More on the issue of trust, a continuation from my last Entrepreneurial Sin post.
A primary issue while at all of the jobs I've had--entrepreneurial or corporate--is a tension that my Midwestern ears can sense with deafening clarity; the disconnect between two people of different "power levels" within a company--sometimes determined by title or authority, other times by the stake or ownership of a company--where the "higher" level party assumes the other party is untrustworthy, or dishonest, or incompetent. I've heard statements like these that suggest that a relationship might rupture when it doesn't need to:
--"She didn't call me back when I asked her to; she's totally uncommitted."
--"I didn't like his tone when I asked for an update."
--"What do you mean, you're not sure? We need you on-board. If you're not sure you shouldn't be here."
And the uber-vague:
--"She's just not feeling me. I'm not getting a good vibe from her."
By the way, I commonly use the last phrase above. I fully confess, in my less-reflective moments, I've made sweeping judgments based on vibes, which are often influenced by previous, unrelated experiences and lunar cycles. But I digress...
The point is, we do a huge disservice to ourselves and to the people that we rely upon to achieve our visions because we question loyalty, interest, and, perhaps, our ability to make people passionate about our vision. At the end of the day, however, this needn't be an issue of trust. This is really about your story lead. Let me explain...
Chip and Dan Heath make a wonderful distinction in their book, Made to Stick. They explain why ideas need to remain simple in order to become globally memorable, or as I like to say, grokkable. I believe the sleight of phrase that they recommend when relaying an idea is similar to the manipulations we must make in our own messaging when inspiring our teams--though we must also know the underlying story to stay smart.
When we become experts in our respective domains, we forget what others don't know, the Heaths say. And the often damaging result is that we aren't able to describe our vision or persuade others of our ideas because we don't make them immediately and impactfully memorable.
Witness blogging events with a bunch of tech heads who complain that they aren't attracting any new people. That's because many of the current attendees have reached a level of mastery with the subject, and they no longer speak about it on a broader level. Yet this "newbie" level offers handles for new people to grab; it offers access points that will eventually bring in new recruits to the level of mastery.
We often squelch the growth prospects of our communities, businesses, and ideas by not allowing new growth to occur, by not simplifying for the uninitiated. We feel we're compromising our ideas by blurring their edges, but we're just making it easier for others to absorb them. We are uncomfortable with this blurry area because inherently it's tinged with ignorance and doubt, and we tend not to have patience for it. So we gravitate inward into deeper waters that are incestuous with Kool-Aid drinkers. If we don't drown from refusing to acknowledge blurry land, we die of boredom, isolation, and stale ideas.
Just yesterday I was at a baby shower and describing my business, BlogHer, to a woman, a financial planner. This woman was a small business owner herself, whom I could see benefiting from BlogHer, but I needed to establish a lead.
"It's a media company for bloggers," I said, blowing up the usual messaging that I and my partners use when describing the business to people with more industry knowledge. Judging by the blank look on her face I realized I'd written a terrible lead.
"It's like iVillage for bloggers," I said, wincing because of the terrible oversimplification I'd just committed. Still, I wanted to pin the concept to something that she would recognize before drilling down any further. And in many circles where I am speaking to people who are familiar with women's Web sites, I know that this is a good starting point.
She continued to stare at me, blankly, "What's iVillage; and what are blogs?" I adjusted my approach once again.
"BlogHer is an online resource where women who are growing their businesses can go for more exposure and community." At least this description utilized part of BlogHer's vision, but I felt disloyal, not using the "b" word (blogs). Still, this lead got me in; she perked up and began asking questions about BlogHer and about blogging, and I could launch into my more detailed explanation.
Often a person with higher-level mastery will feel that they are not telling the entire story if they speak on a less-accurate, but broader, level, but by not addressing the broader level they alienate, or worse--simply don't engage--those that they need to perpetuate their ideas.
I believe that this kernel of wisdom is an underlying reason why I like to tell stories. I prefer to make my ideas memorable. I'm told all the time that I simplify too much, I leave out what so-and-so said, I don't resort to numbers; but frankly, if these facts are not germane to the point I'm trying to make, I leave it out. I do whatever I can to remain truthful while getting my point across.
The Heaths use a well-understood journalistic metaphor to explain this dickering with additional details: "burying the lead." We can't fit everything in the first paragraph of our story, we must choose something that makes them want to read more.
And applying this to management, we must not lose patience with those who don't know the entire context of our business; we have to make them want to know it.
Now I'll take this concept and flip it: We must not bury our lead, but we must not forget the rest of the story either. Sometimes we get so good at honoring the lead that we drop important nuances; we play too loose and make decisions on too little information. This was a major factor in the demise of many Dot Coms in 2000: they were merely leads--mere tag lines without enough complexity to become viable businesses.
One of my former employers was a powerful woman upon whom we relied for our vision. Some thought she was audacious to the point of rudeness, but if she wasn't we might never have ventured as far, or achieved as much, as we did. The problem was she didn't trust the people she enlisted to help her with her business. That's not true; she trusted some of us, just not the people who questioned her judgment.
What resulted was a culture of forced positivity. There was a lot of information-sharing, but when the news was not so good, things got quiet. Real quiet. We lost our ability to adjust to the market, because we were only able to adjust to half of it. None of the budget-draining initiatives she insisted upon could be challenged, or even discussed. I remember once questioning why we were moving forward with something we couldn't afford, and she told me that if I continued to be so negative I could find the door.
I remember there was someone who'd spoken up; I wonder if he grew back his eyebrows after the flaming vitriol that was spewed at him for being so bold. He ended up leaving the company shortly afterward, removing one of the only protective barriers between the leadership and the implementers and exposing our staff to debilitating heat. The fallout afterward was great. A new manager was put in this person's place--a real Yes man. He yessed to the point of exhausting his staff and driving many good people away.
We left it to our leader to determine why things weren't working, though many of us knew why. I watched our venture suffocate from lack of oxygen and, later, internally combust. In the end our demise was a mystery; a mystery that could have been solved had we let in some fresh, objective, air.
I've always questioned operations that could not, would not, address the alternatives. I've been fooled by ones that pretended they did--looked at the competition and always came out on top in a one-sided analysis. I realize there's such a fine line between being aware of threats and being debilitated by them. But not addressing, or acknowledging, threats is like my mother not wanting me to move to California to avoid being hurt in an earthquake--preventative to the point of immobility.
Bringing this back to a micro-example of interpersonal relationships, and my last post's focus on trust, we must not presume that the people we rely on to grow our businesses--our partners, or contractors, our clients--are inherently unsupportive, or negative, because they don't comply with behavior we associate with "getting it." Consider what you've presented them with--often it's only part of the story. Consider how you've written your lead.
Made to Stick Dan Heath Chip Heath management small business entrepreneurism
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