Think about people who have inspired you at work. I bet the one thing they had in common is that you knew what it was that they were telling you.
As John D Rockefeller observed: “The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.”
At the heart of this ability is being able to communicate effectively – getting people on-side and, as managers, getting both buy-in and a motivated team.
For this to work, clarity of content that is critical. Think of those inspiring people again — they were probably clear, concise, to the point and, most important, they were honest. You knew where you stood with them.
Now think of the wafflers in your life, those vague people who didn’t know what they really wanted from you. And even the ones that had to deliver bad news but sweetened the pill so much that you didn’t have a clue what they were on about. I’ll bet they aren’t on your Bosses Who Inspired Me list.
I remember talking to a colleague about great bosses. She mentioned someone I vaguely knew but who I’d always thought of as being a bit of a dragon. Her explanation? “I may not have always enjoyed the journey, but boy did I learn a lot.”
Similarly, I remember taking someone to task by explaining that I’d been “disappointed”. She told me off for choosing ‘disappointed’ — I was fluffing it. It was clear that I was mightily pissed off and should tell her that. Then she’d know where she stood and could respond accordingly.
Part of the challenge we have is that we all want to be good with people – we all want to have that asset that Rockefeller described as the greatest ability of all. But with that comes responsibility.
In today’s motivational culture we just have to make sure that, as communicators, we are clear about what is good and what is bad.
That doesn’t mean to say that we have to rubbish people’s efforts and there’s no sense in deliberately going out of the way to be hurtful. We just have to be honest communicators.
