Tags
communication, deliver the hard message, Hard Messages, Leadership Communication, Messaging, Tough Message
The true measure of a leader is when he has to deliver a hard message. Specially the ones, which have a direct impact on employees. Here are some of the situation examples, where delivering a hard message becomes challenging for anyone.
- You need to tell someone that his performance level is not good
- Business performance of the unit is not upto the mark
- Given the business condition there will not be any bonus
- Customers are not happy with delivery of the unit
You get into a room with an individual or else full of people (your team). You start with the explanation of the topic (whatever it be). Soon you find yourself in two of the extreme situations.
1. You start compromising the message by not being direct
2. You start communicating ‘the world has fallen’
Both of these situation are not good. You get to these two extreme situations because of a few prominent reasons.
- Audience (individual or team) reacts in an uncertain way
- You don’t want the audience to feel real bad
- You are not sure about the intent of this specific message
- The message/communication was doing ok till you thought of some really not-good implication of this message
All organizations, teams, units and people need to be given hard messages as business needs it. Here is what you can do about delivering a hard message.
- Be prepared – what is the message? Why it needs to be delivered? Who is the audience? And – What do you expect as outcome of this message?
- Be direct – If the performance level of a team is not good – the message needs to say that
- Be candid – Show your concern at the right level. Bad performance, bad company results, unsatisfied customers – all of them are things to be worried about. Show your worry
- Don’t Blame Others – Whatever be the message, don’t end up blaming others. Some examples are – your performance is not so bad but my manager seems to have a different opinion. The customer actually does not get it – there is no problem
- Ask for a solution – Place your message with an idea of finding a solution. Propose that people should think about a soltion while you deliver a message
- Propose a solution – The best way to deliver a hard message is, propose a first draft of solution
- Don’t draw a doomsday picture – Show your concern but do not sound frustrated. Do not tell people that world has fallen apart and nothing can be done now
- Don’t dilute the message – A hard message needs to be delivered. Do not dilute the message in any way. Blaming others is one way to do it. Not showing enough concern is another way of diluting it
- Follow up – Follow up with people, teams, units and organizations right after you deliver the hard message. Delivering one and leaving them to deal with it is one of the worst thing to do
The best of the leaders are the ones, who can deliver hard messages and many of them. Even better ones are those who can get people/organization on resolution path – right after delivering the hard message.
What kind of messages you want to deliver – usual or hard ones. Hard ones might be uncomfortable to deal with but have much higher possibility of ‘making a big difference’. – Take your pick …
I strongly believe that the first thing that a “manager” should do is to provide basic leadership training to his people who would drive his (and org’s vision). This activity also sells his leadership blueprint and sets the context. Secondly, it is important to have “Stars” who can help disseminate the vision, mediocres just cant push this agenda. If your message is for mediocres then you’re wasting your time. They prefer to be “nice manager” than assertive but value-add leader.
Once the groundwork is done (READ: Conditioning of the next level leadership), then it would be fairly easy to make them understand the importance of “Assertive Talking”. It is then that people would understand that employees invest their Human Capital in them or the org and they have to keep one thing in mind “Am I delivering RoI to their Human Capital Investment” as their “Human Capital Fund” Managers? Assertive Talking is one means to give the right feedback so that employees can keep steering their effort in the right direction — good for them, good for you (and org).