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Communicating
What Might be Difficult to Hear
Communicating
difficult news to employees and customers is not a
task for which people typically volunteer. Regardless,
it falls within the range of responsibility of many
business people. Carrying this task through with empathy
and professionalism is paramount.
Here
are five strategies for delivering the message with
compassion:
- Be
Honest and truthful
- Empathize
- Acknowledge
feelings
- Initiate
Resolution
- Monitor
and evaluate
Be Honest and
truthful. People want to feel in control and the
sense of control often is managed by nothing more
than knowledge and understanding. Remember, F.E.A.R.
(False Evidence Appearing Real) - until you clarify
and help your employees and customers understand,
their imaginations could run away. So remember to
communicate. Help the individual or group to understand
by providing information that will help them regain
their sense of control: control of their own lives,
not of the world.
Empathize.
Refrain from telling customers or employees not to
worry. That's like telling a a frightened child that
the scrape on his knee is nothing. To that child,
that scrape is definitely something. To your employees
and customers, what they are experiencing is also,
definitely something. So, adopt the perspectives of
others - then help them adapt their perspective by
giving them information
Acknowledge
their feelings. Validate people's expressions
of uncertainty by acknowledging "your concerns
are understandable." They should leave your communication
exchange with the sense of being heard; listen, even
if the person or group is venting. Negative emotions
must be dealt with before you can respond and before
they can be replaced with a positive plan of action.
Initiate.
Outline a specific plan of action that you and your
company will take. Assume ownership for the situation.
Monitor and
evaluate. Make it your priority to track the progress
on the employees' and/or customers' problem within
your company. Make frequent status reports to those
the issues concern until the situation is resolved
or at least managed to his or her satisfaction
LICENSED TO LEAD: info
for leaders.
The Five Pitfalls
of CEO Succession
(Fortune, November 18, 2002)
According to one survey, 45 percent of boards of directors
have no process for grooming potential CEOs.
Listed below are the
five big pitfalls:
Letting the CEO play kingmaker. Boards should not
allow a choose-your-own-successor approach. Some CEOs
drive off promising heirs while others back successors
who resemble themselves.
Using boilerplate criteria. A board’s task is
to find someone with the necessary skills for this
job, not someone who meets central casting’s
idea of a "leader."
Letting headhunters run the show. Boards should set
aside two days to meet with finalists.
Succumbing to fads. Outside hires more than doubled
between the 1970s and 1990s. Relying on external labor
is seen as a second-best approach or as symptom of
boards’ anxiety to please Wall Street.
Keeping Elvis in the Building. The new CEO is on,
now make sure the old one leaves.
Dale Carnegie Training
http://www.NH.DaleCarnegie.com
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Occupational Outlook Handbook
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