Host: Dianna Booher is truly one of the most prolific writers on communication, and specifically leadership, communication and sort of executive presence. And she has a book called Communicate like a Leader, and we're going to talk a little bit about that. And specifically, I think some of the leadership you know, some of the communication challenges that leaders face on a daily basis. So Dianna, welcome back!
Dianna Booher: Thank you. It's great to be with you.
Host: First of all, when you talk about leadership, I think a lot of times people kind of group management and leadership together, but you you talk about a distinction, and I'm curious, like, how do you delineate between those do, like, what's the big difference between a real leader and then, you know, a manager?
Dianna Booher: I think really the biggest distinction, there's several that I mentioned in the book, but I think the biggest difference is that the manager is a maintainer. They're interested about maintaining the status quo. They want things to go well, operations to go off without a hitch, but the leader improves the status quo. If you think about it like this, if you think about the financial advisor, if you want them to get the same return on your portfolio that you do, you don't really go to them if you're getting 4% on your money, that's that's what you can get. But you go to a financial investor and say, hey, I want you to improve the return over what I can get if they came back to you a year later and say, Hey, here's what you were getting. I'm doing the same thing. You take your money somewhere else. So you want them to grow something. And that's that's basically the same thing a leader does you improve the situation over what it was when you took it over.
Host: Well, and you you talk about people don't leave companies. People leave people.
Dianna Booher: That's very true, and that's the reason that I basically wrote this book, that is micromanagement. The book is intended to prevent micromanagement. Once I posted something on my Facebook about the problem of micromanagement, I probably had more comments on that than than probably any other topic when I comment about it, because people hate to be micromanaged. And the reason that happens is that somebody has grown up in an organization or in a skill or in a business that are entrepreneur and they have a great product or a great service and they've sold it, but they've sort of grow the business has grown up past their skills. They just they're good at heart, but they just don't have those leadership communication skills that they need. They're sending mixed messages for whatever reason, and they don't know how to manage the people around them. They're just too controlling for whatever reason. I mean, people micromanagement because they're fearful to turn
over projects or turn over the control of their clients or turn over an account. And you know, they've always handled this customer, and now they've got too many, and they need to hire another salesperson to handle it, or they just don't know how to delegate for whatever reason, and they micromanage, and just the person that they're micromanaging grows frustrated, and of course, it's more trouble for the manager, because they just get more and more on their plate, and they're frustrated. It's a sign that things are going wrong. They haven't developed that strategic perspective. They need to start thinking more strategically about the long term effect of what's happening. They're not developing their people. They are becoming themselves less productive. They're driving their clients away because they can't get the service they need, and everybody's growing more frustrated. And so what I did is to write this book and with that perspective and
think, what are the essential leadership skills that a salesperson specifically, or an entrepreneur in general, would need to get a handle on this so they stopped doing it and lead more effectively. And I came up basically with 36 different essential things they need to know. And that's that's the result, if they do those things, they're going to prevent that frustration and prevent micromanaging their people.
Host: You talk about the one question that all leaders must have an answer for. What's that one question?
Dianna Booher: That question is, what are you working on? Think about it. You get asked it in the hallway on the way to lunch. You get asked when you come in to, you know, if you're sitting in the break room, what are you working on today? And people are tempted to just fluff that question off, you know, well, I'm working on x, y, z, and they don't answer it with a substantive, meaningful answer, and that means that they don't get the visibility they need in the company. People don't see them as a real leader. They just see them as a an also ran, so to speak, and the way they should answer it is with a three part response, and that is we're. Working on solving X problem, whether it's applied with a problem with a client or a problem in the organization, we're working on solving X problem, and here's the outcomes that we expect to have, and this will be the benefit to the whole organization. Now, depending on who asks you that question, you might all side this. Also add this
is how it will affect your timeline and your budget. Not everybody you'll give that answer to what you don't want to do is give some technical information that only makes sense with jargon that only makes sense to other people you work with. You know the guy or the gal in the next desk with your own tools and charts and numbers and data. You want to think big picture. That's what strategic thinking is, and strategic leadership communication is about. Think about who are you talking to. This is the problem we're working on. This is why it's important to the whole organization. And these are the outcomes that we're hoping to achieve for the organization, and that positions you as a real leader and a strategic thinker. And when you start answering that question that way, for for your colleagues and other divisions, for your clients, then then they'll start seeing you that way, as if you know what's going on for that client, for your suppliers, for for the general person who
you talk with your colleagues, really want to do that when you respond to clients, because you want to position your organization as understanding their business. You want to say, you know, we're working on this new product, or, you know, this new service. And here's why, it's what key problems it saws and this is the outcome that will serve you when we get it done, and then you you're perceived as a leader in your field, in your industry. So that's a key, key kind of answer you want to give to clients when they ask you.
Host: You talk about spray painting on social media. What is spray painting on social media. What does that mean?
Dianna Booher: Well, if you were going to paint your house, you don't just go get a spray cut and let me paint a little bit on the back of the house, a little bit on the front of the house, and a little bit here in the kitchen area, and maybe I'll come inside and paint a room before I get too tired. That's what people, sometimes, though, do on social media. They don't really have a strategy. What am I trying to do so they make do a few posts on Facebook and they send out a few tweets. You need to have a strategy. What am I trying to do with my social media or my Am I trying to drive people to my own website? Do I want them to read my blog and then sign up for my ease on what is your strategy and then based on that strategy. Do I want people to always sign up for my podcast? Is that what I'm trying to get them to do? Do I want them to get a sample product and try it, and then, if that's the goal, how do I use social media to get them to come to the website and try this sample
product, or sign up for appointments, etc? Get the strategy and then decide what channels that you want. Do you only want to be on Facebook? Do you only want to be and use Twitter? Usually just one or two of those platforms? Do you want to get on and master those? Once you decide what one or two platforms master those know what you're doing there, and then be consistent on those, consistently with a message that is about what you're doing, and then engage people there. Listen to what they're saying and talk back and build your relationships there. That's That's what I'm talking about, rather than just having an ad, ad hoc, whatever I feel like that day, that's spray painting, and you don't want to do it now. You do want to make a personal connection. You do say something personally so they get to know you.
Host: You also get into there's a conversation about millennials and communicating with millennials...
Dianna Booher: In general, people now have to take responsibility for their own career development. It's not another thing that you add to your to do list, no matter what age, what you can do as a leader, no matter your age, is to help people understand that they are accountable for their own career development. If you're a salesperson out there, you're responsible for your own development, but the way you can do that is to always let your your manager, whoever you're reporting, to understand that you know you're responsible, but look for opportunities to catch what I call in the book, mentoring moments. And as a leader, it doesn't have to be a 30 minute session. You don't have to send somebody, invest money, necessarily, and send somebody away for a two day class. Here's how it happens. You're let's say you're about to make a call to an important client, and you're going to tell them that the price is going to go up, or you're making a decision to switch to your policy
with them. Just let's say you call. You have a key person you want to mentor and you want to invest in their career. You might just say, Carla, i. About to make a call to so and so such and such client. Would you step into my office? I'd like for you to hear this call, just for your background. Carla steps into your office, and you make that call, and she's listening. Carla will understand you are investing in her career growth. She will appreciate that investment. As you're walking to lunch, you might say, Tim, are you eating over in the cafeteria? Why don't you walk to lunch with me? I want you to. I want to explain to you why I made the decision to do X. Those are mentoring moments, and if you are on the receiving end of those, you might just say, John, would you or Joanna? Would you explain to me why we made the change on the pricing policy about such and such I'd like to learn. And you're not taking any extra time. It's on the way to a meeting. It's five minutes after
you're leaving a meeting and walking to back to the car after you've met with a client. Those are mentoring moments. You're you're letting your your boss know, your your sales manager know, I'm interested in this. I want to grow in my career. And then when you have a marketing meeting or a sales meeting as a leader, you can say, I'm listening to such and such podcast. I found it very helpful. Are all of you registered for that? Have you signed up for that? I found it very helpful. You could take 10 minutes at the beginning of a sales meeting and say, here's the most...
Host: You gotta listen to the Action Catalyst podcast. That's what you tell everybody. Have you listened to the Action Catalyst podcast? What are you doing if you haven't done that...
Dianna Booher: You can you can ask them. Every week, I want you to bring one new article. You've read one new book, you've read one new link to share with the group, one new tip you've learned out of a podcast, or just share the name of a podcast that you're now listening to, and that is those are all mentoring things, career investment things, and then just in casual conversation, ask people, has your situation changed? Have your career goals changed? Because you may know where somebody wants to go in their career, how they want to invest their career path, but things change. Spouses change jobs. Their family situations change. Their elderly parents have different needs. They may want to decide in five years they're going to move across country. And just asking those questions and casual conversations let somebody know you're interested in their career path, and those are all opportunities for mentoring and growth that shows that you care as a leader, and on
the other end, as the recipient who's being or wants mentoring. Let's lets your leader know that you are interested.
Host: Yeah, there's two other quick areas that I want to talk about. One is with firing people. You say fire people to be fair.
Dianna Booher: Well, I think everybody could think of a time when they were having to pull somebody else on the team along. They were doing extra work because somebody else wasn't pulling their own weight. And that's basically what I mean. You have to be fair to other people, because they know when their colleague is not, is not performing well, and if you as a leader, let that go on, you are damaging the morale of the entire group and the entire team, and you're actually not being fair to the person who's not, who is a poor performer, because it's like they're tense. They're waiting for the acts to fall. They know they're not meeting the metrics. They know they're not meeting their sales quota. They know they're not servicing that client well, and they're just waiting, waiting, waiting, when are they going to pull the plug on me? And you are helping them get on to be successful somewhere else. And if you think about it like that, it will help you. It will help you
counsel them to say you need to move on and be successful somewhere else. And so no, if you have a heart of stone, it's going to be easy for you, for everybody else who who has a good heart, which most people do, it is a tough conversation, but basically, you think of it that way, you are. You are helping keep the morale high of all of your other good performers there to just help that person who's not performing well go on, because you're if the productivity of everyone is going to suffer, the whole organization is going to suffer because of that poor performer there, there's mistakes, there's rework, in addition to the morale problem. And that poor performer is stress. Your stress level is high as the supervisor, so help them move on.
Host: Yeah, okay, so next area, communicating with the C suite.
Dianna Booher: You've got to be brief, that's one key thing. And you've got to think long term. Their attention span. You can't get down in the weeds. And so we are always teaching them a format to speak directly to answer the question. We call it the seer format, or have another one called the lead format, to summarize, elaborate, give an illustration, example and then restate that helps them prepare to respond directly. That's the most difficult thing, and if they can learn that format for responding on their feet, they will be in much better shape in the C suite. But it also involves personal presence. In fact, I've written a whole book called Creating personal presence that tells them 20 things they need to do to increase their personal presence, because that gives them credibility and authority when they walk into the C suite. There's an entirely different way to organize information when they go into the C suite. It's just it's a whole different way of thinking
than when you're communicating at the mid management level.
Host: All right, so the last little question that I have for you is being that we have talked about all these different areas. There's all these different little environments. What do you think is the common thread among all of them, no matter how the environment changes? What would you say is this? Is all of the communication in each of these different environments, it always has this in common?
Dianna Booher: I think the basic business act is communication, and what they have in common, leadership. The essence of leadership is communication, and that is one on one, integrity. When you say something, you absolutely do it, and you are genuine about doing it. If you fail to follow through on what you say, everything else goes away.
Host: Well, there you have it, friends, Communicate like a Leader. Thank you so much for just teaching practical skills that make the workplace a better place to be.
Dianna Booher: Thank you. It's great to be with you.