#019 - Leading in Crisis Series: Communicate

Robert Greiner 0:06

So we talked about, we've been going through the crisis leadership model, minimally viable crisis leadership model. So we have a podcast episode a couple weeks ago that we'll link to, which is kind of the overview. And then we're working on the four components of the model, which is decide we talked about last week, communicate, that's this week, and then forgive and learn are coming later. So we'll double click into communicate now. And this is a big one, especially in a crisis, right? Once you decide you're going to be part of the solution, or even if not, you still have to have much, much more communication behaviors, activities, intentionality than you do in good times. And you can actually build some really good habits here, when things are not going well, letting people know what's happening, what decisions are inviting some collaboration and discussion, those kind of things really helps, we tend to make things worse in our minds over time. And so if we can get to the point where we're actively engaging those around us in a conversation about what's happening, having them feel heard, even if someone on your team suggests something that you ultimately don't go with the fact that you spend some time to listen and understand and work that into your mental calculus goes a long way, especially in a crisis. So this is a key one been looking forward to chatting with you about it.

Tiffany Lenz 1:26

Yeah, me too. This one is also has so many different facets, because throughout our different sessions, we've talked about how trust is key in especially in a crisis. But what happens when you're a new leader who's inserted into a situation in a crisis, and you don't have time to build trust, I think more so than anything else in your model. Communication is the one that will gain you trust and credentials the fastest, even if you're not right all the time. The fact that you have that you're willing to have that level of transparency, and just keep simply keep people included and keep them informed will go a long way toward building trust. So this one is, I think better it's so it's an interesting one, because it'll work for the trusted and tried leader who's leading a team, it will also work for that sort of like parachute in leader who's great in a crisis and gets dropped in right in the middle.

Robert Greiner 2:25

Yeah, totally agree. And as on Diem for the other three, this is something completely under your control. And so you can definitely engage in the communication behaviors to really help improve your chances of surviving, and then thriving later. The first one, I wanted to start with a bit of feedback I got at the beginning. So this happened, where week one, week two, into the pandemic, this is freakout mode has happened, right? We saw stuff coming. And then there was that Friday, at least in Texas, where everyone stormed the grocery store, and just collectively flipped out and are two, three weeks after that. And I'm on this meeting, and we're zooming everything now. And we've gone from very heavy on site in person presence very rarely, we're dialing into meetings. And when you did you were to disenfranchise like, second class member of the meeting, like people don't know, when you have a hybrid meeting where half is in the room or more. And then half or less is dialing in remotely like they have trouble hearing the speakers and microphones in the room aren't that good. And people talk over one another people forget to ask Hey, are you on any questions on the phone? And so it's just we didn't run hybrid in person to remote meetings efficiently pre pandemic? I'm curious to see if we'll be better about it after the fact. But we were

definitely

Tiffany Lenz 3:43

Gosh, I sure hope so.

Robert Greiner 3:45

So we were all on zoom. And luckily didn't really have any technical problems. Zoom did a really good job at the beginning of the keeping up with everybody. But we had a decision early on, which was, hey, we're in a crisis. Everyone turn your camera on. Like we want to see people. And it created this interesting, dynamic, because when you're in a meeting, even if you're all in person, there's a barrier between you and everyone else, which is their laptop screen. Most people have their laptops out there like furiously typing away, not paying attention. And for once you could see not only the reactions, even though you were separated by time and space, there was no barrier between you and physical barrier between you and the other people on the meeting. And then the people that were not directly being communicated with would have all sorts of reactions like you could really, you can read the facial reactions in a big way. And I think very quickly though, most people just started turning off cameras and stuff. And now you get a bit of a mix. But some feedback I got early on was like I had this really stern face because I was pretty stressed out trying to get some contracts done. There was a lot of things to work on and tie up and so I was like in, get stuff done mode focus mode, and I wasn't exactly paying attention in some of these meetings. And I would just have this like ultra concentrated face. But when it's right there in front of everyone that seemed really stern, I think it was stern face was the or serious face. But anyway, everyone could tell like I was under pressure, even though I might not have felt any more or worse than anyone else I looked it. And so there is when we talk about communicate in a crisis, maybe the first thing here is your body language really matters, and how just you're carrying yourself, when things around you are falling apart.

Tiffany Lenz 5:33

I think that's true. There's always good things to stay updated on in fits and starts for leaders around your own body language, reading other people's body language, especially as we expand it and become more and more of just like a global in our industries, understanding some of the body languages and other cultures that we primarily work with, so that we can best connect with people over camera, no matter where they are, there's something else that kind of comes to mind as you were talking and telling that story of First and foremost, being aware of how you are projecting yourself is critical as a leader. But it's also equally important to have a place where you as a leader can communicate without any filters, so that you have you know, that outlet to talk to that safe place to just wet weather, whatever proverbially let your hair down or vent or be stressed, I certainly find that a mentor, or coach relationship helps me quite a lot with that, because it lets me process through those emotions that are guaranteed to show on my face before I have to be very conscientious about my body language, especially in a crisis. Because whatever I project is exactly what people will absorb. If I'm super serious or super stressed, they just absorb that stress, even over camera doesn't have to be in person. So that's one way that I have found a way of combating that without being insincere.

Robert Greiner 7:04

And that's something that you can very quickly go sideways with if you're not intentional. So it's good to go into these things, knowing that this may happen.

Tiffany Lenz 7:12

Yeah. Okay. But how did you manage to adjust? So you got feedback about it? What did you do?

Robert Greiner 7:18

So have you ever taken one of those, like character strength surveys or anything like that?

Tiffany Lenz 7:22

Oh yes. Oddles and oddles of them.

Robert Greiner 7:23

That was a trick question. My core one in my top five, I might be one or two, though, is humor. And so I would just try to be really light and bring a lot of levity to conversations up front. What also spend some time we talked about Maslow's a lot, in this case, and we really, in our profession, don't deal with a lot of co workers, colleagues, clients that are in the lower rungs of the pyramid. That's like, when you're in a meeting room together, and you're talking about maybe going to get sushi for lunch. someone's not thinking, Oh, my gosh, I'm afraid for my physical safety. So you just take that for granted. It's like decades of you just don't worry about that stuff. And so getting a bead on hey, how are things going? or trying to assess as best she can? Is this person I'm talking to in the right frame of mind team and have a work related discussion, all sorts of research out there saying we're just dumber when we're angry when we're upset when we're not in a positive state of mind. We don't make a decisions. And so there's no sense in engaging in a work conversation if that's the case. So part of it was I made a lot of self deprecating jokes. And the other part was, just try to assess at the beginning, you when you start to think about how others are doing it unlocks. It's hard to be stern, and look grumpy, when you're genuinely like curious about how someone's feeling.

Tiffany Lenz 8:46

Yeah, yeah. genuinely curious, genuinely concerned. Yeah, for sure. That's a good one.

Robert Greiner 8:52

Yeah. And you talked about body language that we talked about individual communication, there's also the sort of hyper loops that need to happen from a communication perspective with your team with your family, I was really lucky, I am really lucky, I have a bit of an unfair advantage, because my wife has been a really good partner during this time. And so we talked about, we were on the same page very early on, and have had been in a place to mutually support each other. And she works too. And we have kids at home. And so that's not straightforward. And if we did not have some of these conversations, and continue to have some of these conversations over time, things again, it's like things go sideways, right? You it's just little mishaps and misunderstandings and things that go unsaid and then you fast forward two three months. And you could get in a pretty rough place just because of sliding down a slope one little bit at a time. And so that's key. And I think a lot of times we don't really think about looping our families in or they're our friends and people closest to us, from a personal perspective about work stuff, unless it's like hey, should I quit my job? Should I go for this promotion. It's like the big things, big events. But this was more day to day tactical type things and and that's huge. And then the same thing goes with your team, they want to know what you're thinking, even if you're processing stuff raw, you can just say, Hey, I don't know what's going on, here's what's on my mind and those kinds of things. And the more you are the squeaky wheel, you should probably be communicating five to 10 times more than feels natural. And that's a good way to keep the engine greased up, or keep the lines of communication open so that again, these things don't just fester and grow into something unhelpful.

Tiffany Lenz: 10:32

Yeah, there's some interesting parallel paths there of when you were talking before about body language and talking to your team about Maslow's lower rungs of need. There, those parallels feel very similar to the family, right, because you might actually pocket on your team, their own family, and reminding them of what you just share and reminding them to keep those those communication loops really tight right now with their own friends and their family, because of the fear of safety, because of the general sort of unrest. But then you're also circling back and asking them, how not just how are you doing? But how is your family doing? Is there something at home that is extra distracting to you? Is there something that I as a manager can do to help you? Can I help move something out of the way? can I provide you with a resource, so that you're getting, you're killing several birds with one stone there, you're practicing the same practices with different groups of people at different levels. And then as a manager, circling back around, and checking all those boxes in a way that is exhibited through the concern that showing in your body language?

Robert Greiner: 11:41

Yeah, definitely. And then you can a little hack that I had to is, if I was presenting slides, the first slide would be a few pictures of my kids. And I would say, hey, these are my co workers, there's a 76% chance that they're going to interrupt me at some point during this discussion, or I have my son on my lap, like the other day he was, he didn't sleep a lot, one night, and he was snuggly, and he's never that way with me. And so I was just on a meeting hanging out with him. He was on my lap and stuff. And I'm like, we're well past the point of this being something to worry about before we get stay out of the camera frame. I don't want people to think I'm slacking while I'm at home. Like it's,

Tiffany Lenz: 12:17

I don't want people to think that that is something that I've found where you're talking about this body language and caring and authenticity in in every level of the interaction and communication is something that I've found to be pretty, you know, is it refreshing? Or is it just something that I hope will be preserved, because of COVID is the authenticity with which we communicate over zoom and show like who we are, like I'm I am, I appreciate actually seeing things like that I appreciate when someone's pet is in a scene or when someone's child like joins and they actually pick them up and put them on their lap. Like you're a whole person, we're going to be on a team together and marching, getting in the trenches together and marching down this path together. Wouldn't it be better to just be able to be our authentic selves? Like I rarely I made a decision A while back. Like I rarely even change my background. It's sometimes I do on occasion, or maybe something specific, but I just decided I'm not going to one. I'm living in this cabin. People know that I have a home in New York City. But I'm not there because of COVID. Why am I here because of my family. But it's an interesting conversation starter, because the cabins 250 years old, a cottage actually 200 years old was part of the Underground Railroad. It's a really cool conversation to have. But it's also pretty authentic for me to be like, yep, this is where I am anything you'd like to talk about. It's there's, I just I would like us to learn from this experience, that we can and should be real with each other. The fact that that parents have to, or feel like they have to, and I honestly do hear this more from women than men. They feel like they have to pretend that their kids just don't exist there or that they are there. They've got it all together all the time on video isn't an authentic way to build a team. And it smacks a little bit more to me of an older phase of like Industrial Revolution, thinking where I'm going to clock in and clock out. Yeah, it actually shouldn't matter to me if your kids or your pet or the mailman or whoever construction, whatever interrupts you if you are a good teammate who has great output, how you get there shouldn't be the concern.

Robert Greiner: 14:32

That's right. Yeah,

Tiffany Lenz: 14:34

I know, that was a bit of a tangent. But I it feels important to me when we're talking about things like you and I looking at each other on a camera and experiencing a piece of one another's lives in the middle of a crisis scenario.

Robert Greiner: 14:47

Yeah, and I do think that this sort of work from home period has helped. I'll second what you said that just from personal experience, I don't. I have some anecdotal data that supports it, but not enough to you know, write a HBr article. All around. But yeah, this the standards are different. Like, it's quirky and funny when my kids interrupt me and like, I can get away with it easier. I think I've noticed like my wife and some of the women on my teams that have habit a little bit harder in that regard. That's not it, I do feel like, we have taken a step function shift in a positive direction, though, from a global, or macro acceptance of, hey, you have a family around.

And that's okay.

Tiffany Lenz: 15:27

And we can't neither one of us have enough data to fully pull on this thread. But something you just mentioned, there, there is a feeling often among moms, different from dads, for lots of reasons that we can't dig into right now, in this episode of this, almost like apologia apologetic, yeah, like I'm apologizing for my family for having these other this other part of my life. And I, we won't really value one another fully and have the kind of equality mentally that we need to have, until there's like an equal acceptance of that an equal feeling around that sort of additional part of your life

Robert Greiner: 16:08

for me,

in my situation, but it's like communicating, if you pair that idea with communicating things you're struggling with, like the chat going back to being real, not trying to create a facade that makes that makes things okay, there's this whole middle ground of space that, like, it's okay to have kids interrupt you, and it's okay to have to go and pick up a packet from the school. And it's okay to help your kid with homework, and it's okay to be home and have the distractions of being home, like invade, work, because to your point, there is a broader assessment of output and demonstrated skills and behaviors and progress. And if that's happening, then this other stuff doesn't matter. And I think as we evolve as a society, and technology lets us work more in a distributed nature, that's got it, we have to sort that out. Because people, at some point, there's going to be new companies built by people who grew up thinking, Hey, this is the way it should be. And there that's going to be almost a competitive advantage at that point.

Tiffany Lenz: 17:15

I absolutely agree. Absolutely. I also wanted to pull on another thread. Here, when you were mentioning about being the squeaky wheel, I think that is that's there's something mission critical to this whole idea of communication, which is frequency. And fine, I'm fine with an assertion of five to 10 times more than feels natural. I think the the the meta theme for me is this tight loop with difference that is authentic. But this the frequency does matter. If you think back to one of the things that I found the most disturbing about the COVID experience was they the way that information was shared, it was not frequent enough. But what was shared there, the signal to noise ratio was insane. There was a lot of information shared, but it wasn't useful information. So there's I'm almost tuning out information at this point. And I'm going to miss something that's important because the frequency that was practiced, the content was missing. There's and we're still suffering from it. We don't even need to talk about mass media and how they decide what to communicate about what. But as leaders, I think when we're dealing with something that whether it's a small crisis system, or a major crisis, or even something in between the willingness to keep communicating course correcting something that was said that was incorrect. And you just learned a correction 10 minutes ago, or being willing to can just keep the dialogue open almost. But with with meaningful things is really important. And does build quite a lot of trust

Robert Greiner: 18:57

Touched a bit of a nerve on this. He said the signal to noise ratio matters. And I think that's so important. And this is actually a future episode that I want to chat about With you around. So Ben Horowitz from Andreessen Horowitz Yeah, he wrote a book The hard thing about hard things. And he's talking about in a startup, he says there's no room in a startup for a no content executive or content free executive, they have to have an opinion or perspective and use that to make intentional bets on where the company's going and things like that, that that's at the frontier, though, if you think of startups that need it, we're finding is shifting left into regular organizations and then into individual contributor like any knowledge worker, like we're starting to see this trend of needing to have a perspective to be able to take this flood of information. There's too much out there now, and used to be hard to get like a book. Now you can't there being so many books are being released every day like you couldn't read all the books that are released in a given day in your lifetime. That's just a crazy amount of information in a crisis that happens at another dimension, because not only are you getting more information you're getting incorrect information, people are either trying to sensationalize or you just don't know. Like things are emergent, and trying to figure it out. And so your ability to distill down what you're seeing and have an opinion about it, and then communicate that and change it when necessary, which is what you honed in on, I think is super important. And something that we don't really talk about too much.

Tiffany Lenz: 20:31

Now, nearly enough. That's that is that's interesting, his perspective on no room for a content free executive, which does, it does make a lot of sense. So then what does that mean to us, as managers who are not in startups, there still, I guess, if I applied that practice to myself, it would still mean, I have to have something of value to share with people, which is going to require some additional work on my part. But that might mean, and forgive me, while I process out loud here, that might mean that managers are already really busy. So for me to just flippantly say, Oh, that's just more work for me, for our manager, that probably means I need to prioritize a number of other things lower on the list such that or delegate them differently, such that I am giving really good communications to my team with the right kind of frequency with meaningful content.

Robert Greiner: 21:27

Yeah, and we see this in, we've talked about the old way of mechanical way of leadership, almost where you have this sort of cascading communications from the top. And so there's been a bit of synthesis going on there. But also now, what we're talking about is like the the emergent state of the world around us needing to have an opinion on that and act accordingly, I think is critical. Yeah, I do have two hacks for you, though. It's one thing to and this kind of goes to what you just said, to say, to recognize when a crisis, I want to communicate more, I'm doing my best to have these conversations with my team, with my family, those kind of things. But what do you do? What do you say? What are some things to help get started there? So one thing that's been really helpful is like there's polling software, you can do some polling in meetings. So when we have that sort of all hands on account type meetings, you can even embed them in your PowerPoint slides. See, what's what are you most excited about accomplishing over the last over the next year? How like, What's the last month meant to you have a bunch of new hire starting this week? On Friday, I'm going to put a little poll question in there explain in one sentence, what the last week has been like you can and you see, you can do that. Or you can get like a sort of net promoter score type questions, what are you most worried about those kind of things. And it's really, it helps unlock because it's easier to just push a button that says Happy Face than it is to unmute come off. Come on video and say a formulated series of words that you may not have fully processed. And so it allows people to have a visceral reaction about a topic without the at the lowest possible barrier of entry up to being anonymous. And so that's one thing. And then the other is from never split the difference. I think we talked about this before. So book on negotiation, they have a tactic in there a term called labeling, and there's a lot of benefit to and this is why therapy is so helpful. It's like you have a feeling of physiological like tension, like, that's an actual like feeling you have but that you can't name and it's from someone else names it for you or helps you name it. It's like it unlocks something. And it's like a huge relief. And so if you say it seems like you're not ready to talk about this today seems like you don't feel like talking business today. You know, looks like you're frustrated. And just leave it at that. And and that helps. Oh, wait, am I like you get them in a thinking mode, which could help process in the moment? Yeah, you know what, I'm worried about this thing over here. Let's talk about this later, or I was mad about this. Now I'm not anymore, that kind of thing. And so that's been a really helpful skill that doesn't apply to just negotiation. It's, it helps with relationships and collaboration. And so that's been two great hacks. I think that's really to me,

Tiffany Lenz: 24:06

those are great. Going back to the first one, that I really like a couple of those questions that you asked me to your right, just just getting someone to answer a couple questions on an app is is good, but something like open ended, conversational, and non threatening in any way like, how's last week been? Or even like silly and a silly icebreaker type question would be a way of starting to open up a little bit of that connection. But I like that's a great idea. The second one, certainly labeling oh my gosh, like how much time do we have to talk about this one? and how it relates to all human interactions of just because you can't you can't do any of the components of the labeling without being a good listener, have to be able to be willing to observe people and then set aside whatever it is yes. You're thinking about or how you might respond, so that you can just listen. Yeah.

Robert Greiner: 25:04

And then you have to

listen enough to observe to have to make the assessment in the first place. Now the great thing about this though, if you're not good at that, this can one help you practice and get better. But there's really, people don't really get too mad. If you're if you have a good tone of voice that if you label wrong, hey, seems like you're not really up to talking about this today. Someone's not gonna say, how could you like How dare you know, I feel good. I just haven't had coffee yet. Okay, cool if you're wrong, and usually what they say in the book, and I think this is pure gold, if you're wrong with something like a label, and you are corrected, which is a human tendency is very hard to resist that urge. It's usually the truth. Hey, how are you doing today? Fine. Fine. I'm good like that. Those are like those close ended questions yet. It's very easy to shut them down. But if I say hey, doesn't really look like you're in chat with me today, like, Oh, no, I'm getting so tired. That kind of thing. That's like, yeah, so that's a good power.

Tiffany Lenz: 26:00

It's really good

Robert Greiner: 26:01

that anyone can have

Tiffany Lenz: 26:02

Yeah, like, that's some gold. Thank you. Yeah,

it's good.

Robert Greiner: 26:06

What else is on your mind, as far as communicate goes?

Tiffany Lenz: 26:09

Oh, my, this is a great topic. Like it just can can dig into a lot of different, more like bad examples we have of jumping into conversations that don't seem to have a purpose or meandering, what almost feels like, aimlessly with someone on a journey for a meeting that one joined. But I think this is a good, really good list. If we're talking about Minimum Viable crisis leadership, this is a really concise list of things that that 90% of it feeds off of itself. Because whatever you're practicing with one group of people, you're likely to practice with another micro macro frequency, Authenticity, and transparency, like all those different concepts are lumped into what we've discussed. I like it. Thank you.

Robert Greiner: 26:55

Yes. And the thing that

maybe is my favorite about this is, these are these atomic behaviors that are not, it's not like you have to go and learn or do or achieve something that's so out there, that it seems impossible. It's just go have a conversation about this. And here's some ways you can tee it up. And it's under your control. And these are behaviors that you can actually practice anytime. So if you start to think about in the next crisis, because there's one coming about every 10 years or more frequently, I'm going to have to be good at frequently communicating with my team and distilling cutting signal through the noise, right. That's something you can practice today. To be ready.

Tiffany Lenz: 27:34

Yeah, absolutely. And in 10 years, when that happens, the your sphere of influence is also going to be bigger and broader and deeper. So it'll be it'll be interesting to see how one would take these things, if you were, say, a team lead, versus a CEO of 1000, or 2000 person company, and how do you? How do you Institute them at different levels? How do you Institute them with your core leadership team and then insist that they carry them downward or like spread them out? through the rest of the organization? All different things to think about?

Robert Greiner: 28:10

Yeah,

you've hit on something key, I came in to talk to you about this, too. Like I have a level of regret that I did not train for this. In the last 10 years that has been one of the best periods of time that we've ever had as a human race. And like Michael Phelps, like he won all these gold medals for swimming. I'm pretty sure one of the medals that he won. As soon as he dove in the pool, water flooded his goggles, and he couldn't see he swam the whole where he won a gold medal in a race with his eyes closed. And when I guess like when the cameras on him after the race, and I don't have all the details right on this, you know, the water's coming out in there, like, wait a minute, where your goggles filled up for this? And he's Oh, yeah, every week or whatever, like I practice this. Like I intentionally practice, like when I jump in goggle mayhem, so I know exactly like where the walls at and that long pool. Like it's crazy. And so I think there's an analogue here where it's a very safe place to practice these skills when times are really good.

Tiffany Lenz: 28:10

Yeah, wow,

Robert Greiner: 28:12

I do feel like I was caught a little flat footed, very flat footed when this happened a year ago. And there's some there's definitely some things you can do that are under your control when you're in good times. To prep you for the bad times.

Tiffany Lenz: 29:21

Yeah, absolutely. That's good. That's good. Thank you for sharing that

Robert Greiner: 29:25

was great seeing you, two, down two to go and

Tiffany Lenz: 29:28

and you as well.

Robert Greiner: 29:29

Thank you clicking on the crisis leadership model. I said next week is forgive, which is I think that'd be a really interesting discussion, especially around forgiving yourself. Learn after the fact, which is so critical, because it's your you're going through this, you're paying the price of going through some trauma. You better get better because of it. And then what does that look like? And what can we learn from the past there? So

Tiffany Lenz: 29:52

yeah, that's so good.

Robert Greiner: 29:53

super excited about those.

Tiffany Lenz: 29:54

Can't wait.

Robert Greiner: 29:55

We'll talk soon.