STAT Leadership episode 3: Leadership and Effective Communication

Leadership and Effective Communication: Insights and Strategies

In Episode 3 of STAT Leadership, hosts Phil Moy, Chetan Kharod, and JR Pickett delve into the essentials of leadership and effective communication. They discuss the significance of both verbal and nonverbal cues, the strategic use of email, and the importance of authenticity in conveying messages. The conversation touches on influential leadership examples from history and fiction, providing a comprehensive guide for leaders looking to improve their communication skills in various contexts. Tune in for actionable insights and engaging anecdotes that highlight the art of impactful communication in leadership.

00:00 Introduction to STAT Leadership
00:10 Episode Introduction and Hosts
00:25 The Importance of Effective Communication
01:31 Challenges in Communication
03:18 Strategic Communication and Timing
10:25 Nonverbal Communication and Leadership Presence
13:56 Building Trust and Authenticity
18:23 Leadership in Large Organizations
27:44 Setting the Stage for Effective Communication
28:19 Conference Networking Strategies
29:17 The Importance of Intentional Engagement
31:47 Effective Email Communication
36:42 Adapting Communication Across Generations
44:59 Leadership Lessons from Pop Culture

Referenced in this episode:

Cues by Vanessa Van Edwards https://a.co/d/7b6gBlV

The Thin Red Line   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120863/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_thin%2520red%2520line

Band of Brothers   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185906/?ref_=fn_t_1

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102798/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_robin%2520hood

Gladiator   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0172495/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1_tt_6_nm_1_in_0_q_gladiator

Masterclass: Robin Roberts teaches effective and authentic communication  https://www.masterclass.com/classes/robin-roberts-teaches-effective-and-authentic-communication

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When the call comes in, leadership is everything. We analyze the data in real time, making the tough decisions under pressure.

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Welcome to Stat Leadership.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

I will take us there. Hello, podcast listeners. Welcome to episode three of Phil Moy from St. Louis. Yeah, I'm J.R. Pickett from Utah.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Hey, and I'm Chuck Carot from San Antonio area, Texas.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Got it. And the topic of this episode is titled Leadership and Effective Communication. Dr. Caroud, would you care to expand on that?

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Definitely. So we've been talking about leadership so far, and we continue to dig deeper into the foundations of excellent leadership. So whether this is at individual level, small organizational level, or even larger positions, communication is something that is absolutely essential day-to-day, and then even on special occasions. So today we're looking forward to talking a little bit about some of the science of communication and even more about the art of communication.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, if you can't communicate what you what your vision is and what you want to do, then you're just some person off on their own. You're not leading anybody. We need help in effecting change and being effective at what we do and implementing vision. If you can't communicate that articulately, then nobody's following you.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, and then it's such a vague term of communication because everybody's like, oh, you just got to communicate more. But if you delve into the details and get nuanced into it, it's so hard. And it's like, how much communication is too much communication? Because we've all checked our inboxes. I don't know if you guys are inbox zero, but I am nowhere near inbox zero. If I look at my Gmail, my inbox is like 773. So I don't know. Advice, what are your thoughts on that? I agree, communication is key, but communication in this world of social media and can reach us in a snap of a dime. How much communication is too much communication?

SPEAKER_02 2:12

I think that's why our title is effective communication, right? Because a lot of times the world is, we're all EMS guys. If you talk to our EMS teams, they know that if you're on the net and you've just held your button down and you're in transmit only, then you're not communicating at that point. And actually you've taken down the rest of the team's communications too, because you're holding up the net by pushing your push to talk button. So much of this effective communication is knowing when to push the button and when to let up on the button and receive. Sometimes the loudest or the most is not the best. People got to know that there's something true and real and authentic coming out of you, and then you need to stop. And of course, every parent knows that when you shout at your kid, your signal-to-noise ratio is probably suboptimal, and you need to dial down that noise a little bit so your signal gets through a little better.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

So you're saying I sound like Charlie Brown's teacher at my kids.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

It does focus their attention if you take away their iPhone. That's how I think. You can say all you want to, and if they're not in receiver mode either, or they're not prepared to hear what you say, then the message is not getting through, even though you think you're sending it. Communication, there's two parts of it, sending and receiving. And you have to make sure that they're in that mode, and that comes back to the listening to folks. And you may have this, what you think is this great message to give. And the it's like, oh yeah, they can't wait to hear. They're gonna they're gonna love hearing this. And then when you actually talk to them, you realize that what their more imminent concerns are really not what you're talking about at that particular moment. That's not to say your message is bad, it's not to say that it doesn't need to be communicated, but you have to speak to what people's concerns are, and you have to address those core concerns first. You know, it's like teaching a kid, right? A kid is not going to learn algebra if they're hungry, if they're not eating, if they've got some other concerns on the man. Same thing as a leader. And unfortunately, when you are sending messages that they're not prepared to receive, or maybe may be received poorly, then what you say may be perceived as tone-deaf. For example, if you just had if you just had a suicide of an employee, then that is probably not the moment to talk about how people should take more time for themselves. Let's, you know, one why don't we dig in a little bit deeper to why maybe this person uh felt felt the way that they did? It may not be the moment to say you should be putting in extra hours for that matter. You need to be working harder at work. Hey guys, did you not see what just happened? And and that may be poor really poorly received and make you look like a bit of a jerk.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Yeah, I think there's even times where you have to state the obvious, right? Something maybe not as serious as suicide happens, but sometimes I remember we were doing an award presentation in the military as very structured ways in which medals and awards are given and ways in which they are received. So I was giving this medal, presenting a medal to a major. He didn't really know the right steps. And we expect our very junior enlisted people to understand these steps, when to stand at attention, take with your left hand, shake hands with your right, and then salute. He didn't know this. And it was so awkward standing up there on the stage with a couple hundred of my people. But the leadership opportunity for me was I could either eye roll at that guy because he messed up my award ceremony, or I could just go, hey, hang on, let's talk about something. And then we just said, I've I haven't had the opportunity to talk through some of our customs and courtesies. So let's take this opportunity to walk through that. And it allowed the opportunity to own the circumstance and also communicate that I wasn't happy with how it went, but also that we as a team were going to fix it. We weren't gonna dump on that one guy who didn't know. So sometimes we get to say out loud the part that everybody else cringed about and then do something good about it. And that's a it's a particular, I think, access point that leaders have that a regular person may not have.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

So what I'm hearing a lot is strategic communication, where it's like when you provide the communication as but it's based on your background research, if you will, your listening skills to say, okay, what's going on in my team today that I should know about? And then when do I provide this communication and tie it to the bigger picture? For example, Chet, your story with in the moment, it probably wouldn't have been good to scold him right then and there, but you waited till the appropriate time and said, Hey, I'm gonna talk to you now. It just reminds me of this anecdote by Simon Sinek, the author of The Power of Why or Leaders Eat Last. But he's talking about how he saw his friend in some play, and he said the play was absolutely horrendous. It was the worst play ever. And he was like, I can't wait to get out of here. He said, I can't wait to get out of here. But after the play, she was all excited and he knew it wasn't the right time. But he was says, I'm very I'm honored to have witnessed you doing your passion. But then he waited a couple days, then he called her, like, hey, now let me talk to you about what I what the thing is. Yeah, so I think that the timing of the communication is important, and that's based on reading the room, but also listening to what is of significance, like what JR said, what's significant to your team now, and then expound on what you need to communicate. Yeah, I don't know if I'm uh portraying that communicating that with no pun intended.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

There may even be good, go ahead, JR.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

So I was uh getting ready for a media available press conference, and where PIOs is walking me through this and provided she provided some really great uh talk. Jennifer Stamp, if you're out there, you're awesome. And so you're facing uh questions from a number of of reporters that they come through one reporter, but uh in that she said, look, what are the three main things you want to communicate today? And I told her, like, what are the three main, if you fell asleep during this whole thing, what what are the three main things you want people to come away with? So the questions that you get, don't not answer them, but always bring them back to that those three things. And now when I'm teaching a class or giving a briefing or something like that, I'm like, all right, if this person sleeps through most of it, what are the few main things that I that can have them take away? I don't want to be all over the place. I want to come back to those to those things and hit on those pretty strongly. And and I think that uh helps too if you're doing campaign messaging, having that really strong, like what are you focusing on? Particularly if you're in a position of significant leadership, then your span of of concern and span of control is extremely broad. But what are the if you try to address every single one of those things and speak to everyone that you're going to be leading, then you may not get that cohesive message that you want.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Yeah, I was because I was gonna add that sometimes, and we've focused on verbal or effective communication in the sense of transmitting, and one part that we may want to touch on is also this idea that the communication actually begins long before you open your mouth. You walk into a room and people read you just while you're reading the room. While I'm not all into the clothes make the person, I often used to tell my fellows, as I was told, that if you want a seat at the boardroom table, then you've got to dress boardroom. And if you want a seat at the team room table, then you've got to be team room. And then, of course, in addition to our appearance, there's our nonverbal cues, there's also going to be how we act and what we know and how we relate. But looking the part is a big nonverbal. And there's a great book. An author named Vanessa Van Edwards, who wrote a book called Cues, and in it she talks about a lot of these different things: the nonverbals, facial expressions, body language, how we dress, eye contact or not, and even beyond that, that are really fascinating. They pick up some insights from FBI profilers and things like that that are tells. So sometimes when you own the room like a boss, it you may not even be the actual boss, but something about you communicated something to everybody else, and you had the attention and the access.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah, I think that's something I actively work on because in our everyday jobs as emergency physicians in EMS, we're used to going a million miles a minute and we're used to just go and just walk in really fast. And apparently that can be viewed as rude if you're doing that in like a boardroom and just doing that. So I'm really actually working on slowing down, which is so hard to do. Slow down my cadence of my speech, but also slow down the way I walk and just slow down even when I eat, that's even harder. Because then you hear a doctor, that's like impossible, right? I could finish my dinner in two minutes, but when I'm out, that's it's so hard. And just those non-verbal cues when you're in those rooms with the board members or whatnot, it's just you really have to be intentional about it.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

First time I met JR, he actually paused before he answered something I had asked him. And I was so used to what you're describing, Phil, this idea of emergency medicine goes fast, that I wasn't sure if he heard me or he was or if he was ignoring, right? So I had to check myself for a second. I'm like, did I just not did I say that in my head? Or did I say it out loud? But it was such a great move because what he actually did was he paused long enough. He was probably just framing his opening sentence because his opening sentence was good enough, right? And it was just a typical NAMSP conversation or something like that. It wasn't even an earth-shattering topic. But I remember thinking, I'm gonna have to keep an eye on this guy because that was well played. He owned that moment right there. That was good.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

A lot of people have thought that, but for different reasons.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

The others, I hope I didn't wake him up by talking.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

No, I it's funny, as I've said, uh alone with my thoughts is not a place I should be left for any period of time. Um, and at the same time, as y'all have figured out, and folks who are listening to this know me well, know that I have a brain-mouth filter that does not function a hundred percent of the time. And especially when I sense a uh a sensitive moment or a sensitive topic or something like that, I try to take a moment to frame that response and hopefully be more articulate with it when it comes. And this is and there's a balance there because if somebody gets the feeling that you're calculating your response to everything, then that may come off as either you don't know what you're talking about or you're hiding something, that you're being disingenuous or not telling them completely the truth. And a big piece of authenticity is people getting that feeling that they are getting from you the full story, or what is your authentic reaction to something. And so I try to frame responses. This is also because of a bit of a verbal filler that I have. I say a lot. And when my thoughts overrun my mouth, then I say I do that, yeah, and like this. And so taking that pause helps me to collect the thoughts enough that I do that less. And that's something I've gotten that in feedback and lectures that I've given. And when I've watched myself on video, I've said, oh, okay, I've got to work on that. And so that that's one of the tricks that I try to do that I try to work on. But if you pause for a long time and then give like a non-answer, then that seems inauthentic to folks.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

And Chet says, I gotta watch out for this guy.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

And Chet says, I gotta watch out for this guy.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

I should say that all the years of interaction have reinforced that initial impression I had. Gotta keep an eye on this guy.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

It's just brought the different reasons why.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Yes. And to Phil's credit, my initial interactions with him were also like, wait, what? And then a similar, oh, there is a lot more going on here than just the triathlete banging out marathons. So that was an eye-opener.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Thank you. I have no idea what I did, but you your first impression, I'll speak my first impression of you, Corode, is just like you were on the stage, and I was like, oh, this guy is pretty good. I'm scared to talk to him. Intimidating as hell. But what's great is I think the difference is you I met you on a public stage first when you were up there giving this awesome talk. I remember breathing the box. I thought that was a phenomenal thing, and I still do that to this day before I intubate. But I remember meeting you in person and you were very warm and congenial and everything. I was like, oh, this guy's actually a really cool guy. I like to get to know him and everything. So was the opposite of the JR Pickett. Because you're thinking Chakro, military, strict to the point, and everything. He's actually pretty laid back and pretty cool. That that was my first impression of you. And I remember JR, you were wearing this sport coat and you were hedging you were leaning against the wall, like cool hand Luke, and your knee was up, your foot was up against you're very like just chill against the wall. And I was like, oh, and you're a tall guy and judo. So I was like, this guy could probably break me five times on Sunday, which you probably still can. But then yeah, it came across as very congenial, which that's that's what I really remember about that. Thank you for that. I appreciate that, Chad. Your first impression of me. But I think any uh hint or something for our audience out there, if you want to improve upon your either verbal ticks or your non-verbals, is exactly what JR said is get a recording of yourself talking or edit your own podcasts and you will cringe for the first five times you do it because you're like, oh, I sound like an idiot kind of thing. But I realize that, like JR said, I say a lot too. And I have this verbal tick where I chuckle at the end of my sentences is because I'm nervous, or I just don't like the silence there. So these are things that help me guide my intentionality of when I'm interacting with people.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Yeah, and you is we've been talking about those different modes of communication. Here we're talking about that in-person, one-on-one interaction, and I think that comes down to being human. Then how do you extend that to a large organization? If I have hundreds of people that I'm leading, then it is impossible for me to have a close relationship with all of those folks, to really for them to you know me in and as a human being, and I just don't have the time to have that with everybody within that organization. So, how do you convey that that positive aspect that you have of yourself, that positive image of being genuine, authentic, knowledgeable, caring, all those things across a large organization, a large number of people that may interact with you, if at all, very briefly.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

I thought you were going to follow up with an answer. I was just anybody.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

I was waiting for you, Chet, to answer.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

I was like, I have some thoughts, some based on leaders I've observed who are highly effective. Some, as happens in life, sometimes the ones that are not so effective give us our other boundary. So you want to be between those two, and then our own experience, right? And a lot of times, for example, thanks for uh remembering that presentation I was giving wherever I was talking about breathing the box, but innumerable hours of preparation went into that in a cultivated stage persona because my actual approach is relatively more introverted, a little bit quieter. I prefer quiet rooms and quiet interactions. I'd rather meet two or four people rather than two or four hundred. But when you're on the stage or in a leadership position, you still need to be able to transmit authentically, you still need to be able to radiate this engagement and interest. And that has to be real. If I don't actually mean it, examples might be giving a big talk to at a national meeting, you don't really have leadership responsibility or accountability with that group necessarily. But if it's your organization, you certainly do. So I think part of the key is not just the days where you're on stage, but went out of my way to get to know names and faces of people. I had it scheduled into my daily routine that I would walk through the organization unannounced just to say hi and see how things were going. It was a medical facility, so I would go sit in the further chairs of the waiting area and just see were the ergonomics any good? Could the person sitting here and see the desk? Was the setup right for my medical admin people to be effective at their jobs, or were they constrained? Because if I announced I was going to be there, you knew that everybody was gonna perfect the presentation and make everything right, and then I would miss on an opportunity to set conditions for success because I would have thought it's already successful. So some of the stage persona or the earning their trust came from doing things that people didn't necessarily understand what I was doing. One of my first evenings of being a commander, I was stopped by security forces on base. My ID card was checked, my name was reported to the overnight security forces blotter where they keep track of all the people they had to stop overnight. And that gets reported to the general. So I've been in, I was a lieutenant colonel then in the command chair two nights. And my name was reported on the police blotter of the base. Right. So, of course, the next morning my boss calls me at seven. Your name's on the blotter. What in the world? I don't want to have to fire you. What were you doing? And I'm like, what's a blotter? So what I was doing though, when I when it came out what I was doing, it was kind of like a ripple through the base, and everybody wanted to do this. But it's not because I was magic. I literally was just thinking, gosh, these airmen, they're 18, 19, 20 years old, they're away from home, they live in these dorms. What the heck are those dorms even? I mean, I wonder if I can't really walk into a dorm as an officer because all the enlisted live there. But I can walk around the area and see are the fire extinguishers charged? Do the stairwells have lights in them? Is the place safe at all? Or is it somewhere where if their family visits that we would want to show them and be proud that we're the US Air Force? Or are my airmen living in a dump? Because I go to a decent rental I'm living in every night. So I was walking around not in uniform. The cop took my info and all, but then I had to go explain why I was on the blotter. And when I explained what I was doing, the general just kind of looked at me and he goes, Hell, I've been here for two years and I've never done that. Why in the world were you are you showing off? It's like really not showing off. My touchstone for leadership is this. A mentor in India once told me a good leader should love, should know their people as well as their own mother does, and love them even more. And I thought that was an impossible benchmark to reach, but I thought I'll at least give it a try. And when my people realized that I was in it to help them win it, uh, our relationship was very different, even at the organizational level.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

Admiral McCraven, in his book Wisdom of the Bullfrog, talks about exactly that and um says that you have to troop the line and that you got to go by and do exactly what you did there and see the men and women who are doing the job or while they're doing the job. And you don't have to be undercover boss and spend days or weeks doing it, but just being a being a presence, going by and um and I've heard that like you show up in the middle of the night at the hospital when one of your EMS crews is brought in. Maybe it was a bad case, maybe it was a pediatric drowning or an officer-involved shooting or something like that. And going in and checking with them, yeah, how you guys doing? Are you all right? That that goes so far in building confidence in you as a leader that you shit about the people that you're working with. I think knowing them better than their own mother does, I think that I think that is impossible. It may not even be possible, depending on the size of your organization. It may not even be possible for you to directly speak to everyone that's in it. Um that may be a challenge. And so you're communicating through others, which we can get to. I did see something that I really was impressed with when I was down at a border patrol station. And this is in a rural area, a place called Sanderson, Texas, a small station. They've got a lot of responsibility, and they this in the station, which is considered considered a hardship station, like it's an hour drive to anything. And they uh getting there first thing in the morning, which was really early in the morning, everybody shook everyone's hand. These folks have been working together for years, and they come in and from the top down, and the later comes around, literally walks around the room to everybody, shakes a hand, hey, good morning, good to see you, how are you doing? And everyone in that station did that as well. And it didn't matter who you were. I was uh not internal to the station, I was there on a temporary assignment, but the same thing. And I thought, man, what a cultural statement uh of caring and leadership and communication that was to just first thing in the morning make that contact. Um, and likewise, an example of where that didn't go well, I was talking to a very close friend of mine uh who said that he was at continuing education at gathering. One of the leaders came through and walked right by him, didn't acknowledge him at all. And so I know this person knows who I am. I know that sat there across from their desk, and he's been in this organization for a number of years, and just walked by, didn't give me the time of day, didn't even say hello, didn't acknowledge me. And that that's a little slip-up that had a profoundly negative effect on how that person viewed his leader.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Hmm. Non-verbal even in social settings, that's very useful. We had a number of school-related things where you know, parent-teacher, student association or the athletic boosters or whoever had a dinner. And I got up at the dinner when once everybody's at the table and went around and shook hands and sat back down. And uh, two people asked me what I was doing. One was one of the other dads. He goes, Oh, I thought you were like the boss of the table or something, because everybody else just sits down and eats. And the other was my son, he eat later, like a day later, and he was like, What was that about? And I was like, Oh, I assume that I'm gonna have a human interaction with every single person I meet. And if they don't know to go there, I'm always gonna go there. And having established that as the basis for our interaction, a little eye contact, a handshake, it it sets a stage for whether there's something more or not. It sets a stage where I'd like to have it. And a lot of that is not I'm better than them or I know more. It's just how would I like to be treated? I'm just gonna start there. So it works even in daily life.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Yeah, and you're so intentional about that. I remember during the most recent NAEMSP conference, I was sitting with you and you did this awesome thing, which I was like, oh, I should start doing that where you had your little mole skin and you wrote down you had a bunch of names on there and everything. You want to enlighten our audience of this little habit you do, which I think is a great thing to do. I just never did it as intentionally as you.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

Thanks. When I was an EMS program director, I was trying to create a playbook for my fellows because I was obsessed with the idea that I had been taught or had learned from so many people, and there was no way to capture all of it. So, what if there was a way to bottle the best practices that make us effective? So, one of the talks I used to give was, you know, how to get the most out of every conference you attend. And then in it, I would just map out that, hey, when I was a medical student, I was happy just to be there and collect free stuff. I really didn't understand much medicine that was being talked about. I was at the textbook level and they were talking about cutting-edge research. It meant very little to me. And then as I advanced a little bit, I was there to find out new knowledge. And then as I advanced a little more, I was there to present something or to meet old friends, because now I had colleagues that were coming there and presenting. And then I realized that, you know, surely there had to be more for me, and maybe not for everybody. So I started making a list of everybody I'm looking forward to seeing when I go to NAMSP. The first year I did it, it was like a dozen people. By my tenth one, I had 80, 90 people that I absolutely had to check in on. And then one of those years I added five blank lines and said, I'm gonna find five people I've never met before, or five people where it says new member on their badge, or first-time attendee, and really engage them to find out where they're from, why did they come to this meeting? Has it been good so far? For no other reason than the fact that they're trying, and I wanted to engage them a little bit, open some doors, maybe, or whatever. So with my fellows, I made it a game. I was like, I challenge you to meet this many people. And there will be a prize for people who effectively are able to meet at least this many. Of course, as soon as it's a competition, all the EMS trainees have to outdo each other. But the objective was if we want our meeting to be something more than just per diem and travel reimbursement or getting a free trip because you presented a poster or whatever, there's always room to do a little more. And by giving a little more, I felt like an AMSP really resonated as the meeting of the tribe. People who understand what it is that we're doing, like-minded individuals who understand that I'm not super paramedic, I'm not qualified to be a paramedic because that's not my training. I'm not a doctor without a specialty. When you go to NMSPs, it's like old home week, right? And then when you know a bunch of people, it's even more yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Yeah, I'm stealing that.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Yeah, that's a I love that idea. And yeah, I feel the same way. They that we tend to work in fairly small groups in isolation as EMS physicians, and we're one of one or two people in the organization that does what we do and has the expertise that we have, and that can be a weird lonely place to be. And then I come to the N EMSP and I'm like, oh man, this is my people. And here I took a picture with several friends and uh and sent it to my wife, and I'm like, oh yeah, here's this person from Fort Worth, and this person from Houston, this person from St. Louis, and this person from Minneapolis, and this person from San Diego, and all of these folks that were on this, okay, I feel like I'm a part of this part of this group again.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Yeah. And then to pivot, because we are on a technological communication thing called the podcast, but I think one of the one of the biggest tools we have that can be abused and also misused is email, because that's another form of communication that that again I struggle with. I'm like, how much is too much communication? What's a good email? How do I write a good email kind of thing? So any thoughts on that, guys?

SPEAKER_00 32:13

One of my favorite memes of late is this email could have been a fist fight.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Part of the origin story of some of our topics was my question to myself with my fellows: how are we going to reproduce the best practices that we see around us? And how do we transmit that to a bunch of very smart and very motivated people who already have their way of doing things, right? Presence was something we talked about, address code, visual and nonverbal communication type things, visual cues, effective written communication was another one, and we just broke it down. We're like, look, there's messaging, like in text messaging, there's email, there's formal and informal written communication, and you don't want to write an email as if it's a text, and you also don't want to write a 20-paragraph text because that's not how that was meant to be used. So we just started with the idea of understanding the intent, the utility of the tool. You don't need a sledgehammer. If a formal business letter is a sledgehammer, sometimes a nudge is enough, which is a text. So we all pulled a bunch of examples of effective and ineffective text messages, emails, and then because it was the military, I could just require things. So I said, for our fellowship in our communications, in the subject line, uh, we will all put either info or action. If you're inviting somebody or telling them about an event, then if I said podcast recording, so to you all, if I was sending something and I'd say JR and Phil, you're gonna get this email from me, it would say info, save the date, podcast, and in parentheses it would say Zencaster, 3 p.m. central, and the date. Right? So the idea was if I really want to be effective in communication, then I need to give you all the info you're ultimately gonna need without having to read through a long email. You can just look at the subject line and know. So we were trying to tighten up our communications and make them useful to the end user. And then the other thing we did was when you write an actual email, you do have to have a salutation like Phil, comma. And then if you're super old school, dear JR, but that doesn't necessarily work, right? That's awkward sometimes. So, you know, name and then it's okay to say good afternoon or whatever, then you will say whatever you have to say, and then very respectfully, or best wishes, or sincerely, or however you end it, but there has to be a formal ending because a lot of the great speakers they don't quite get to great because they don't know how to get off the stage when they're done. They don't know how to conclude their remarks, they don't know how to conclude their messaging. So making it clear, it's not magic that you have as the communicator, but your listeners or your others will go, I love when that guy communicates because I know exactly when he's starting, when he's ending, and what he's saying.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Everybody's gonna think I'm a thief because I stole that information action thing from you from our last conversation at MSP man.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Yeah, that stuff works. So the other with written communication, like I one of my big pet peeves when texting was first starting was I had relatives who would write, Are you gonna be there? And they would write the letter R and the letter U in G-O-N-N-A, letter B and T H R. Are you gonna be there? And I just obviously didn't get it, couldn't stand it. I was a total military squared-away communications guy.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Okay, we're exactly.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

I have since learned to be a little less indoctrinated with my military ways, loosened up a little bit on the comms, but I also know that there's a time and a place. If you're applying for a job and you drop a text like that's not going to work out so well, probably.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

No, I think though, in this with this email overload culture that we've got, and I delete somewhere around the order of a hundred emails a day, and and there's other stuff that stacks up and sometimes it falls through. I I think those emails are largely ignored by a lot of um employees. How many things come through the official distribution list on my National Guard email? It's just delete, delete. And yeah, unsubscribing is important to a lot of the things. But and I may I just uh do such a job of man, if this is something I'm not getting anything from, I am unsubscribing. All the marketing crap, I just unsubscribe block. But I think this in day and age there is this tendency towards very brief communication and bite-sized communication. And emails unfortunately tend to be very uninteresting that to read, uh, even when they are full of important information. But there's a need for other modalities to communicate with your workforce. And so this was why we created an audio podcast in the first place in Austin, because we had folks that they didn't read the emails, didn't read the directives, they didn't attend the town halls with the union, and then yet they felt uninformed. And uh so it's like, all right, how do we reach out? And the podcast and social media, having Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, having these feeds, yeah, is good for building an image and building your brand of you as a leader and giving a an idea of who you are. But also for bite-sized communications around your organization, I think they're very, very palatable because you communicate at once, it's not gonna sink in. And so it has to be repeated across things. And sending the same email over and over is not gonna get you where you want to be. It's just gonna add to the clutter. So finding these other ways of getting that message out is so important. One of the most effective things I find is posting stuff in the bathroom. You just put something on the wall by the shitter. Like, what do you what else are you doing? You're a captive audience. And uh just a little bit. I thought you were doing this in the bathroom typing on your phone and putting it in. Yeah, that that that is a pretty effective way for a quick thing. Oh, hey, by the way, flu shots tomorrow afternoon at 1.30, something like that. The having multiple modalities to connect with folks, especially because we are dealing across generations, we can either require these generations now which who have grown up in this electronic environment, grown up in this social media environment, and are extremely facile with those things. We can either bend them to our will and require them to read stuff. We find that really isn't the case, and that they don't tend to read that stuff that gets lost in the noise. Communicating out by multiple modalities that people will receive better is necessary as a leader.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

It reminds me of that wonderful scene in Kung Fu Panda where Master Shifu and Po, the panda, Shifu goes the bulls. I cannot train you like I trained the other five. I have to be the one who has to change to accommodate you. So yeah, that that's the fun of being a leader and communicating and getting your message across is your audience is not just people your age. They are 10, 20 years younger than you, and they communicate vastly different than I'm used to.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

Oh, definitely. So true. And then yet it's funny, it's I'm not above asking what their intent was, right? I if I didn't get it, then I'm okay, why, what were you what was that message? And they're like, oh, I was just letting you know, versus I needed you to call me back or hit me back with something. So sometimes it's it becomes a role reversal in terms of who's learning from whom as well. But the way I look at that is as far as leadership is concerned, if my actual goal was to set conditions for success for the entire organization, all my people, if I need to be on the learning end to get there, then I shouldn't really limit myself from learning that. So I would probably get feedback that my texts remain a little too long and that I use whole words. But a lot of it is I just speak to text now. I don't even type. My kids love to swipe to write. So they're constantly swiping their fingers over the keyboards. That is distracting to me. So I either just talk or remain a dinosaur. Well, it's about flexibility and I guess adapting as we go. And at the same time, it's okay to let people know, by the way, that's not quite, I don't know what message you were trying to send, but here's what I saw. Right. And that feedback is always a little weird as well. No, I didn't mean that. I'm like, a room full of people who are not exactly you, it might look a little different.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

No, I it's a perplexing thing, and I'm aging myself too as well. Is I know the generations younger than me, they text without punctuation. And it's it's when I read it, it's like reading James Joyce. It's one continuous thought process. I'm like, what is going on? Where I'm so used to like period, comma, ellipsis, and apparently that itself, punctuation in text, ages me. You're one of them older guys. I was like, oh, I guess so.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Yes. Yeah, my having a teenage daughter and it's soon to be teenage daughter, I get messages from them, not only without punctuation, but in a row, like belt-fed text messages that you clearly want my attention on something. You're not just letting me know of something, you need a response. And so that's how they do it, because your phone just keeps blowing up, you can't ignore it. When you get five or six or eight messages of like back-to-back, the dozen one-liners, yeah. But as you mentioned earlier in this talk, the nonverbal communication is so difficult in the reward in the uh in the email. And I've had uh I've mediated conflict between uh employees who they read an email and oh man, this this sounded so arrogant. And a lot of that is is the preparation uh and how they are how they mentally receive that person. You've seen it like if you already decided you hate somebody, everything they do. And look at that bitch eating crackers like she owns the place. Like it just doesn't matter what they do, right? Without that body language, without that tone of voice, so much of it gets gets lost into that that prep preparation, if you will, of the listener. And then talking about, I don't think that's really the tone they meant to strike. No, they didn't mean to sound arrogant in that, and as an objective listener, it didn't really sound that way to me. And um, so that's why that in-person or video or audio communication is so important because you don't have that opportunity in the written word to to communicate that unless you're doing something like or you're doing a little flyer for whatever it is you need your employees to know, and it's ridiculous and it's fun and all that. Okay, cool. And I get it, there's a little bit of fun to this and it softens the the reception of it.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

No, I totally agree. That's why I always try to if it's gonna be a long email, I'm like, I'm just gonna go talk to the person. I'm just too lazy to write it. Or what's what I've done, and I'm pretty sure everybody's doing more, is AI, ChatGPT. Just if I gotta write a long email, just free write and it'll say, write it, make it professional. Easy, right? Or make it friendly or something like that. Hopefully it's received in that regard.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

Some something that helps with that preparation, I think, is getting back to what I was talking about earlier from this border patrol station where they shook each other's hands. And this is why I I do uh social media and I also Read social media posts from my colleagues and so forth. Could because you walk up to somebody the next time you see them, hey, how's the new baby doing? Or hey, I'm so sorry to hear about your mom, or the a nice car. Just you'll just a little thing like that. Okay, it you took the time to remember this. And if it's something especially significant, loss of a loved one, or a new diagnosis that's frightening, or something like that, a a personal note, just a quick, even if it's a message, and again, I know I hate the written word, one that comes out of the blue, hey, I I'm really sorry to hear about your mom, and it's a really tough time for you. You know, if there's anything I could do for you, there's almost never anything that I can do for them or that they need, but just expressing that that little bit of support helps to build that image of you in their mind and how they speak of you to others.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

All right. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

We are getting at 50 minutes here. So we'll get to our classic question. Who is who's a leader? What's the question we usually have? Who's a leader that you've been thinking about?

SPEAKER_00 45:11

I'll throw one out here. Robin Roberts, who she's a broadcaster, is on Good Morning America, a number of other things. And I've been listening to a masterclass by her recently, and her discussion of uh of real and authentic communication and and showing vulnerability as she discussed her thought process about revealing when she was diagnosed with cancer and how to how to reveal that and and some other things that showing vulnerability as a leader. Her family is from the Gulf Coast area, which was very hard hit by Katrina, and she went down there to report from there, and just a so much about how she talked about being a real person and how it unexpectedly resonated with people that she got messages from various folks and people who were dealing with diagnoses or that had experienced some loss in some way and how they reached out to her. So I thought that was particularly appropriate for this week's talk and how she talked about communicating that human side, if you will, as a leader.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

That's great. I don't know if we have we talked about Gladiator before.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

Didn't JR mention, or what was it, who's kid? Watch it.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

I know we talked about, I don't know if we talked about who was on Gladiator, but yeah, I'll tell you, the only reason I brought it up is I try now, whenever I watch things, I can't help it. I make notes of pop cultural leadership references that are going to resonate with young folks, right? And especially ones where people don't necessarily have a leadership position, right? They don't have the position or title, and yet they are able to stand forth as you know somebody that people trust, somebody that people would follow. So maybe not the designated person, but the leadership lessons from Gladiator was simply if you look at Maximus at the beginning of the movie, he's the general of the combined Felix Legion, and he's got rank, title, and everything else. And even then he's out in front saying, stay with me as he rides the ridge, and then look later in the movie, and he has no rank and no title, he doesn't even have a name, he's simply gladiator or spaniard, and yet people are willing to follow, and it's it wasn't something magical. He wasn't the biggest or strongest. I think he was authentic, he he was on task, he was fair, and then if you look at others beyond that, there's also this other idea that sometimes the most, the strongest, the best, fastest, whatever are not necessarily the best leaders. It's sometimes another person that surprises us. So, like fictionally, again, little John was huge, strong, and brave, but Robin Hood, not nearly as strong, not really as as big, maybe not the cleverest in his group, but something about Robin Hood drew the merry men to his leadership, and he was able to lead them. And some of it may simply be the kind of thing J.R. was talking about. He was humane, he could connect with each of them on an individual level, and he could be vulnerable, whatever that was, however he connected. So for those of us that are not the tallest, strongest, fastest, smartest, that's okay too. There's still opportunity to be of service and to influence through our leadership.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Damn, you guys got good ones. I keep on falling back, and we've mentioned him before, and this may be you guys think of a cop-out and everything, but current Colonel Dick Winners of 101st Airborne, World War II. Oh, yeah. What he did, the integrity he had to say to to just his integrity that he exuded to his troop, to his team, made them say, I want to be like him, but he would always be the one out first to to challenge them. He's like, We're gonna do this, and I'll be number I'll be first on the line to do this, and we'll we're gonna take this German territory. And I remember this one scene from Bander Brothers where he's talking to a leader, but he's what would you do if they're gambling? He's like, Yeah, I'm just hanging out with the boys, getting to know them. He's like, Yeah, don't gamble with them. He's like, Why? He's don't ever take from those men because they've earned so much to be here, and that's not your job to do it. You can't mistake it. So, again, this is gonna be a good cop-out, but that's I keep on referring to if I'm looking for leadership examples and I'm on YouTube. I usually just type in Band of Brothers or I'll type in Dick Winners, and I just end up watching clips from there and just get inspired just by watching him.

SPEAKER_02 49:58

That was a tremendous portrayal, by the way, by Damian Lewis in that miniseries. And if you're into that story, um the memoirs of Dick Winners are amazing. He was interviewed multiple times by an army lieutenant colonel who was assigned up at West Point, Cole Kingseed. And that that the way he presents him and the humane side of the person, and yet the authentic leader that he was. And then what his soldiers would say afterwards, this idea of I don't care where he was leading us, I would follow him regardless. There was a competence to that leadership, but there was also a compassion and ability to project and connect that was, I don't know, it's uh I don't think that's cop-out at all. I think that's probably one of the best examples.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

And the along the fictional lines, I love the example that you just had. I'm going to use another World War II movie here. Elias Cotteus's character in the thin red line, Captain Staros, when his his company is being ordered up a hill into murderous machine gun fire. And he realizes that the colonel who is giving the order is not seeing the situation. And there's a lot of great leadership examples in that movie. We're going to talk about it more as the episodes go on, but in that, where he stands the line for his men, he just says, realizing that his career is on the line with this, and he says, I'm not wasting their lives. I'm not sending them up there. Uh, I don't think you understand the the truth of the ground on the ground here that that's gonna waste their lives. Um does it in an extremely professional way, as this colonel is screaming at him, and really well portrayed by Nick Nolte, the the colonel. And he just says, No, I'm I'm not gonna do it. And his men look at him with that acknowledgement of yeah, okay, he's watching out for us. And which fortunately you don't have to do that very often as a leader, but every once in a while you do.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Yeah, sometimes you have to jump on that grenade. And that you set the tone. You know, it's uh back to the ER days, right? You set the tone, Carter. I don't know if you watch ER.

SPEAKER_02 52:10

Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 52:11

There there's your fictional leader right there, Dr. Green. Which we'll tell I'll save that for next round.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Yeah, absolutely. We should tip our hats to Mark Green for sure. The fictional Mark Green Carter.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

Yes.