How IC Can Support Leaders to Deliver Effective Communications
The room at today’s breakfast session was packed with IC pro’s – all keen to hear fresh ideas around the thorny topic of how best to support your leaders to deliver effective communication.
We were joined by Will Brewster, Global Head of Communication at Clyde & Co., and Rebecca (Becky) Williams, Interim Deputy Director of Communications at University of Bristol and qualified NLP Coach, who shared their experiences and top tips on how to support your leaders' individual approach to enable successful communication.
Whilst we were all at the Clyde & Co offices in London, Will joined us from Dubai – where he is currently working with the local leadership on their communication. Will shared with us his ‘past life’ reflections of comms teams trying to impose a communication style upon a leader, contrasting to his current ‘go with the grain’ philosophy. With 5,000 colleagues in 70 offices across the globe, internal audiences at Clyde & Co are diverse and dispersed. Their highly educated workforce, trained to spot errors and points of contention, means that IC support needs to stand up to a high degree of critique. Since the pandemic some particular challenges have come into play; including the need to evolve from a ‘top-down’ approach to communications, a renewed focus on business development through nurturing client relationships with increased face-to-face contact, and the embedding of a new leadership team, created in spring 2021.
Will reflected on an almost ‘parent-child’ communications style that was adopted during the pandemic to provide consistency and stability but that this doesn’t necessarily sit well with the entrepreneurial spirit that is central to Clyde & Co. Carolena Gordon, the new Senior Partner, was keen to enable and empower colleagues and leaders. Acknowledging that fully remote working model during the pandemic, coupled with an ever-growing workforce, had diluted the firm’s sense of identity to some degree, and that client relationship activity had been much harder and less ‘human’ during the pandemic.
Will and his team supported Carolena in restating the firm’s values using a ‘show’ style of communication that would appeal to an audience of colleagues who are owners, shareholders and drivers of growth.
Using data from the employee engagement survey Will’s team were able to demonstrate the importance of the role of local leaders, as well as identify areas of strong performance, and those that may need additional support. Clear calls to action, utilising the power of stories rather than instructions, with a collegiate tone of voice, hit the mark for this audience and reflected Carolena’s leadership style. Reinforcing the positives (a little bit of nudge theory), even where there was an issue to be dealt with has been a key element of their approach; light-hearted videos around broader education about the ‘financials’ was a great example of this – recall of what’s often called internally their ‘stickman video’ has been high.
Will and the team continue to support their leaders, focusing on helping local leadership to deliver global themes at a local level. Will’s top tips for successful leadership communication are: go with the grain, understand your audiences, utilise different approaches to communications (video, podcast etc) and support leaders to keep pushing the key themes.
Following Will, Becky Williams used her study of NLP to share techniques for building rapport which can enable us to become trusted advisors to our leaders. An interesting point of debate is whether issues arise from ‘not understanding our leaders’ or from ‘a lack of understanding from leaders about how to use our skills’. Either way, improving our ability to connect with our leadership can enable our ability to advise them effectively, and help them to deliver authentic, considered and outcome focused communication.
Becky showed us a useful reminder that communication is not just about the words you use, but also how you say them and what you are doing when you say them. Research by Ray Birdwhistle – 1970 has suggested that just 7% of communication comes from words, real food for thought in a hybrid working world, and a strong indicator that rapport (which sits at the heart of effective communication) can be hard to build remotely.
Understanding the way your leader thinks and processes information can be key to building rapport; learning to speak your leader’s language will help you create connection, build trust and enable you to support them more effectively. Four types of ‘processing systems’ exist according to NLP: auditory, visual, kinaesthetic and auditory digital. If you want to read more about it and how it can help you at work, ‘NLP at Work’ by Sue Knight is a great place to start.
Mirroring is a big part of the process – and the chart here shows how you can use words that appeal to the processing style of your leaders. Keeping this in mind when communicating to wider audiences is a useful tool in ensuring you can appeal to as many people as possible by using a range of language.
Becky gave us some great real-life examples of how she has used NLP to win leadership trust, and the benefits this has brought in organisational communication.
As always, we had time for questions; everything from how to manage ‘over-interference’ in messaging from leaders in the sign off process (which Will interprets as a symptom of leaders not getting what they need in terms of outcomes – food for thought!), how to increase the uptake of podcasts (top tip – have a video option!) and working with leaders who regard you as a ‘postbox’, rather than a strategic adviser. .
With grateful thanks to Will and Becky for leading us in a great conversation that could have gone on all day!
And if you’re looking for some support with leadership communication please do get in touch. We’d love to share our experiences and best practice with you.
Published by Nicky