respond to them for a certain period of time, say an hour, every day at the same time. Plans can then be made around that and you can tell people when you’ll get back to them. Managing their and your holiday companions expectations too!

Helping yourself by discussing this first with everyone makes it easy for them to understand and let you get on with it. Trying to do it between trips or between meals just becomes stressful.

You may, or may not agree but this quote sums up the point here: “Time for work—yet take much holiday, for art’s and friendship’s sake”. George de Wilde Putting a bit of structure in place will set you free and anyway, everyone needs some down-time, some time to reboot, so lean into a successful holiday, a managed inbox and your art and friendships too.

If I Were 5 Years Old, What’s Going On

(and could you even tell me)?

A quick question to get to the heart of what’s going on.

This was one of a few key questions I asked a group of CEOs and senior directors I worked with recently as we focussed on communicating with influence. This question, as basic as it sounds, real y helps people boil down what’s actual y going on and separate it from the “stuff”. It’s one of the secrets of great communication—keeping things simple.

It took quite a bit of head-scratching (and a few laughs too) to translate some of the expressions below into a 5 year old’s language.

Confusion and unease—not to mention boredom—is often the main result of rambling on using a combination of too much detail AND corporate

“gobbledeegook”. Listeners/readers tune out, switch off and often miss vital bits of information as it’s wrapped up in “blah” language—which actual y confuses the person saying/writing it too!

We worked with the KISS principle—Keep It Simple and

Straightforward. Leonardo de Vinci himself said “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” and it’s true. Anyone you think of as a great speaker or inspiring leader communicates in simple, clear, accessible language as much as possible. Translating the “blah” language when they can.

Encouraging clients to use clearer and more “down-to-earth” language, as part of their day-to-day emails/presentations/meeting messages is just as important. This is one of the questions I often ask to get clients to the nub of what’s going on. You build it up from there but it gets you to the core of the message. If you don’t have a 5 year old in your life to use as a reference, remember you were a 5-year old yourself!

We worked on the fol owing expressions together and we came up with a variety of translations for a 5 year old to understand:

• Key Performance Indicators (ways of being able to tell how you’re getting on)

• Optimisation (making the best of things)

• Strategic implementation (doing things we’ve said we will do in our plan)

• Blue-sky thinking (having big, different ideas)

Once you’ve boiled the message down to this 5 year old sort of language you can then start building it up a bit BUT still keep the essence in there.

The group all agreed that the corporate “lingo” is necessary at times—legal language, corporate messages that are already being used—but to use the “if I were 5, what’s going on?” or “if I were 5, what are we talking about?” with your col eagues, team—even clients is a real y powerful question. Trust me.

I asked this question to a recently-promoted Director when he was gradual y going cross-eyed trying to explain the twists and turns in a story about his team. Along the lines of “the KPIs are all being missed because no-one’s interacting in a strategic way and we’re out of alignment because there’s unrest amongst the troops”. Crikey. “Excuse me, Uncle David, if I were 5 years old, what’s going on?” I actual y said that.

After looking at me with a combination of shock and bemusement, he had to sit for a while to be able to boil this down. I said “I don’t understand KPIs, strategy, corporate stuff Uncle David ’cos I’m only 5”.

Final y, after quite a lot of head-scratching, we knew what was going on. He told me “some naughty people are playing some nasty games ‘cos they think we’re going to take their toys away”.

Try this question.

Try it on yourself if no-one else and, I dare you,

Try it with your colleagues/team/clients

You’ll help yourself AND your col eagues to get to the core of what’s going on, and you can start to understand together from the same place. If you need any more encouragement, try some from Albert Einstein “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”.

What Do You Want People to Say About You,

When You’ve Left the Room?

How to be confident and clear when talking about yourself and the sort of person you are.

Working with a group of senior executives—all of whom were either re-applying for their posts or going for a promotion fol owing a management restructure—this was a BIG question they were struggling with.

It’s expected now, when being interviewed, for everything from col ege and University entrance to Board memberships to prepare a personal statement of some form or another. We have to get across the sort of person we are, the way we think and the things we know about ourselves. Rarely is it enough these days to list our “Responsibilities and Achievements” like a role cal .

Organisations from the solo-entrepreneur to the multi-national FTSE/Fortune companies want to know and understand more about you, how you tick and what you’re about.

It’s a big part of getting your message across in an interview (even, if you think about it, on a date which is often an interview-with-dinner!) Ask yourself “when I leave the room after a meeting, what do I want the people still in the room to say about me?” Jot down your thoughts—at least 5 points. Then, if you real y want to get clearer and more useful input for where you are at the moment, ask 5 other people. It’s good to ask people from different areas in your life—family, friends and of course col eagues, past and present.

Pose them the question “when I leave the room, what do you think people say about me and the sort of person I am?” Clients often do this via email to make it easy. Tell your 5 people that it will real y help you and then capture what they say and compare it with what you’ve said yourself.

5 things I guarantee you:

• You’ll be surprised

• You’ll learn something about yourself

• You’l have some different expressions/language to use

• You’ll tell the person you ask you value their opinion

• You’ll be able to describe yourself more confidently and easily.

Right, I’m leaving the room now.

Being Seen Notes

When we hear the word ‘Difficult’ we automatical y say to ourselves ‘uh oh, watch out’ and it slows us down. As a self-confessed WordNerd I real y encourage you to get under, over, around some of the words you use, hear and 3

react to every day. ‘Difficult’ is one of them and let’s translate it so you can Power Up and Be Heard when having conversations like this.

Difficult

‘Difficult’ is described as:

hard • strenuous • arduous • laborious • tough • onerous • burdensome •

Conversations demanding • punishing • grueling • back-breaking • exhausting • tiring • fatiguing •

They Don’t Have

wearisome • informal hellish • killing • archaic toilsome to Be Difficult

Instead of ‘Difficult’ I use the word ‘tricky’. Tricky has a different sense, a different energy about it…look at the Thesaurus and you can tell the difference.

‘Tricky’ is described as:

awkward • problematic • delicate • ticklish • sensitive • embarrassing • touchy

• risky • uncertain • precarious • touch-and-go • thorny • knotty • complex •

complicated • informal sticky • hairy • dicey

You can handle ‘tricky’ things far more creatively and with far more confidence because you immediately—just by using this word—encourage yourself to be sensitive, to think and plan, to unravel what might be complex.

Tricky has a ‘canny, be savvy’ feel about it.

Difficult conversations is the everyday way, the ‘management’ speak of handling tricky, sensitive, delicate conversations. They’re easier because now you have the energy and angle to approach them. Difficult = hard. It isn’t.

With a bit of thought, it’s actual y often real y easy. What’s hard is avoiding tricky conversations. It just slows you down. You have to have tricky, ticklish, delicate conversations all the time—just power up and move through them.

Discover The Power of This Secret Website Address

How to easily tell someone what you really want to say —

without upsetting them

So often we either ask someone else—or say to ourselves –“How can I tell them that what they’re doing real y needs to be better?” or “I wish I could tell them what I real y want / think, without upsetting them”. Wel , it’s easy to do just that and—

like most things that may seem a bit tricky at first—it takes a bit of practice. Once you’ve tried it a few times and got great results; it becomes part of your toolkit.

Assuming you have a range of tools in your toolkit?

As I’ve heard said many times “if the only tool you have in your toolbox is a hammer, then you’re going to treat everything like a nail”. Communicating and connecting with people to get our work done, to have people take notice of us and to keep things moving, we need a range of tools—everything from a hammer sometimes, to a ruler, to a feather duster (and everything in between.) The tool I’m offering you to use is a ‘made up’ website address (so no point

“Googling” it): www.ebi.ok?

It’s simple to remember; easy to use; and as a way of giving feedback it’s both natural and easy-to-take on board.

www.ebi.ok

• www. = What Went Wel

• ebi. = Even Better If

• ok = OK? Checking in.

How does this work and why is it useful? Well try this scenario for size.

Your col eague has just handed you an email they’ve drafted to send out to one of your clients. You read it and immediately you want to say “no, you’ve missed the point” or “it’s OK but you’ve left out the bit about XYZ”.

Put your possible response through the www.ebi.ok tool instead:

• www: “wel , it reads well and you’ve got the main points we discussed in there,”

• ebi: “and if you can bring out the part about XYZ then it’ll be spot on”.

• ok: “Does that makes sense?”

Can you see, when you read it back, we’ve brought out what’s good about it first and we’ve checked in to make sure they’ve understood. We haven’t just gone headlong in to “point out” what’s wrong. It’s a very subtle and natural way to say “and even better if XYZ”—you’re saying it’s already good and then giving specific guidance to make it ‘even better’ (without diving in and trampling all over the other person’s feelings).

That approach so often just closes the other person down—and what’s the point of doing that, if you want the other person to work with you and alongside you?

How to Slow Down to Speed Things Up

Save yourself time, money and energy now

People often say “it’s as if time stood stil ”, wel , even though we both know it doesn’t, you can make it slow down for you. I put it to you that you can slow down to speed things up. Yes, I know—it’s a dichotomy (I had to look it up—a polar opposite, a contrariety) to say you have to slow down to speed things up. Wel , it’s true.

So often we think we have to decide on the spot; say “yes” or “no” in the moment and know all the answers to all the questions we’re asked. Especial y if we’re having a tricky conversation, where it’s so often the case that people feel they have to fly through and ‘get out’ as quickly as possible. Wel , we actual y make things harder for ourselves and harder on ourselves if we believe that to be true.

One thing I’ve learned is that we think faster than we think. It’s worth saying again to remind us both—“we think faster than we think”. Our brain processes the question; the decision; the issue in front of us quickly. What we do is

assume that we have to always be thinking on the spot and just because we’re asked a question we have to know the answer; respond straight away or act immediately. Wel , we don’t. Even if we do know the answer, we don’t have to commit ourselves straight away. We can buy ourselves time and we can make the other person wait—even if it’s for just a few seconds.

Clients say that one of the big struggles they have when they’re promoted or as they start up their own business and take on more responsibility is the feeling of fear of having to know all the answers; of “making the right decision on the spot”. Wel , “hel o”- firstly who does know all the answers? Secondly, who knows what the right decision is? Only time tel s us that. We make decisions taking into account what’s going on at the time; the information, insight and instinct we have and then, we wait to find out how it pans out.

It’s liberating—certainly it is for me—to know that you don’t have to know all the answers and you don’t have to do everything or decide everything

“now”—even if it would suit others if you did.

People waste huge amounts of time, money and energy—our three most precious resources—by rushing in to decisions; responding to emails in a

“shooting from the fingertip” mode; diving in to tricky conversations or situations and by being asked questions and—without a second’s thought -

blurting out the first thing that comes to mind. Clearing up or back-tracking from rushed decisions or responses just slows us down.

Here’s just 3 of the many ways to slow things down to speed things up for yourself when you’re asked a question:

1. Repeat the question. Say it back to the person in a way that sounds thoughtful (it is) so you and your brain can process it. It also has the added bonus of making sure the person asking the question is actual y asking what they want. (This is a great tip for interviews by the way) “Hmmm, what do I think about XYZ. Now that’s a good question. Wel …” Can you see how you’ve bought yourself at least 5 seconds to slow down and think about what you’ll say—if you’ll say anything in fact. This is so easy it’s embarrassing and we don’t do it more! Well you will now, it buys you this precious time to think.

2. Ask the person asking what they think first. You can literal y say

“hmm, now just before I tell you what I think, I’m intrigued…what do you

think?” This is especial y powerful for someone working or reporting to you—why not make them do the thinking first? What also happens here is that you’ve told them that you will tell them ie you’ve put their minds at rest but you want their thinking before you do. Another great one is “OK, let’s pretend I’m on holiday and this comes up…tell me what you’d do?” By asking this question, you’re tel ing them that you know they know they’d do something…you just want to know what it is.

3. Ask another question. It sounds so elementary doesn’t it? Rather than answer what you’ve been asked; ask a few more questions about the background to the question to get clearer and, again, to buy you and your brain a few more seconds before—and if—you decide to answer. So “OK, well before I answer that, just tell me a little bit more about that: or “hmm, let’s see—before I give you my thoughts, tell me a bit more about…” Now that’s something to think about, isn’t it?

Are You Saying What You Mean

(or just what they think you mean)?

Try this revealing (and fun) exercise to show you how easy it is to confuse what we think we’re saying with what others actual y hear.

Sitting in a circle, everyone looked a bit apprehensively at each other and I could virtual y hear them saying to themselves “oh here we go, I’m going to have to say something about myself and ‘share’ when I don’t want to etc”. You know the dril .

The point of doing what we were about to do was to show why it’s so crucial to check in with your client/customer/col eague/spouse/friend to make sure what you think you’ve said means, (to them) what you actual y said.

I asked everyone to write the word “dog” on the top of a piece of paper and then to take 30 seconds to write as many words that sprang to mind when they heard the word dog!

Everyone partnered up to compare notes and, without exception, we all had many different takes on the word “dog”, ranging from “tooth check”, “hound-dog”, “scary”, “man’s best friend”, “commitment”, “furry”, “poo-bags”.

Now if all those differing associations came from such a simple, everyday word just think of the room for confusion when people use jargon-y, overblown, words-for-words sake.

These days, as we’re working around the world and in quick-fire style, on email/text/twitter etc it’s even more important to check what you mean to say is clear—“by that I mean” or “in other words” or “you could say” are useful little phrases to pop in.

Why “Why?” Can Trip You Up…Tread Carefully

Do you want to close the door before you’re ready?

‘Why’ is such a small and yet powerful word to notice, understand and be aware of as you use it. Real y, why?

Wel , it does two things very quickly, immediately in fact. Two things you want to avoid.

One, it sends people straight to the word “because” which is justifying their actions/decisions and

Two, it closes down your information-gathering opportunity in the request for

“the reason”.

Let me explain. As Big Bird from Sesame Street tel s us “Questions are a great way of finding things out” and questions are crucial to us digging deeper, connecting with people, understanding what’s going on.

The trick about “why” is the effect it has on us and, more importantly, the effect it has on those we ask the question.