Crank Up The Volume!
Posted By Rob Millard - 1 Comments -
Ever stopped at a traffic light, next to a car with its windows literally rattling in time to the bass of its sound system? Any doubt that the person inside that car is hearing that music? I mean: REALLY hearing it, along with everybody else at the intersection?
Think for a moment of a song that you know by heart. Perhaps one that changed the way that you thought about life, back when you were young enough to allow music to do this. (Hopefully you still are!) How did you learn it? Through hearing it once or twice? Through finding the words intellectually logical and sensible? Probably not.
Chances are, you learnt it through multiple listenings and then only because the song resonated powerfully to create a picture in your mind, that you related to at both emotional and intellectual levels. In fact, this is often the only way that people really pay attention.
The truth is: People change what they do and think far quicker and easier when they are shown a truth to change the way that they feel, than when they are shown analysis to shift their thinking. (This is one of the central themes of John Kotter and Sam Cohen's seminal book on change management, The Heart of Change - Real Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations.)
The correlation with strategy is obvious. Strategy itself needs to be simple and straightforward so that it can be fully understood by everybody; even committed to memory. The narrative describing the strategy also needs to be rich enough to be compelling and grab peoples' imaginations. A bland and generic "mission statement" doesn't hack it. Neither does convoluted consultant-speak! EVERYBODY in the firm, if asked what the strategy is, should be able to answer accurately in 30 seconds or less.
This means that the message needs to be delivered repetitively and at sufficient volume to drown out the other signals that clutter one's brain in the workplace.
The best selling song of the 20th Century was Elton John's "Candle in the Wind." The lyrics are about Marilyn Monroe; the tragedy of her death; the role that Hollywood played in it. Yes, it is possible to reduce the key points of the song to bullets on a PowerPoint slide. But how enduring would that be compared to the song itself?
If you want to communicate powerfully, even to highly critical-analytical types like lawyers and accountants, move beyond clipped facts and action bullet points that are delivered at a conversational volume.
Create a rich and exciting image of what that strategy will mean to your firm, in the minds of your people. Yes, this may well involve "five key bullet points," but paint a wider picture that engages both emotionally and intellectually, that the five points simply punctuate. Which is not to say that the underlying logic and substance to the picture is unimportant. Obviously, it needs to be able to withstand intense critical scrutiny too.
So, put some color into that strategy. Make it compelling and exciting and when you communicate it, do so frequently and ... crank up the volume!
This is being posted under "off-the-wall insights" but in fact it's not "off-the-wall" at all. Simply good strategic communication. Comments, as always, are most welcome. Please post them below.
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Pre-publication copies of John Kotter's new book, "Our Iceberg is Melting" are available at www.ouricebergismelting.com. According to one reviewer, "Never have I read a parable in a business book that took a complex issue, like change management, and distilled it down to a simple story for all to understand. this is the ideal follow-on to "Leading Change" and "The Heart of Change." A must read for anyone dealing with managing change." The book will be in stores everywhere in September, 2006.